Team Penske president Tim Cindric was effusive with praise for Josef Newgarden’s pit crew who built a fresh car for him to use in Sunday’s Road America race after the recent Indianapolis 500 winner experienced a heavy crash in qualifying that did …
Team Penske president Tim Cindric was effusive with praise for Josef Newgarden’s pit crew who built a fresh car for him to use in Sunday’s Road America race after the recent Indianapolis 500 winner experienced a heavy crash in qualifying that did extensive damage to the No. 2 Chevrolet.
“Number one, we’re just glad he wasn’t hurt,” Cindric told RACER of the spin and crash at the high-speed circuit that flattened a lot of the right side of the car. “When you look at that, it was a big, big hit. I think the tub is okay, but you weren’t going to be able to race it the way it was, so obviously a replacement tub, replacement rear end, and actually putting the Indy-winning engine back in the car was needed. That’s the engine that’s next up to continue to mileage.”
Newgarden rewarded the team’s effort by going fastest in the pre-race warmup session.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve replaced a tub,” Cindric added. “We’ve done a few rear ends, but to actually replace an entire car, you know, from basically nothing to where we are, and to you put a new livery on the car, to do all that, and to be out of here by 10 o’clock at night, I think that’s a big undertaking by the team that shows you that we’re well prepared.
“You know, we can continue to be better on that front, but I think [to] go out today and not have any problems at all with the car is a testament to our group that’s working on it.”
Josef Newgarden is interested in completing “The Double” in 2025. What did Newgarden say about the possibility of making his NASCAR debut?
[autotag]Josef Newgarden[/autotag] fought for so long to earn his first Indianapolis 500 victory during the 2023 season; however, it only took him one year to earn his second. Newgarden passed Pato O’Ward on the final lap to win the 2024 Indianapolis 500. The Team Penske driver celebrated with fans in the grandstands after winning two straight Indy 500s.
“I want to. So bad. I want to terribly badly — but that’s not just a me thing,” Newgarden said. “I think if you ask a lot of the drivers in the field, they would all relish in the opportunity to do the double. [Kyle Larson]’s in a unique position. He’s earned that position. It’s part of his pedigree and his history in racing. He’s known as the guy that jumps in and out of a lot of cars. So I think it was really fitting that he was there.”
“The NASCAR guys always had an easier time transferring to an IndyCar versus the other way around. But maybe now, with the specifications of the cars, the IndyCar guys can have some success going over there.”
Team Penske would be able to enter a fourth entry for Newgarden, as the organization only has three full-time cars in the NASCAR Cup Series. The two-time Indianapolis 500 winner has never competed in a NASCAR event but desires to attempt “The Double” in 2025. It’s not fully up to Newgarden, but he has nothing else to prove in the NTT IndyCar Series.
Josef Newgarden and Team Penske will chase more wins in the future after both sides came to terms on a new contract extension that will keep the Tennessean in the No. 2 Chevy for 2025 and beyond. “Josef Newgarden is a true winner, and we are excited …
Josef Newgarden and Team Penske will chase more wins in the future after both sides came to terms on a new contract extension that will keep the Tennessean in the No. 2 Chevy for 2025 and beyond.
“Josef Newgarden is a true winner, and we are excited that he will continue as a part of Team Penske for years to come,” team owner Roger Penske said of the new multi-year deal. “What he did Sunday in the Indianapolis 500 shows how Josef consistently delivers for our team and our partners on the track, and he is just as impressive off the track as well. We are proud to have Josef continue with our organization as his skill and passion embody what it means to be a Team Penske driver.”
Newgarden, who joined the team in 2017, won two championships for Penske in 2017 and 2019, and has added a pair of Indy 500 victories in 2023-2024. Although his options in free agency were limited, talks were held with at least one team—believed to be Arrow McLaren—as the 33-year-old sought a salary increase befitting of his achievements and stature in the series.
“Driving for Roger Penske and this iconic team is a dream that I never thought I would realize,” Newgarden said. “I’m thankful for the opportunities that I’ve been given during my time at Team Penske. I have a great amount of respect for the individuals that comprise our group, including the partners who support us. Our time together has been filled with hard work, teamwork and dedication; and I’m so excited that we will continue on for many more years to come. I’m sure that we can achieve much more in the future. I still believe we haven’t reached our full potential together just yet.”
Team Penske president Tim Cindric expects to have the same lineup of new two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden, its 2018 Indy 500 and two-time series champion Will Power, and 2024 Indy polesitter …
Team Penske president Tim Cindric expects to have the same lineup of new two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden, its 2018 Indy 500 and two-time series champion Will Power, and 2024 Indy polesitter Scott McLaughlin back and leading its three-car charge in 2025.
“I’d be surprised if anything changes,” Cindric told RACER.
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Signing Newgarden to an extension has been Cindric’s main priority as the 33-year-old is in the final year of his current contract.
“We left Indy honestly just focusing on that, and once we were done there, then let’s get back to the details of how we put that together with Josef,” he added. “Honestly, I’m hoping here in the next day or two that we’re able to figure out the last couple of details. I think we’re really, really close. I’m actually going to try and work with him later today or tomorrow to try and get that thing wrapped up.”
If all goes according to plan, an announcement would be imminent.
“So hopefully, we’ll be in a position to say something publicly, whether it be this weekend or in the near future,” Cindric said. “We’re not there yet; still got a few details to work out, but I’m very confident that it’s all going to come together. It’s just a matter of getting it done.”
“You never come into [the Indy 500] expecting to win it. It’s so tough to get right.”
Josef Newgarden went from being an elite IndyCar Series driver to the member of some exceptionally exclusive clubs after winning his second straight Indianapolis 500 on Sunday.
Following a four-hour weather delay to begin the race, the Team Penske driver started third, and Newgarden and his No. 2 team had a strong race. But at the end, the 33-year-old put on a racing masterclass in the final laps to take the checkered flag. For a peak Indy 500 finish, he out-dueled Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward in the last few times around Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s iconic 2.5-mile oval, pulling off a stunning last-lap pass for the victory.
Newgarden is now the first back-to-back Indy 500 champion since Hélio Castroneves did it in 2001 and 2002, and he’s also now the 11th two-time winner of The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
For The Win spoke with Newgarden about his victory, the famous milk celebration afterward and the moment he knew he had the edge over O’Ward.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Congratulations. How are you? Have you slept?
I have not slept, and it was not from a lack of trying. I tried to get back early [Sunday] night. We celebrated a little bit with the team. We also got done very late [Sunday] with the four-hour delay. Everything after that gets pushed, and it’s a long process to go through with this event.
Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden (2) celebrates with his crew members, Sunday, May 26, 2024, after winning the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (Alex Martin / Journal & Courier-USA TODAY NETWORK)
How did that four-hour delay affect you, if at all, ahead of the race?
It’s difficult to keep yourself mentally where you need to be. You wake up, and you’re expecting the intensity of race day and for the moment, and then you see this impending storm that’s barreling down on us, and you sort of already know that the race is gonna be put into jeopardy as far as the timeline.
I ended up taking a nap. I didn’t actually feel that great [Sunday] morning, and my son was scheduled for a nap. So I took one with him. I got about an hour and a half in, and then it stopped raining when I woke up and it seemed like we had an opening. … But just, yeah, roller coaster of emotions and energy and just trying to stay in the program for what we’re about to do. It’s a tough race to get right, and ultimately, it’s the only day that matters this month. We’re here for three weeks; this is the only day that matters.
I’ve visited this very spot the night before the Indy 500 every year since my rookie start in 2012. I sat here Saturday night and could not wait for the opportunity to run this race once again. I love this place so much. The home of speed ❤️ pic.twitter.com/BAGsoWXDzP
You’re the sixth driver to have back-to-back Indy 500 wins, the first in more than 20 years. You’re the 11th two-time winner. You joined a lot of exclusive clubs. Has two-time Indy 500 winner sunk in yet?
It’s crazy. I let go of the fact, last year, that we were ever gonna win this race just because it’s so difficult to win. And to finally break through last year and then to follow it back up with this year, it’s pretty extraordinary. That’s the only way I can put it. It was unexpected. You never come into this race expecting to win it. It’s so tough to get right.
And just really proud of the team. They executed all day, and it’s a team sport, more so than people realize in racing. And every race we go to is a team effort. But nowhere else that we go to exemplifies the team like Indianapolis, and it really is about everyone doing their job perfectly on the day. And we were able to do that two times in a row, which is pretty cool.
Josef Newgarden, driver of the #2 Shell Powering Progress Team Penske, celebrates in Victory Circle after winning the 108th Running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 26, 2024 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
It looked like you very politely sipped from your bottle of milk instead of pouring it everywhere. Was that lessons learned from last year, or did this one just feel different and a different celebration followed?
Well, I wasn’t super polite. I still had a bunch dripping all over me, so it wasn’t very clean. But I think you celebrate however you want to. I don’t think there’s a wrong way to celebrate. But a lot of times people will pour the milk over their heads after they have a drink, and I did that last year. It was fun to do. It just seems like you want to do that for some reason. But having already gone through that and done that, I thought, well, we don’t need to do that again. I’m just gonna enjoy the milk this time and savor it. And so that’s what I tried to do.
May 26, 2024; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Indycar Series driver Josef Newgarden celebrates after winning the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Oh, you didn’t want to sit for six hours in a milk-covered suit?
Yeah, not this time. It definitely helps with the clean up. It wasn’t all over the car. Yeah, it’s a better process it seems like.
Was there a moment before you took the checkered flag where you thought, “Oh, my gosh, I’m going to win this thing again”?
Yeah, right entering Turn 4. When I passed Pato in Turn 3, I saw that I had the momentum on him, and I think it’s because of the nature of that pass. I passed him basically right at the apex is where I cleared him — the middle of the corner in [Turn] 3 — and I could see that he lost momentum because of it. And I felt really good about the fact that I had enough gap now to get to the line, and it’s gonna happen.
It’s crazy when it does. You almost can’t believe it when you’re headed to the line, and you see that it’s gonna be yours, it’s the team’s. But yeah, that was the moment. Definitely, entering Turn 4, I knew we had it.
This is only the fourth time the Indy 500 has been decided with a last-lap pass, and you’re responsible for the last two. Can you explain the strategy with that and why you’re able to make it work so well in such a high-pressured situation?
It’s definitely not my strategy — I promise you. It’s just the circumstance. The race last year was pretty different, but it was intense with a one-lap shootout. So if you were gonna win it, it needed to be a last-lap pass. There was really no choice. And then [Sunday], there was no game plan. I didn’t know how that was gonna ultimately shape up at the end, but I felt like, whatever happens, I’m gonna react to it, and I’m just gonna try and be ready for the moment.
Pato chose his point to go, and I just tried to basically rebuttal pretty quickly. And it ended up being the right place, right time, right moment. So it worked out for us. I think he’s a great champion too. He’s a great driver. He drove me with a lot of respect, and that’s ultimately what made the move possible. You can’t just drive with everyone like that. Pato is a really hard racer, but he races clean.
One of the most dramatic finishes in #Indy500 history.
Can you expand a little bit on how if it were a different driver or you were raced differently, why you might not have been able to pull that off?
I don’t know that I would have done anything different. The likelihood of it being pulled off, I think, is higher with someone like Pato because he’s a fierce competitor, but he’s very clean. He’s gonna race you fairly, and that was on full display. He raced me incredibly fair, and I didn’t know if it was gonna work out with him. But I think the likelihood is much higher with someone like Pato.
He’s definitely someone I have a lot of respect for, and he deserved to win this race just as much as me. I think he drove a great day. His team did a great job, and it just fell our way. And sometimes that’s the way it rolls. It’s heartbreaking for him. I know it is. I would have been heartbroken on the other end of it, but that’s the Indy 500. That’s why it’s so gratifying when you get it right.
May 26, 2024; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Indycar Series driver Pato O’Ward (5) passes Josef Newgarden coming to the white flag during the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
When you and Pato and Alexander Rossi were trading for the lead and racing hard at the end, the broadcast described it as a “220-mile-an-hour game of chess.” Is that what it felt like?
Yeah, pretty much. We were all sizing each other up, trying to understand. No one was gaming it. We were all just trying to lead and show who’s the superior car at the very end. It was a 30-lap shootout for sure, and you’re just trying to study everybody on the fly. There’s not enough time to study everything and come up with an articulate plan for how it’s all gonna unfold, so you’re just reacting within the learnings that you have throughout those laps.
But it was definitely a chess fight just trying to see where you’re gonna be positioned and when you’re gonna make the move at the right time. There’s no perfect recipe. It’s really hard to understand what the right thing to do is. So that’s why I always say it’s reactionary because, in a lot of ways, it’s not planned. You can’t plan exactly how it’s gonna go, so you’re just trying to understand how it’s flowing and then react accordingly.
In these few hours since you won, what has been the best celebration moment for you?
Oh, it’s the traditions. When you win the race, you get to come back. You can celebrate differently — everyone does — but I like to go back to the Yard of Bricks, right on the start-finish line. I like to celebrate with the crowd, and then it’s everything that comes after that. It’s the milk, it’s the wreath, it’s the kiss from one of the [500 Festival] Princesses.
There’s so many little details that this race has accumulated over the years that have just built tradition, and it’s fun to go through that whole process. There’s nothing like it. There’s no other race that rivals it. So I just cherish all of that. That hour period right after the win is really cool here.
What was it was a different running in the stands this time? Did you know you were going do that or was it like, let’s run it back and do it again?
Well, I always wanted to do that [and did] last year. Ever since I’ve been here, I’ve been dreaming of going into the crowd. And I knew where to go, and I was maybe thinking of something different but I couldn’t come up with a good scenario. So I thought, “Well, I’m gonna do that again, but I’m gonna go into a different spot.”
I think I was a little filled with adrenaline, to be honest with you. It was so unexpected to win the race again that I didn’t really have a plan. I just wanted to get into the crowd as quickly as possible. So, yeah, still pretty nuts and cool to do.
Josef Newgarden discusses winning the 2024 Indianapolis 500. Find out what Newgarden said about his second straight Indy 500 victory!
[autotag]Josef Newgarden[/autotag] finally won the Indianapolis 500 in 2023 and wanted to be the first repeat winner in 20 years this year. Newgarden thought those hopes slipped away as Pato O’Ward passed him on the final lap; however, it was short-lived after he pulled off a remarkable move on O’Ward in Turn 3. Newgarden willed his way to victory, winning his second straight Indy 500.
Following the remarkable finish, the Team Penske driver got out of his car and celebrated with the fans. Then, Newgarden talked to the reporter on the front stretch about his Indianapolis 500 victory.
“Unbelievable! I love this crowd. I’m always doing that,” Newgarden said. “They can say whatever they want at this point. I don’t even care anymore. I’m so proud of this team. They crushed it. They came here with the fastest car and worked their tales off.”
“(Suspended engineer Luke Mason) and (suspended strategist and team president Tim Cindric) aren’t here today, but they’re a huge part of this. I’m just so proud of everybody at Team Penske. That’s the way I wanted to win the thing right there.”
Team Penske issued significant suspensions before the Indianapolis 500 after its cheating scandal at St. Petersburg. Yet, nothing can take away from what happened on Sunday evening. Newgarden has won his second straight Indianapolis 500, adding to his stacked resume as a driver in the NTT IndyCar Series.
Josef Newgarden paid tribute to both his team and his rival as he soaked up back-to-back Indianapolis 500 victories at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday evening. The Team Penske driver won after coming out on top from a long and thrilling battle …
Josef Newgarden paid tribute to both his team and his rival as he soaked up back-to-back Indianapolis 500 victories at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday evening.
The Team Penske driver won after coming out on top from a long and thrilling battle with Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, which was ultimately decided with a pass on the final lap. The result capped a Month of May where the speed of the Penske cars had been on display from the very beginning, culminating in a lockout of the front row of the starting grid in qualifying last weekend and Newgarden and teammate Scott McLaughlin running among the lead group for much of Sunday’s race.
He also earned the win without the benefit of some of his regular team members, with usual strategist and Penske team president Tim Cindric suspended for the race alongside engineer Luke Mason following the P2P scandal in St Petersburg, and replaced for Indy by longtime Penske figure Jonathan Diuguid – who previously worked on the IndyCar program before moving across to run the team’s sports car division – and Raul Prados respectively. Both became first-time Indy winners.
“This team earned this win the entire month,” Newgarden said. “They’ve earned it the entire year. You have no idea how much effort has gone into this. It’s every individual. That is what Indy exemplifies. It exemplifies the team.
“And to show it in qualifying, to show it in the race is a proud moment for everybody. I’m thankful Jonathan was here. I missed Tim, I missed Luke, but I was just as happy to have Jonathan and Raul. It was different but they’re just as good.
“This team just has no shortage of excellence across the board. I would step into any one of these cars thankfully. You don’t have to be on one program. They’re all great. I think they all contributed to this win, so it was a big team day. Really just appreciative.
“I enjoyed driving today. That’s how I started this year. That’s what I wanted to get back to, and very, very gratifying race to go through with this group.”
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Newgarden sealed his victory with a last lap move around the outside of O’Ward in Turn 3, which came after the pair had been swapping places for several laps. Newgarden saluted the way O’Ward raced him, and acknowledged the Mexican’s pain at finishing runner-up for the second time in three years.
“I don’t think [the final pass] works unless you’re racing someone like Pato,” Newgarden said.
“It’s not that Pato didn’t race me hard, he just raced me clean. That move doesn’t work unless you’re racing someone like that. It just doesn’t. It’s very easy [to have that not] work out.
“So I think he’s a tremendous champion. He could have easily won the race himself. He was very capable of that with his team. For us, it worked out. He drove me excellently. I’m very thankful for him and the way that he drove.
“I’m appreciative for the way that he drives. He drove like a champion in this race and he’s just as deserving a winner, in my opinion. He definitely could have won this race. It’s tough to not win it. I can’t say anything to ease that for him. When you don’t win, it hurts. I’ve left here 11 times prior with a broken heart, so I know the feeling. Whether you’re close or you’re far, it’s a broken heart. I can’t ease that.
“But he’s a champion. I think he knows it. I definitely have a lot of respect for him.
“From our side, we left it all on the track. There was nothing that we were going to come home and regret. I definitely felt that way in the final. I’m like, ‘We’re going to put it all on the line.’ You have to if you want to win Indy. That’s just the way it’s got to be, especially nowadays.”
“It was enough. Our car was so fast, and it was pretty good. It was a little hairy at the end as far as the trickiness, but we had it all day as far as the commitment and the car and the team, and we laid it all out there in Turn 3.”
With the 108th Indy 500 delayed about four hours because of inclement weather, Larson couldn’t make it to Charlotte in time for the start of the NASCAR race. So Justin Allgaier started behind the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, waiting for Larson to arrive.
After starting fifth following an impressive qualifying round last weekend, Larson finished 18th in his first Indy 500 behind the wheel of the No. 17 Arrow McLaren/Hendrick Chevrolet. His best lap speed was 223.584 miles per hour, and he led four laps.
“I would definitely love to be back next year. I feel like I learned a lot throughout the race. I made a couple of mistakes early there with the restart. I’m not sure what I did wrong there, but I somehow got myself in a third, and then I felt like I did a really good job on the restarts and was able to learn a lot.
“And definitely feel good about knowing what I would need different for the balance, I think, coming back to help runs and stuff. And then, yeah, obviously I smoked a left-front [tire] or something into the green-flag stop and killed our opportunity. So proud to finish, but pretty upset myself. So I just could have executed a better race.”
After the interview, Larson took a helicopter to the airport and a jet to Charlotte. As Fox Sports’ Coca-Cola 600 broadcast noted, Larson landed in Charlotte at 9:19 p.m. ET and should be able to take over for Allgaier when he gets to the track, weather permitting.
Josef Newgarden outdueled Pato O’Ward to become the first driver since Helio Castroneves in more than 20 years to earn back to back Indianapolis 500 victories on Sunday. It was Penske’s 20th Indy 500 win. On a chaotic day that began with a four-hour …
Josef Newgarden outdueled Pato O’Ward to become the first driver since Helio Castroneves in more than 20 years to earn back to back Indianapolis 500 victories on Sunday. It was Penske’s 20th Indy 500 win.
On a chaotic day that began with a four-hour rain delay and was punctuated by a seemingly endless succession of yellows, an afternoon of position-swapping among the leaders boiled down to a Penske vs Arrow McLaren battle over the final laps. O’Ward surged up to the rear of Newgarden’s car at Turn 3 with two laps to go but then backed out of the move, opting instead to pass the No. 2 Penske Chevy at Turn 1 instead.
It prompted a huge roar from the grandstand, but O’Ward’s attempt to break the tow to Newgarden down the back straightway was ineffective, and Newgarden got a run on him on the approach to Turn 3. The final pass came around the outside, and O’Ward had no opportunity to respond.
“There’s no better way to win a race than that,” said Newgarden. “I’ve got to give it up to Pato as well, he’s an incredibly clean driver and it takes two people to race like that. He could easily have won this race too. We just had things go our way and I’m so proud of the whole team.”
O’Ward was devasted.
“It’s hard to put it into words,” he said. “I’m proud of the work we did today – we recovered, we went back, we went forward, we went back… Some people were driving like maniacs; we had so many near race-enders. We were so close again…
“I put that car through things I never thought it would be able to do and somehow it came out the other end of the corner. Oh man. It’s so painful when you put so much into it and then… two corners short. This place owes me nothing but it’s always such a heartbreak when you come so close, especially when it’s not the first time and you don’t know how many more opportunities like that you will have.”
Scott Dixon was third and best of the Hondas in the No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing car thanks to a late pass on Alexander Rossi in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevy, and reckoned that was about the most the car had in it.
“It was like a win,” he said. “We had some ups and downs, we had some weird restarts, then we got on top of the strategy. On that restart when they both got by me I thought, ‘OK man, this is going to be a bit of a problem.’ After that I was just trying to hang on.”
Alex Palou completed the top five in CGR’s No. 5 Honda.
There were two, or sometimes three, strategies in play during the race, dictated by cars towards the back taking advantage of a caution to try and change their fortunes. And there were a lot of cautions to choose from.
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The first came in the first corner of the race when Meyer Shank’s Tom Blomqvist dropped a wheel onto the grass and spun into Marcus Ericsson, taking both out. Pietro Fittipaldi tried to avoid the wreck and hit Callum Ilott instead. Ilott, who’d started from the back after pitting during the formation laps to replace his steering wheel, was able to continue; Fittipaldi spun up onto the wall and out of the race. Three cars gone.
The next impact came on lap 28 when CGR rookie Linus Lundqvist was at the bottom of an attempted four-wide move through Turn 1, bumped teammate Kyffin Simpson and spun up into the barrier. He’d have plenty of company over the remainder of the evening, with single-lap crashes later accounting for Marco Andretti, and Will Power.
Colton Herta also hit the wall by himself, but only sustained minimal damage. This wasn’t clear to him at the time though and he climbed out of the car and walked back to the pits, whereupon the team seized the car as soon as it was unloaded from the truck, took it back to the garage, changed the nose, and sent it back out.
Ryan Hunter-Reay also crashed out, although he had an assist from Dixon when contact between the pair sent the DRR Chevy into a 360 spin on the grass and back onto the track into oncoming traffic, all of which miraculously managed to avoid him. The latter insisted that Hunter-Reay was looking for a gap that didn’t exist; Hunter-Reay believed Dixon moved over on him. Race control looked at the incident and took no action, to Hunter-Reay’s chagrin.
“I’ve been racing Scott Dixon for close to two decades and never seen anything like that on a superspeedway,” he said. “It was a shock, and we’d been racing each other clean, so I don’t know what that was about. He knows I was there. I don’t know where he was going. How that wasn’t a penalty is beyond me. That was an odd one from Scott, and also from race control.”
“How that’s not a penalty—beyond me.”
Ryan Hunter-Reay shares his thoughts on the contact from Scott Dixon.
The first quarter of the race was also marked by three identical-looking engine failures, all Hondas, which knocked out Marcus Armstrong, Felix Rosenqvist and Katherine Legge, although those proved to the only terminal mechanical problems all day.
Kyle Larson got an early lesson in the nuances of IndyCar racing when he was completely swallowed up at the first restart and fell to 14th, but he recovered to climb as high as sixth before overcooking it on the entry to the pits and incurring a penalty. He finished 18th.
“I would love to be back next year,” he said. “I feel like I learned a lot. I feel great. Made a couple of mistakes early there on the restart; not sure what I did wrong there, but definitely feel good about what I would do different. I smoked the right-front tire on the green flag stop, so I’m proud to finish but pretty upset at myself.”
Elsewhere, polesitter Scott McLaughlin was in the mix for the first three-quarters of the race but got shuffled back in the final scramble of stops and ended the race chasing Palou across the line for sixth. Kyle Kirkwood salvaged something from an otherwise painful day for Andretti Global with a seventh, made all the more remarkable by the fact he’d been off-strategy early on and then earned himself a penalty for hitting the rear of Ilott in pitlane, punting the Arrow McLaren into Ed Carpenter’s pit box – much to the consternation of Carpenter himself, who arrived for his own stop very much not expecting to find an Arrow McLaren already there.
Santino Ferrucci mixed it up with the leading Penskes in the first half of the race but dropped back later on to finish eighth, leaving Rinus VeeKay and Conor Daly to complete the top 10.
In a thrilling and dramatic Indianapolis 500 finish, Josef Newgarden and Pato O’Ward duked it out on the final laps, trading the lead with each other. But Sunday’s 108th race ended, again, in absolute heartbreak for O’Ward, who finished second behind now-back-to-back winner Newgarden.
O’Ward has come close to winning The Greatest Spectacle in Racing in past years too, finishing second in 2022, fourth in 2021 and sixth in 2020.
And in the Arrow McLaren driver’s post-race interview, his devastation was painfully obvious, and he appeared to be holding back his emotions while speaking with NBC. Still, O’Ward gave a classy, yet heartbreaking interview as the 2024 Indy 500 runner-up.
Pato O’Ward reacts to a runner-up finish at the #Indy500.
“It’s hard to put it into words,” O’Ward said. “I’m proud of the work that we did today. We recovered, we went back, we went forward, we went back. Some people are just driving like maniacs. We had so many near-race-enders and just so close again. So [expletive] close.”
When asked about battling with Newgarden at the thrilling end of 200 laps, O’Ward continued:
“I put that car through things I never thought he was going to be able to do. sometimes I said, That’s it. And somehow I came out the other side of the corner. I just — oh, man. This is so painful when you put so much into it, and then two laps short, I guess. Two corners short. …
“[Indianapolis Motor Speedway] owes me nothing, but just, yeah. I’d much rather obviously finish the race rather than compared to last year [when he didn’t finish]. But it’s always a heartbreak whenever it just is so close, especially when it’s not the first time and you just don’t know how many opportunities like that you have.”
A crushing runner-up finish in the biggest race of the year is always tough, and you’ve gotta feel for O’Ward.
