The Desert Diamond West Valley Casino Phoenix Grand Prix provided another steady finish for one driver, and a long-awaited and overdue solid finish for another.

Ryan Hunter-Reay continued his run of consistency with another fifth-place showing on Saturday night at ISM Raceway in Avondale, Arizona. Ed Carpenter, searching for a good finish after a disappointing 2017 season, came home seventh.

The 37-year-old from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Hunter-Reay came from eighth on the starting grid, but pulled off an impressive pass on the outside of Turn 1 after the drop of the green flag to move up two positions. From there, he ran a clean race for all 250 laps, hung around the top five and even led five laps during a cycle of green-flag pit stops.

The pilot for No. 28 DHL Honda for Andretti Autosport lined up sixth with four fresh Firestone tires on a late race restart with seven laps to go, but only managed to improve one spot and score his second top-five finish in as many races this season. Hunter-Reay sits fifth in the point standings, 15 behind leader and defending Verizon IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden.

“I’m disappointed not to finish P2 tonight,” said Hunter-Reay, the 2012 IndyCar champion and 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner. “I think we had the car to do that. A top-five is nice, but we’re looking for podiums and wins. We had some issues in the pits tonight.

“I made a mistake on the first one – then we pitted a little bit too early, a little bit too late on one of them. … I just wish we would have gone green a little bit sooner there at the end of the race (on the final restart); that would have made the show, I think.”

Carpenter’s seventh-place run in the Valley of the Sun matched last year’s outcome at the 1.022-mile oval. Carpenter didn’t finish in the top 10 in any other races last season.

As the only driver/owner in the series and running an oval-only program, the 37-year-old’s opportunities are limited to six appearances in the 17 races. Rookie Jordan King drives the No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet at road- and street-course races.

Carpenter started Saturday’s race 18th and slowly moved his way forward. He felt he could have finished even better if he hadn’t been blocked by James Hinchcliffe in the closing laps.

“This was really a race where you had to race your own car,” said Carpenter, who owns three Verizon IndyCar Series victories and is a two-time Indianapolis 500 pole sitter. “We were able to get a top 10 out of it and stayed on the lead lap, which is really hard to do when you start at the back on a short oval.

“We were just trying to have a clean race. I felt like that would give us a chance to work forward and it mostly did. We just ran out of steam at the end. I screwed up a little bit on my in lap on the second-to-last pit stop and that maybe cost us a position.

“There’s a lot of positives to take away from this. The Fuzzy’s Vodka guys had great pit stops all night. We ended last season on some bad luck, so it’s nice to be able to roll the car on the truck. We have a little more work to do on our short oval package, but I’ll take tonight’s finish.”

The Verizon IndyCar Series returns to action this weekend with Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Practice begins Friday, Verizon P1 Award qualifying is Saturday and the race airs live at 4 p.m. ET Sunday on NBCSN and the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network. Carpenter’s next race as a driver will be the 102nd Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil on May 27.