With Felix Rosenqvist winning the 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500 in what can only be described as a final lap of the ages, it’s time to think back upon the day, the week and the Month of May spent at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Rosenqvist pipped David Malukas to the biggest win of his career by .0233 seconds after hanging around the outside of fellow Meyer Shank Racing driver Marcus Armstrong for most of the final tour around the 2.5-mile oval.
It was Rosenqvist’s first win since 2020 at Road America and his first win since becoming a father earlier in the month to a baby girl, Stella.
There’s a lot to look over about the race, so let’s go through all of the randomness surrounding the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
For Rosenqvist to win, he had to go around Armstrong’s outside for almost the entirety of the last lap, only clearing the No. 66 Meyer Shank Racing Honda exiting the final corner. Rosenqvist did what he needed to do to win, and it showed with how much the Swede was willing to risk to be first across the line.
Malukas had every reason to be upset after the race. The Chicago native did everything he could to win, but came up just short in his first 500 for Team Penske. The Speedway didn’t choose him this time, but it’s not too wild of an idea to think that Malukas will one day have his face on the Borg-Warner Trophy.
Marco Andretti was one of the first to comfort Malukas. Andretti knows what it’s like to lose the 500 on the last lap of the race. The Speedway never chose Andretti, nor did it choose JR Hildebrand after he lost his first shot at Indianapolis in 2011. However, something about Malukas’ response to the loss says that he’ll be back to win in the future.
The three-wide finish for third place between Scott McLaughlin, Pato O’Ward and Armstrong was incredible. What’s crazier is that the order wasn’t correct initially on the scoring pylon on TV, and it didn’t get corrected until the cars were well around on their cooldown lap after the race ended.
McLaughlin’s third-place finish was a great comeback after last year’s disappointment at IMS while O’Ward said he had too much brake drag and Armstrong just got swallowed up after lifting to avoid Rosenqvist on the final corner of the race.
Alex Palou had a five-point penalty for a technical infringement after the race that IndyCar’s new officiating board deemed was not an intentional breach of the rules. The issue involved a failure in the front wing assembly that caused the front wing to not be in spec when measured after the race. The part failure might explain why he wasn’t closer to Malukas as the pair scythed their way through traffic trying to get up to the front of the field on the alternate strategy.
Speaking of the alternate strategy, that strategy killed Conor Daly‘s race. The Noblesville, Ind., native finished 12th and of the 11 cars in front of him, eight were on the strategy that won the race of pitting on lap 130. Daly had the fastest lap of the race and one of the best cars in the race, but sometimes you’re the bug and sometimes you’re the windshield and on race day Daly was the bug.
Scott Dixon led when the race was red flagged for rain, but unfortunately his prayers for more rain went unanswered as the 2008 Indianapolis 500 winner finished 15th.
Mick Schumacher was the only rookie to finish all 500 miles and the Swiss-born German was awarded Rookie of the Year honors. Caio Collet was the rookie who perhaps had the best race as he led and had qualified near the front before being moved to the back for failing post-qualifying inspection, but Collet’s race ended early with an accident that helped set up the finish we all saw.
Both Collet and Schumacher were deserving ROTY candidates. However, Schumacher got the edge in voting.
Dennis Hauger had a strong race except for a pit lane speeding penalty that forced the Norwegian to drive through the pits under green. Had that not happened, I’m thinking he might have a case for ROTY honors.
Jacob Abel finished two laps down in 24th. Honestly, not a bad run for the Kentucky native. He didn’t have any major miscues that stood out, he ran laps and finished. Nothing wrong with that.
Josef Newgarden‘s accident was a brutal one. The two-time Indianapolis 500 winner hit the curb on the inside of turn 4 and lost control of the car, slamming into the outside wall. It was a shame because Newgarden had a fast car during the race and he would have contended had he not crashed.
Will Power and Alexander Rossi just had no luck on race day. Both were out early from mechanical issues and it was especially painful for Rossi because his car was out front early. The middle of the front row curse continues at Indianapolis because in the last 56 races, only once has the second-place starter won the race, that being Juan Pablo Montoya in 2000.
Continuing with ECR’s woes, their eponymous team owner Ed Carpenter was part of a three-wide sandwich that sent the No. 33 Chevrolet to the wall on the race’s 26th lap. Carpenter’s anger was pointed (literally) at Takuma Sato as the pair had the contact that sent Carpenter to the wall. That was a no-win situation for everyone involved.
Speaking of no-win situations, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Katherine Legge were responsible for the race’s first caution period when Hunter-Reay spun in front of Legge, causing Legge to spin in avoidance of the 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner.
Had Legge not steered to the left in avoidance of Hunter-Reay, it’s very likely that Hunter-Reay has severe injuries from the impact that would have happened.
Let’s look at some random things from off track. The Speedway handled everything about as well as it could with the weather, the only exception being Carb Day. While the Wienie 500 is a significant part of the festivities, that can be done while the track is wet.
The pit stop contest has to be done in the dry, so I think the best option at that point would have been to flip the pit stop contest and the Wienie 500 in the schedule so that the teams had the chance to fight it out on pit road for the prize money.
Moving to race day, everything went off as well as it could have with how iffy the weather was being. The race had its delays for the conditions, but the fact that the race was able to run to completion was the most important part.
And the second most important part was how everyone got to experience the race. There were many first-timers at this year’s race, including several media members that traveled many miles to be at the race (four of them from the UK). I’m confident in saying that all of those first-timers will be back in short order.
Now, it’s time for Detroit.
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.