INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Thiago Medeiros wanted to push his car to the limit right away Saturday. The windy conditions and changes to his car’s setup forced him to back off – just a bit.

Once he adjusted, Medeiros made winning look easy. He led 35 of 40 laps in the Infiniti Freedom 100, defeating Jeff Simmons by 0.16 seconds under caution.

“I drove the car to the limit,” Medeiros said. “I don’t care if it’s on two wheels, three wheels or four wheels, I like to drive the car.”

Medeiros, a Brazilian driving for Sam Schmidt Motorsports, has had few peers this year in the Menards Infiniti Pro Series.

Saturday’s victory was his second straight, following an easy win at Phoenix when he lapped the field. He also finished second in the series’ only other race, to rookie Phil Giebler, at Homestead, Fla., and retained his hold on the points lead.

Indianapolis was the next step.

Medeiros won the pole in Friday’s qualifying with a two-lap average of 189.274 mph, and, not surprisingly, controlled the race. He spent five laps in second and was only seriously challenged twice – by Simmons.

“Ever since we rolled off the track, we knew his car was a little better than mine,” Simmons said.

It didn’t take long for Medeiros to prove it.

Simmons, A.J. Foyt’s driver, started third and made a gutsy move going into the first turn of the race by cutting inside Paul Dana and Medeiros. Simmons made it past Dana and nearly scooted past Medeiros, who barely held off the charge when the two cars bumped wheels in the second turn.

“We got a good run, but he was able to drive around,” Simmons said. “We touched, but I don’t think it really did anything to the car, although we did have a pretty bad understeer later in the race.”

Six laps later, Simmons gambled again on a restart. This time, Simmons dove down inside of Medeiros and beat him into the turn to take the lead.

On the 12th lap, Medeiros countered the move by slipping inside of Simmons on the front straightaway, easily going past him. The biggest fight Medeiros had after that was with his car.

“The first part of the race, my car was very, very loose,” he said. “But when we were behind Jeff, I thought we had enough downforce to keep the car low. I took advantage when he gave me enough room.”

The only other driver to test Medeiros was Arie Luyendyk Jr., son of the former two-time Indy winner, who had the fastest car on the track for the final 20 laps.

Luyendyk trailed by more than four seconds, got within 1.6634 seconds after 32 laps and appeared ready to challenge Medeiros. But Luyendyk and Simmons got caught in traffic, and when the yellow flag came out with two laps to go, never got another chance. Luyendyk finished third.

“On the longer runs, I tried to get as close to Jeff as I could in turns one and two and tried to get past him in three,” Luyendyk said. “My problem was in turn two.”

The race also was marred by two accidents.

Canada’s Jesse Mason and Mexico’s Rolando Quintanilla bumped in the first turn on the 26th lap, sending Mason hard into the SAFER barrier and destroying the right side of the car. Mason was not seriously injured.

On the 39th lap, Quintanilla’s car spun exiting the second turn. His car slid down on the track and hit the inside wall head on, but Quintanilla climbed out of the car and was not seriously hurt.

All Medeiros had to do was finish.

“The hardest part then was keeping your concentration,” he said. “When things get easier, it’s easy to lose your concentration here. It’s great to win.”

AP-ES-05-22-04 1718EDT