The 110th Indianapolis 500 was an all-time classic, including one of the most exciting finishes in the race’s long history.
Felix Rosenqvist started the final lap in third place, proceeded to hang on the outside of his team-mate for nearly the entire lap, then blasted past David Malukas just before the finish line.
The newest winner of the Indy 500 described his heroic lap after the race, and fully realized how special those last 2.5 miles were.
“I’ll definitely say the balls arrived when they needed to,” said Rosenqvist. “I’ve never been flat around the high line for more than one corner, I think.
“Yeah, to do a whole lap on the outside, that was pretty cool. It’s kind of unheard of at Indy.
“That’s just how much you want it — it’s hard to explain that feeling, that you want it so much and you have so much adrenaline that you literally don’t care if you’re going to crash.
“You’re just going all in. It was cool that that’s what it took to win it, as well.”
Inches to win
When Rosenqvist crossed the line, he was less than half of a car length ahead of Malukas.
The official margin of victory was 0.0233 seconds, approximately 10.5 feet on track, setting the record for the smallest margin of victory in race history.
The 34-year-old had even resigned himself to the fact that he was going to finish second, but then continued his epic lap by drafting down the front straight on his way to victory.
“Honestly, it’s still kind of a blur,” Rosenqvist added. “I had that momentum going, and I was kind of like, ‘I’m going to go on the high line, and I’m not going to ruin this momentum.’
“If someone comes in the way, that’s it. But no one did, and I was able to stay on the high lane through the whole thing, and I was getting a side draft at the same time from the other guys.
“But I thought I was second, to be honest. I was like, ‘This sucks, now we’re second in the 500. I guess it was a good day; we did what we could.’
“I thought I didn’t have it, and then I shifted up, and it was just kind of sucking up to David, and it was just enough to get me over the finish line half a foot ahead of him.
“You can’t even dream up that stuff. It was just so cool. I’ll watch it a million times.”
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