Amid speculation as to which driver will pilot the No. 11 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda at the three remaining oval races, Chip Ganassi Racing has confirmed Takuma Sato will contest the doubleheader at Iowa Speedway and the final oval of 2023 at World …
Amid speculation as to which driver will pilot the No. 11 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda at the three remaining oval races, Chip Ganassi Racing has confirmed Takuma Sato will contest the doubleheader at Iowa Speedway and the final oval of 2023 at World Wide Technology Raceway.
The CGR representative also confirmed to RACER that Marcus Armstrong, the rookie from New Zealand who shares the No. 11 with Sato and was rumored to be stepping into the car at Iowa or WWTR, is not expected to make his oval racing debut this season. A post-season test, however, with CGR is said to be possible.
Sato joined CGR after completing the 2022 season with Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing, and in the absence of a full-time opportunity, brought his sponsors to CGR to contest the ovals in the No. 11 where he finished 28th on debut with the team at Texas and seventh at the Indianapolis 500.
Takuma Sato would like for Sunday’s race to be the next in an unending string of great 500-mile runs at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. What the two-time Indy 500 winner doesn’t know is if it will be his last. The winner of the 2017 and 2020 …
Takuma Sato would like for Sunday’s race to be the next in an unending string of great 500-mile runs at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. What the two-time Indy 500 winner doesn’t know is if it will be his last.
The winner of the 2017 and 2020 editions of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” has seen his IndyCar career undergo a significant change as the 46-year-old completed 13 seasons as a full-time driver and returned this year in a part-time deal with Chip Ganassi Racing. Transitioning from a complete 17-race calendar to only driving on ovals wasn’t by choice.
Concluding the negotiations to share the No. 11 CGR Honda with road course driver Marcus Armstrong required immense patience, as the funding to do so took considerable effort to find and secure Sato’s place in the team for 2023.
Presented with the best opportunity of his life to become a three-time Indy 500 winner, Sato loves the idea of winning for Ganassi and getting an invitation to restore his full-time status.
“Where I’m standing today, racing the ovals — which is still amazing opportunity, if you can’t win the championship — why not try to win the Indy 500? That’s an equally amazing achievement,” Sato told RACER. “I still dream about winning the championship, but it’s not realistic right now.
“When I wrote down all the options at end of last year, I asked, ‘What do I really want? What do I really need to do? Over 25 years of professional race car driver career, what more do you even want to achieve anymore?’ I really want to win the 500. It’s not ‘job done.’
“And this opportunity with Chip is fantastic. But my future is entirely open. Nothing is guaranteed.”
Sato’s future options may be narrowing at Indy, but he’s determined to make the most of the opportunity he has secured with Ganassi. Motorsport Images
With no assurances he’ll be back in 2024, Sato is treating his debut with Ganassi as the best chance — for now — to take another sip of milk in victory lane.
“It’s a huge pressure on me; I want to succeed,” he said. “And ultimately, if you do that, I think the future is always possible to open the door. So my plan for the future at the moment is zero, but there’s nothing but love to come back to the 500 as long as I’m really motivated, and I feel this way. I’m ready to compete. If I have an opportunity, I want to come back. That’s it.”
Separate from his lifetime of driving and representing Honda from inside the cockpit, Sato’s been asked to play a large and important role for the Japanese auto giant outside of the car. It’s here, with a call to develop and lead Honda’s young driver program, where Sato’s time is in high demand to help create future versions of himself to race in Formula 1, IndyCar, and other championships where the company is directly involved.
“Honda needs another new generation,” he said. “There is a lot of potential young drivers in Japan who need help or support. And you don’t see these drivers really coming over to the U.S. I want to develop something to make more opportunities for these drivers everywhere in the world, but also here where I have spent many years of my career.
“If I can make a bridge to extend the scholarships not just in Europe to try to get to Formula 1, but for the United States, there is the possibility of having new drivers from Japan racing everywhere.”
If the 107th Indy 500 does prove to be Sato’s final race on the Speedway, he’ll be sad, but he isn’t limiting his possibilities to open-wheel racing in the years ahead. IMSA’s GTP class and racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans also hold his interest.
“The hybrid prototype things are just happening, so it’d be nice to be involved if I have opportunity,” he said of the class where Acura/Honda participates with factory entries. “But once again, I also am looking at what can I return, what I can give back to Honda? What can I return to the people who are supporting me for 20 years? This is very important to me.”
“It was weird,” Takuma Sato admits. Present at the season-opening NTT IndyCar Series race in St. Petersburg with his new Chip Ganassi Racing team, the IndyCar veteran had no specific role to play as the 2023 season got under way. He’s been through …
“It was weird,” Takuma Sato admits.
Present at the season-opening NTT IndyCar Series race in St. Petersburg with his new Chip Ganassi Racing team, the IndyCar veteran had no specific role to play as the 2023 season got under way. He’s been through the situation once before when his Super Aguri Formula 1 team lost funding and fell out of the series after four rounds in 2008; it took nearly a year and a half of sitting idle and an eventual investment from his savings into the KV Racing IndyCar team to rekindle his career with a reboot in America.
Signed to an oval-only deal with the defending Indianapolis 500 winners, Sato arrived at St. Pete where he raced 13 straight times from 2010-22 and spent the weekend sitting in on CGR’s engineering meetings and getting to know the crew who will run him in the No. 11 Honda.
Set for his debut with the team during Sunday’s PPG 375 race, the 46-year-old Japanese ace is trying to adjust to a very different reality where he isn’t lining up for a full-season campaign.
“I don’t think any driver likes this situation (of going part-time), but given the circumstances for me at this point, I want to go for the wins,” Sato told RACER. “I want to go with a very competitive team, and obviously, the opportunity came together to drive for Chip Ganassi.
“If I was a very young, fresh driver that needed to gain experience, I would go with a very nice, small team full-time just to gain experience. But at this point for me, Ganassi is just a fantastic solution. In my Formula 1 days, it was a different story. It was just a nightmare to me when it stopped, and I didn’t have anything to drive. But this time, it’s different. I’ve been given a very limited opportunity most drivers don’t get, so I’m very excited.”
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Another aspect of Sato’s start to the season on the wickedly fast 1.5-mile Texas oval that can’t be ignored is his lack of testing and seat time prior to Saturday morning’s opening practice session.
“I’ll need a couple laps…just to get comfortable with the environment,” he said. “The last time I was in the car was (last September) at Laguna Seca in the final IndyCar race. And so to properly get back up to speed, I’m going to take it a little bit conservatively, just step by step, instead of going 210 miles an hour immediately. But I think it shouldn’t take too long.”
Building a rapport with race engineer Eric Cowdin, a fellow Indy 500 winner, and all of the personnel involved with running the No. 11 Honda is another aspect of Sato’s debut that will need to happen in a flash.
“This is another weird feeling where now you’re in the Ganassi camp and with all the teams that I was competing for before, I was always trying to beat them and now I’m inside of the team,” he said. “It has been quite fascinating this offseason; I’ve been to the shop a couple of times, not just for the seat fitting, but also several times to go through things with engineers.
“I was there the entire weekend with the team at St. Petersburg, completing little pieces of the puzzle all the time. Although you’re not driving, you’re learning quite massively. So now we will learn for the first time together at a race. There’s a lot of great drivers here to work with and particularly Scott Dixon; there’s been a mutual respect for a long time and now we are teammates. And of course, the two Marcus’ (Ericsson and Armstrong) and Alex Palou. It’s a lot of competitive drivers in a competitive team and it’s a fantastic place for me.”
With five ovals on his calendar with CGR, Sato hopes to add more victories to his record — kissing the bricks for a third time at the Speedway would be atop the list — and then take stock of whether he wants to pursue a return in whatever capacity next year.
“I’ll take a look at whatever the opportunity is for the future,” he added. “And not just in IndyCar. Obviously, this limited program for the ovals wasn’t my first choice, but going with Chip Ganassi Racing, particularly for the Indy 500, that’s the most attractive race for me. Hopefully this year, we have a very good package again and then have a strong race. But for the future, I have no plans, no decisions or anything. We’ll do these races together and then see.”
The Indy 500 winner will be handed a bottle milk afterward. Here’s the story of why — and how it gets there.
The instant Simon Pagenaud felt the ice-cold bottle of milk hit his hand, he raised it high in the air and poured.
As the whole milk flowed over his bright red Firestone hat, Pagenaud lifted his head, allowing the quart to spill over his face. Mouth opened and eyes closed, he enjoyed a few drops as he emptied the bottle on himself. He couldn’t help it; he wanted to soak up every bit of this famous Indianapolis 500 tradition.
“You usually get to spray the champagne when you win a race, and Indy is the only place you get to drink milk,” Pagenaud told For The Win, reflecting back on his 2019 Indy 500 victory. “So I just sprayed the milk all over my face because I just wanted to embrace the moment.
“That’s really when I thought, OK, I’ve joined the club. I can enjoy this just like they did before, but I’m gonna go even further. I’m gonna pour it all over my face just to show how happy I was.”
But while the Indy 500 and its iconic venue, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, can elicit magical feelings, the bottle didn’t just appear in Pagenaud’s hand. It was delivered to him by one of the “milk people.”
Editors note: Clicking this video will not replay the entire race. It begins with the post-race celebration.
Meet the milk man
When the Indy 500-winning driver’s car is ushered into Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Victory Lane, a myriad of people are there eagerly waiting. But, perhaps, the most important person is holding a bottle of ice-cold milk.
The Veteran Milk Person. Yes, that’s an official title.
For the 2022 Indy 500 on Sunday (12:30 p.m. ET, NBC), the Veteran Milk Man is Tim Haynes, a 62-year-old dairy farmer from Garrett, Indiana who runs his family-owned Superior Dairy. As the veteran, he’ll be charged with the all-important task of delivering the celebratory 32-ounce glass bottle to Sunday’s winning driver.
His most crucial responsibility?
“The thing they joke about, dare I say, is ‘Don’t drop the milk,’ ” Haynes said.
Tim Haynes, the 2022 Indy 500 Veteran Milk Man. (American Dairy Association Indiana)
The American Dairy Association Indiana (ADAI) runs the show when it comes to the milk celebration, and their designated “milk people” are dairy farmers who make a three-year commitment to be part of Indy 500 history. After being the Rookie-elect for the first year, the chosen farmer becomes the Rookie Milk Person and inherits the duty of handing a bottle each to the winning team owner and chief mechanic. The following year, they become the Veteran Milk Person.
However, just because Haynes’ top responsibilities are at the end of the 500-mile race doesn’t mean he’ll have a casual and relaxing day. And after being the Rookie Milk Man for Hélio Castroneves’ 2021 Indy 500-winning squad, he knows what to expect.
He and the team of milk people will arrive at the track with the cooler around 6 a.m., surrounded by security — mostly to gain publicity around the milk, an ADAI spokesperson said. One year, the milk arrived in an armored car. Another time, the ADAI hired actors to play bodyguards for the cooler. This year, the milk and milk people will arrive with a police escort, where they’ll likely be greeted by fans wanting to take photos.
The milk people will then take the cooler to a secure location, and when the green flag flies, they’ll get a chance to watch the race. Or, at least, most of it.
“Usually about 15 laps before the end,” Haynes explained, “we head down to the presentation area where we wait for them to bring the winner. … It’s a maze of people. Everybody wants to be there.”
Before the Indy 500, the ADAI polls all the drivers for their milk preferences, should they win. They have three choices: whole milk, two-percent milk or fat-free milk. (Lactose-free milk is a secret fourth option, should any drivers request it.) The majority in recent milk polls requested whole.
Takuma Sato after winning the 104th Running of the Indianapolis 500 in 2020. (Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)
So when the winner takes the checkered flag, the milk people consult the poll, see the winner’s preference and pull the correct type of milk from the cooler.
“The taste was amazing,” said Takuma Sato, the 2017 and 2020 Indy 500 champion. “It was the best milk I had ever! Of course. It was 2 percent, chilled and felt amazing.”
Nine decades in the making
Although the celebratory bottle of milk is the Indy 500’s most famous long-standing tradition, going back to the 1930s, it’s undeniably a peculiar one. If you’re grossed out by it, take it up with Louis Meyer.
“It’s one of those great Americana events and traditions that really came out of no real pomp and circumstance [or] from some sort of directive,” said Jason Vansickle, vice president of curation and education for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
Meyer was the first three-time Indy 500 champion, and he regularly drank buttermilk throughout his life, as his mother emphasized it when he was growing up. Though Meyer won the 1928 and 1933 Indy 500s, the first documented photo of him downing buttermilk after an Indy 500 win was in 1936, Vansickle explained.
The photo caught the attention of a milk industry executive, who vowed to have milk return to Victory Lane the following year. Little did that person know — with the exception of 1947 to 1955 — the tradition would continue for the next 87 years and counting.
However, every year the milk poll comes around, there are always a few drivers — this year, it’s Ed Carpenter and Felix Rosenqvist — who’d like to keep the milk tradition extra traditional and write in buttermilk, which isn’t an option.
“We just tried to educate them on the buttermilk,” Haynes said. “Buttermilk nowadays is totally different from buttermilk back when they drank it. Buttermilk nowadays is more for baking and stuff. If you ever drank it, it doesn’t taste very good.”
‘Magic’ milk
Ask just about any Indy 500 winner, and they’ll probably tell you how special the milk tradition is. But they’re not necessarily craving the bottle on what’s often a scorching Indiana day after racing at 200 miles an hour all afternoon.
“The milk thing is weird, I’m gonna be honest with you,” said Alexander Rossi, who won the 2016 Indy 500 as a rookie. “But so much of the 500 is about tradition, and it’s about the legacy of that race and what the people did before us. … I think just the sheer magnitude of the event is what’s kept all of these traditions alive for so many years.”
Alexander Rossi after winning the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 in 2016. (Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)
Even if drivers aren’t big fans of milk or dairy in general, Vansickle said they still appreciate the history behind the milk tradition. It’s akin to another Indy 500 accolade.
Several drivers said they treat their bottles like trophies and have them on display at their homes or offices, some next to their Baby Borgs — the miniature version of the Borg-Warner Trophy the drivers actually get to keep.
One driver, now-four-time Indy 500 winner Castroneves, amended the celebratory milk tradition slightly — and it stuck. After his first victory in 2001, Castroneves became the first driver to take some sips and then dump the bottle on his head, Vansickle said. Not every driver has done this since, he added, but certainly most of them.
“I didn’t know what to do anymore,” Castroneves said looking back. “I took the milk, I chugged it and I’m like, ‘Ahhh, I wanted this so bad and finally got it!’ And then I started pouring [it] down my head.”
Hélio Castroneves after winning the 105th Running of the Indianapolis 500 in 2021. (Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)
Of course, the only issue with adding milk to an already sweaty fire suit is the subsequent smell — exacerbated by the drivers often keeping their suits on while they do media for several hours after the checkered flag.
Rossi said he felt “disgusting” after keeping his suit on for more than four hours after the race. Castroneves said the stench is also part of the tradition.
But Pagenaud and Sato, who called it “magic” milk, insist they didn’t smell.
“It was sweet, it was cold and it didn’t smell bad,” Pagenaud said. “The weirdest thing is it didn’t have a big effect on my suit. I didn’t smell bad after. I don’t know. They have special milk, I can tell you that.”
“You always appreciate, in a humble way, that this place is is magical,” Hélio Castroneves told For The Win.
For many race car drivers, the Indianapolis 500 is the most monumental and life-changing event they could win. It’s one of the biggest races in the world, and some spend their entire careers chasing that elusive checkered flag.
More emphasis, more pressure, more preparation and more practice are involved, along with an intensified risk factor from the dangers of racing around Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile oval at 200-plus miles per hour. And even if a driver and their team have a near-perfect race, a competitor could be an inch closer to perfection. So, of course, the winner needs a little luck too.
Ahead of Sunday’s 106th running of the Indy 500, we’re looking back at the most recent races through the eyes of the last five winners — five of the eight champions competing in the 2022 race.
Alexander Rossi, 2016 Indy 500 champion: By the final few laps of the 200-lap race, Rossi, then a rookie, was out front and in a great position to win. He and his team gambled on fuel, and his car coasted on fumes across the finish line ahead of Carlos Muñoz.
Takuma Sato, 2017, 2020 Indy 500 champion: After trading the lead with Hélio Castroneves in the final laps, Sato put up some brilliant defense the final time he took the lead and won in 2017. He won the 2020 Indy 500 — held in August with empty grandstands because of COVID-19 – under caution ahead of Scott Dixon.
Will Power, 2018 Indy 500 champion: Power had a huge, 40-car length lead over Ed Carpenter going into the final lap, and he just had to hold on and not crash in the suspenseful final two miles to take the checkered flag.
Simon Pagenaud, 2019 Indy 500 champion: In one of the most thrilling Indy 500 finishes, Pagenaud battled with Rossi, trading the lead in the final laps. Pagenaud stole the lead from Rossi with a little more than a lap to go, and his masterful defense kept him out front for the win.
Hélio Castroneves, 2001, 2002, 2009, 2021 Indy 500 champion: Now in a four-way tie for most Indy 500 wins ever, Castroneves relied on his ample experience to get the best of Alex Palou in the 2021 race while working through traffic on the final lap. He was 26 years old when he won his first and 46 when he won his fourth.
For much of the second half of the 200-lap race at the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Sato’s primary competition for the lead and win was 2008 Indy 500 winner and five-time IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon, who had a dominant race.
Dixon had the lead for 111 laps and gained control of the race right away. But Sato, driving for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, took the lead from him on Lap 158 and never relinquished it.
But just when it looked like the Indy 500 was headed for a thrilling late shootout for the checked flag, Sato’s teammate, Spencer Pigot, lost control and spun hard into the entrance to pit road, bringing out the caution flag on Lap 196.
And after that scary crash — Pigot was taken to a nearby hospital and released later Sunday night — IndyCar made the somewhat controversial decision to end the race under a caution, and because Sato had the lead with only a few laps to go, he won the race. Dixon finished second,
For The Win spoke with Sato on Sunday evening after the race for TK quick questions about making history, ending under caution and what his celebratory bottle of milk tasted like.
