Hélio Castroneves looks for his fourth career Indianapolis 500 victory from fourth position. A.J. Foyt won his fourth from fourth position in 1977. Simon Pagenaud starts fifth after winning the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis two weeks ago. The last French-born driver to win the Indianapolis 500 was Gil de Ferran. The last French national to win the Indianapolis 500 was Gaston Chevrolet in 1920. Marco Andretti starts sixth in his ninth Indianapolis 500 start. His grandfather Mario started sixth in his ninth Indianapolis 500 start and finished 30th in the ill-fated 1973 race. His father Michael started sixth in his ninth Indianapolis 500 start and finished thirteenth in the ill-fated 1992 race.
Carlos Muñoz will roll off from the inside of row three. The Colombian is looking to become the eleventh former-Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year to win the race itself. Josef Newgarden starts eighth. His first two Indianapolis 500 finishes have been twenty-fifth and twenty-eighth. JR Hildebrand starts a career best in the Indianapolis 500 in ninth. He started tenth last year before retiring due to an accident on lap three. Just like Muñoz, Hildebrand looks to become the eleventh former-Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year to win the race itself.
Juan Pablo Montoya starts his first Indianapolis 500 in fourteen years from the tenth position. He led 167 laps from second position to claim victory in the 2000 Indianapolis 500. The 2008 Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon starts next to him in eleventh. Dixon led 115 laps in his lone Indianapolis 500 victory. Kurt Busch is the top starting rookie in twelfth. Busch's best career Brickyard 400 finish is 5th in 2001. His average finish in 13 Brickyard 400 starts is 19.38.
Jack Hawksworth is the second-best starting rookie in thirteenth. It's the Brits first career IndyCar oval race as he drives for the 2011 Indianapolis 500 winners Bryan Herta Autosport. Justin Wilson starts fourteenth for the second consecutive year. Last year, Wilson went from fourteenth to fifth, the top finishing Honda in 2013. Mikhail Aleshin rounds out row five. He is the first Russian to ever start the Indianapolis 500 and it is his first career oval race.
Defending Indianapolis 500 winner Tony Kanaan starts sixteenth. He was the fastest driver on Carb Day and looks to join Dan Wheldon (2005) and Dario Franchitti (2012) as the third driver to win from sixteenth position. The defending Indianapolis 500 winning team, the #11 Hydroxycut/Mistic E-Cig KV Racing Chevrolet starts next to their former driver with Sébastien Bourdais behind the wheel. The Frenchman's best Indianapolis 500 finish is twelfth in 2005. Oriol Servià starts eighteenth. The Spaniard's average finish in the Indianapolis 500 is 11.6 in five starts.
Ryan Hunter-Reay starts nineteenth. The only Indianapolis 500 winner to come from nineteenth was Bill Vukovich in 1954. Graham Rahal starts twentieth. His lone top ten in the Indianapolis 500 was a third in 2011. Carlos Huertas starts on the outside of row seven. This will be his first career oval start.
Pippa Mann starts twenty-second. It her first Indianapolis 500 start inside the top thirty. Takuma Sato starts twenty-third. Sato is still looking for his first career top ten in the Indianapolis 500. Last year, he picked up his best Indianapolis 500 finish in thirteenth. Alex Tagliani starts on the outside of row eight. The French-Canadian had qualified no worse than eleventh the last four years.
Townsend Bell is on the inside of row nine, his worst Indianapolis 500 start of his career and third career Indianapolis 500 start outside the top twenty. Bell went from twenty-fourth to fourth in 2009. Charles Kimball is next to Bell. In his three previous Indianapolis 500s, Kimball has finishes of thirteenth, eighth and ninth. Jacques Villeneuve starts twenty-seventh in his first Indianapolis 500 in 18 years, 11 months and 28 days, a record for longest gap between starts. Marion Trexler previously held the IndyCar record for longest gap between starts at 17 years, 9 months and 5 days and Cy Marshall and Roland Free previously held the Indianapolis 500 record for longest gap between Indianapolis 500 starts at 17 years.
James Davison starts twenty-eighth. He is the eighth different Australian to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. Martin Plowman starts twenty-ninth. Plowman won the LMP2 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans last year and the world championship in LMP2 class in the FIA World Endurance Championship paired with former IndyCar driver Bertrand Baguette and Ricardo González. Ryan Briscoe starts thirtieth, the third Australian in the field tying the 1981 Indianapolis 500 for the record for most Australians in one Indianapolis 500. That year Vern Schuppan, Geoff Brabham and Dennis Firestone all finished in the top ten in third, fifth and tenth position respectively.
The last row features the youngest driver and oldest driver on the grid. Nineteen-year old Sage Karam starts thirty-first. The 2013 Indy Lights champion finished second in the pit stop competition on Carb Day losing to Scott Dixon. Sebastián Saavedra starts in the middle of the eleventh row. His second career start in thirty-second. 1996 Indianapolis 500 winner, forty-six year old Buddy Lazier rounds out the grid in thirty-third. This is Lazier's third consecutive Indianapolis 500 starting on the last row.
For what it's worth, more 32 year olds (10) have won the Indianapolis 500 than any other age. The lone 32 year old on the grid is Ryan Briscoe.
Here is a grid breakdown by ages:
19- Sage Karam.
22- Carlos Muñoz, Carlos Huertas.
23- Jack Hawksworth, Josef Newgarden, Sebastián Saavedra.
25- Graham Rahal.
26- JR Hildebrand, Martin Plowman.
27- Mikhail Aleshin, Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe, James Davison.
29- Charlie Kimball.
30- Simon Pagenaud, Pippa Mann.
32- Ryan Briscoe.
33- Ed Carpenter, Will Power, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Scott Dixon.
35- Sébastien Bourdais, Kurt Busch, Justin Wilson.
37- Takuma Sato.
38- Juan Pablo Montoya.
39- Hélio Castroneves, Townsend Bell, Tony Kanaan, Oriol Servià.
40- Alex Tagliani.
43- Jacques Villeneuve.
46- Buddy Lazier
ABC's coverage of the 98th Indianapolis 500 begins at 11:00 a.m. Eastern, 10:00 a.m. Central, 9:00 a.m. Mountain, 8:00 a.m. Pacific, 5:00 a.m. Hawaiian, 4:00 p.m. British Summer, 5:00 p.m. Central European Summer, 7:00 p.m. Moscow Standard, 12:00 a.m. Monday Japanese Standard, 1:00 a.m. Monday in Sydney and 3:00 a.m. in Auckland. Green flag will be at 12:12 p.m. ET.
Weather forecast calls for partly cloudy skies, a high of 79º Fahrenheit and 0% chance of precipitation.
