The 110th running of the Indianapolis 500 took place Sunday, with a sold out grandstand witnessing one of the biggest motor racing events of the year.
Scattered rain was in the forecast, and even as the green flags waved, some attention was constantly on the murky clouds overhead.
There ended up with one short 12-minute red flag near the midpoint in the race for light rain, but the action resumed without drivers even climbing from their cars.
When they did resume their high speeds, the action was turned up to 11. Nearly everyone was ducking and weaving and making bold moves into each and every corner.
Coming out of the chaos, a battle emerged between Pato O’Ward, Felix Rosenqvist, Marcus Armstrong, and David Malukas for a one-lap shootout after a late caution.
Malukas held the lead, with Meyer Shank Racing team-mates battling side by side for a full three quarters of the lap.
It appeared as if the young Team Penske driver was going to have his day in the limelight, but the duo behind sorted itself out and Rosenqvist drafted all down the front straight.
The Swede ducked out to the right at the last second, and narrowly beat out the red car ahead of him as he crossed the finish line.
In the end, the margin of victory was 0.0233 seconds, making it the closest victory in the 110 Indianapolis 500 mile races run.
Rosenqvist earned his second overall victory with the triumph, and gave Meyer Shank Racing its second IndyCar victory, with both remarkably coming at the biggest race of the year.
Malukas was devastated, understandably, and related in an emotional interview after the event that he was not sure what else he could have done.
McLaughlin snuck past the chaos, and ended up being the third driver across the line. O’Ward was fourth, giving the popular Mexican driver yet another Indy 500 that slipped through his fingers in the final laps.
Early race chaos
There were a few incidents in the first half of the race, with Ryan Hunter-Reay causing the first yellow of the afternoon.
The veteran spun on his own while exiting Turn 2 on lap 18, creating a smoke screen that the rest of the field came upon quickly.
Unfortunately for the only female driver in the field, Katherine Legge drove into the thick of it and lost control of her car while attempting to avoid a dangerous collision.
Her #11 AJ Foyt / HMD Motorsports entry spun and hit the inside wall hard, ending her race and stopping her ambitious plan to run 1,100 miles in this race and NASCAR’s Coca Cola 600 in the same day.
Hunter-Reay’s Arrow McLaren Chevy hit the wall as well, and did enough damage to end his race as well.
Only a few laps after the restart from the day’s first incident, the yellow came back out again for Ed Carpenter hitting the wall in Turn 1.
The team owner found himself in the middle of the three car wide battle and was squeezed out of any available race track he had.
The #33 hit the outside wall hard, but the 45-year-old was able to walk away uninjured.
On his way to the AMR safety vehicle, however, Carpenter took time to point directly at Takuma Sato as he drove past, accusing the 17-year-veteran of causing his early exit.
Sato was the driver that took the battle three wide and was in the outside lane, so the accusatory pointing was perhaps warranted.
Taking a toll
Unfortunately for Alexander Rossi, he did not complete his comeback story and his day did not end how he envisioned.
The winner of the Centennial Indy 500 event 10 years ago started on the front row in a backup car, with his ankle in a brace from his hard crash in Monday practice.
Rossi led a few laps, with roars coming from the grandstands, but his day ended near the halfway mark when his car was smoking from the engine bay.
He literally hopped away from the car to protect his injured foot, and retired from his second consecutive Indy 500 due to fire on pit lane.
Another disappointing result was that of Josef Newgarden. The two-time Indy 500 champion started in 23rd and had made his way up to fourth by lap 124.
Unfortunately, he was caught out by a mistake that is all too easy to make, and he put his #2 Team Penske Chevy below the white line in Turn 4 while coming to the green after a yellow flag period.
That small mistake sent his car spinning, and, although he was not travelling at race speed, his impact with the wall was very hard.
Newgarden nearly spun a full 360 before hitting the outside barrier, smashing the footwell of his cockpit into the wall ahead of the rest of his car.
The two-time champion took a considerable amount of time to compose himself after climbing from the car, but ultimately walked himself to the waiting support vehicle.
The nature of the race meant that no driver wanted to stay in the lead for more than a lap at a time.
The driver at the head of the field is forced to burn more fuel to keep pace, which ultimately would come at the cost of being able to hit the same fuel strategy.
As it was, drivers regularly changed positions every lap, taking turns every 2.5 miles leading the pack.
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