I am astonished. Castroneves has been a threat every year at Indianapolis. In 21 starts, it is hard to pick out a bad year for Castroneves. There have been a few, but more times than not he is fighting in the top five. Entering this race, among the 256 drivers with at least five starts, Castroneves had the eighth best average finish at 8.75. On top of his three victories, Castroneves has three runner-up finishes and two of those have been in recent memory.
He lost a late battle with Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2014 and could not beat Takuma Sato down the stretch in 2017. The fourth was there for the taking. Castroneves didn't do anything wrong. Better drivers beat him on that day, but in both cases Castroneves drove stellar. However, after watching so many close calls, it felt like the fourth was going to fall out of his grasp.
I always thought Team Penske would have a seat for Castroneves. After seeing Al Unser win his fourth as a substitute in a year-old car and Rick Mears win all four for Penske, I though Penske would never let this moment get away from him. The fourth is too special and it felt like Castroneves would have a ride as long as he wanted one.
That wasn't the case and after 11 years of waiting, Penske moved on. I always wondered if Penske cut bait too soon. Life knows how to write a story. Redemption is a popular narrative.
I cannot blame Penske for moving on, but Castroneves showed up his former team.
It was a Castroneves-esque race. He hung in the top ten and stayed in the fight. Every year Castroneves is in the fight. Some years, he just ends up sixth and is a non-factor, but as other drivers dropped and struggled with fuel mileage, Castroneves had good mileage. Mileage was the name of the game and as we got closer to the finish, Castroneves climbed up the order. He was in the background.
He was fifth, then fourth and then he was in the top three. In the final 80 miles, it became clear Castroneves was going to be in the fight and the storyline at the start of the month was going to play out at the finish of the race. It was going to youth versus age. Castroneves was third with Ryan Hunter-Reay was fourth while Álex Palou and Patricio O'Ward were the top two.
Hunter-Reay blew the entrance to pit lane and it became a three-car battle. It was going to come down to timing and Palou held the top spot. Then Castroneves jumped up there before Palou took it back. O'Ward was settled into third, but still in the battle. It became clear this race was going to feature a late pass. For most of that time, it felt like Palou was going to win this race. He held the point most of the way, but then Castroneves would make a pass. Palou would get it back, but Castroneves was keeping him honest.
In the final laps, Castroneves made his run, and after losing it in 2014 and losing it in 2017, it felt like the third time was going to be the charm. It felt like this was meant to be for Castroneves. He held the lead with two laps to go, he had the top spot, but he was closing on traffic, and in a way, traffic helped Castroneves. It bogged him down, but it also bogged down Palou. There was too much dirty air. Castroneves wasn't going to lap those cars, but Palou wasn't going to take the lead either.
If Castroneves had not made that move entering turn one with two laps to go, the roles are reversed, and Palou would have held on and won the race.
It has been 30 years since Rick Mears won his fourth. It has been 20 years since Castroneves won his first. A fifth is on the table. I have respected Castroneves, but there has always been something that holds him back. This was his 31st IndyCar victory and he is tied for tenth all-time, but I haven't seen him as close to equal as Dario Franchitti, who has 31 victories on top of four championships and three Indianapolis 500 victories. I even held Will Power in higher regard than Castroneves.
We cannot talk about Castroneves without talking about how circumstances played into his career. The ghost of Greg Moore casts a shadow on Castroneves' career. If Moore does not lose his life, is Castroneves ever in this situation? It is hard to imagine Castroneves would be celebrating his fourth Indianapolis 500 if Moore had lived to see November 1, 1999. But none of this has been a gift. Castroneves had to earn all of this. He had to fight for all these Indianapolis 500 victories and IndyCar victories. Though a championship eluded Castroneves, he still had many great seasons, unfortunately falling a few spots short in a handful of seasons.
I am not sure exactly where to rank Castroneves, but I know he is great. I know this has been a special two-decade spell and it has been tremendous to watch. I know this is a beautiful day for IndyCar. Castroneves made 135,000 people sound like 13 million. He won in his first race of the season, ten years and a day after Dan Wheldon won in his first race of the season. Castroneves picked up Meyer Shank Racing its first IndyCar victory. Wheldon's victory was Bryan Herta Autosport's first victory.
We talk about how anyone can win in IndyCar and so we have seen it. A one-off team for one of IndyCar's smallest but emerging programs has won the Indianapolis 500. This could launch Meyer Shank Racing into being one of IndyCar's elite programs. Castroneves will also have more history to face. He will get a crack at a fifth victory, a chance to start his own club and leave the likes of A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears behind.
2. Second place is a disheartening result, but for sophomore Álex Palou, there must be some satisfaction. Palou was at the front all race. He led 35 laps. It looked like he was set for another breakout victory just over a month after his first breakout victory.
Palou lost today, 0.4928 seconds short of etching his name into eternity, but he was breathtaking. Chip Ganassi Racing has found its future. It has been looking for a suitable number two driver ever since Dario Franchitti was forced into retirement after the 2013 season. They have its driver. Palou is 24 years old. Two decades could be ahead of him and I expect him to win more races and possibly a championship and Indianapolis 500 down the road.
3. Strategy decided this race more than it appears and Simon Pagenaud's third-place finish is just the first example of it. Pagenaud really wasn't in the fight until the end. He didn't crack the top ten until lap 125 after starting 26th. He spent most of the race in the middle of the field, but in those final two stints, Pagenaud turned a good day into a great day, and he was in the picture at the finish.
I don't think he was a threat at the end. I felt like Castroneves and Palou had it set. Pagenaud took third from Patricio O'Ward on the final lap. Pagenaud needed this kind of day. Team Penske needed this kind of day. It is not a victory, but it saves the team from what could have been an embarrassing month of May.
4. Patricio O'Ward fell to fourth late, but O'Ward was in the fight with Castroneves and Palou. It felt like he had a shot, but he just didn't quite have it. We have seen this in recent years at Indianapolis. In 2014, it was Hunter-Reay and Castroneves. Marco Andretti ran third the entire time but could not break in. When Takuma Sato won in 2017, it was Sato versus Castroneves, and Ed Jones was stuck in third. Jones had a hole in the nose of his car, but he couldn't even draft up on the top two.
O'Ward was stuck in the sucker hole that is third. Close, but not close enough and it dropped him to fourth.
5. Ed Carpenter stalled on his first pit stop and it looked like race over. It took him out of the top five, but it was early and going off strategy got Carpenter to the front. Driving hard got results today, and Carpenter found himself in the top ten after his final stop. As some other cars stopped when that late caution did not come, Carpenter found himself in the top five, the best finishing Ed Carpenter Racing entry.
6. Speaking of strategy, Santino Ferrucci stopped on lap 180 and he climbed up to sixth. Ferrucci was one of many drivers who were off strategy and did not stop immediately when pit windows open. Those drivers leaped ahead of the early front-runners and Ferrucci went from middle of the pack to sixth. The team needs a lot of credit and Ferrucci kept his nose clean for a third consecutive year. Ferrucci also scored fastest lap.
7. Sage Karam picked up a seventh-place finish! Karam was one of those drivers who stopped late in pit windows and his final stop came on lap 178. He cycled ahead of some other front runners, such as Rinus VeeKay, Josef Newgarden and Colton Herta. More importantly, Karam got the car home in one piece. Too many years we have seen Karam drive over the limit and hit the wall. That didn't happen today. He paced himself and got a good finish.
8. Rinus VeeKay led early, but it was clear the Chevrolet fuel mileage was not great. He was stopped five laps earlier than everyone else. He was going to lose ground. With those later pit stops, we saw him lose a lot of ground and fall out of the battle at the front. VeeKay still finished eighth, but his early aggression and Chevrolet's deficit took him out of it.
9. Juan Pablo Montoya was ninth! I don't think Montoya was shown once all day, but he was another one of those mid-pack cars that could go a little longer and it got him spots. Montoya drove a smart race, even if none of us saw it. He has done this plenty of times that he knows how to turn a 24th starting position into a ninth-place finish.
10. We need to mention the first caution, because Stefan Wilson spun entering the pit lane and he spun right at the end of the first stint. Many cars were closed on fuel and some cars had to make an emergency stop for a splash of fuel. One of those was Tony Kanaan. Kanaan was in the top ten and that emergency stop meant he had to stop again for the rest of his service and then he had to go to the rear of the field for stopping in a closed pit lane. That put Kanaan behind the eight-ball and he had to fight from behind the entire race. He got up to tenth, but that is a minor consolation. This could have been a better day. This should have been a better day.
11. Marcus Ericsson was in the same boat as Kanaan. He needed an emergency splash of fuel and then had to restart at the rear with Kanaan. These two basically were running with each other the entire race, and Ericsson kept up with Kanaan. I need to say Ericsson did a good job even if 11th isn't that exciting.
12. Josef Newgarden went off strategy in the middle of the race. He short-stinted his third stint and stopped on lap 101. It worked and it got Newgarden in the top five, but those early stops went against Newgarden later in the race. Those final stops knocked him down the running order and he got caught in traffic. This looked like at least a top ten finish. I thought Newgarden was stopping too early, and he was going to need to run conservative late and that would cost him any shot of top five finish. He was never in that position and he ended up 12th.
13. The biggest winner of Stefan Wilson's spin was Conor Daly. He had just made his first pit stop and emerged from pit lane as one of the top three cars to have stopped. Once the rest of the field got their service, Daly cycled to the front, and he led 40 laps. Like VeeKay, Daly struggled with fuel mileage, and he fell out of fight at the front. He had one slow stop and he lost even more ground. Then Daly hit the abandoned tire from Graham Rahal's car, after Rahal did not get his left rear tire secure on a pit stop, and it damaged his front wing.
Daly didn't immediately pit for a repair, but he didn't have the same car and he was stuck in the middle of the field. He got 13th. I am not sure it could have been better. The Wilson caution inflated Daly's performance today. This feels like a fair finish.
14. Magic was not on Takuma Sato's side. He was going to try and go over 40 laps on his final stint, but he had to bail out with six laps to go. He still finished 14th, but the aggressive strategy probably got him an extra spot or two.
15. J.R. Hildebrand rolled the dice like Sato. Hildebrand went untill lap 186 before making his final pit stop and he was 15th. It is a good day. For a one-off A.J. Foyt Racing entry, you should be happy with best in the team and a top 15 finish with 200 laps completed.
16. Colton Herta and Andretti Autosport got the strategy wrong today. Herta was not getting great mileage, but he was doing well. His final pit stop came right as the final pit window open, and that almost took him out of this race. He was running in the top ten and then he finished 16th. He was frustrated for much of this race. I sensed he wanted to drive hard and race VeeKay and Daly at the front, but the team felt differently. Herta never got back into the fight. That strategy kept costing him ground.
I don't know if something happened to knock him back to 16th, but I sense because so many drivers went longer before their final stop, they were able to jump ahead of Herta and Herta got stuck in traffic when he emerged from pit lane after his final stop. This was a lost day for him and for Andretti Autosport as a whole. Herta was Andretti Autosport's top finisher in 16th! That is awful!
17. Scott Dixon's Indianapolis 500 fell apart before the first pit stop. The Wilson accident meant majority of the field was on fumes. Dixon had to make an emergency stop, but he ran out of fuel and the car had to be recycled before it could restart. Once it was restarted, Dixon was a lap down. He was a lap down until Graham Rahal's accident got him the wave around, but he was mired in the back third of the field.
Dixon took a risk and committed to stretching his final tank 38 laps. He did it, but it didn't turn into a top ten finish let alone a top five result. Dixon was 17th. It was likely five to ten spots better than if he had to make an addition stop, but this feels like one that got away from him. After leading 111 laps last year, Dixon was set to run third or fourth and save fuel early to be there in the end. Unfortunately, this one incident took him out of it early. He could not overcome collision of circumstances. It shouldn't have been a death blow and in 19 out of 20 Indianapolis 500s it wouldn't have been. Dixon would have gotten back on the lead lap earlier and been able to claw back into the fight. The 105th Indianapolis 500 was not playing kind.
18. Jack Harvey was 18th and outside of getting up to 15th early from 20th on the grid, he didn't really stand out. Harvey never really challenged for the top ten.
19. I am going to cover a good portion of Andretti Autosport here. Marco Andretti was 19th. Andretti was stuck around this part of the field all race. He was not a factor. James Hinchcliffe was 21st and basically had an identical race. Take Wilson out of the conversation for a second, but two of the five Andretti cars were not going to factor into this race. It wasn't that long ago when Alexander Rossi, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Fernando Alonso and Takuma Sato combined to lead 95 in the Indianapolis 500 and Sato won the race.
Andretti has taken a big step back in the universal aero kit era. This team got this entire race wrong and while it had three cars in the top ten last year, Andretti Autosport had one contender in 2020 in Rossi. When Rossi had his penalty, the team had no one to step up and be a contender. I think this team needs to take a hard look at itself for the rest of this season and into 2022.
20. Scott McLaughlin sped on pit lane before one of his late pit stops and it took him out of a possible top ten finish. Other than that, McLaughlin did a good job today. He is a rookie! This is McLaughlin's third oval race. This is the first mistake he has made all season and I wouldn't beat him up too much about it. Twentieth isn't great, but it will likely get him Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year because Pietro Fittipaldi was 25th and didn't really do anything notable.
21. Ryan Hunter-Reay blew a top five finish. Hunter-Reay was fourth and ran a solid race before he sped entering the pit lane for his final stop. Hunter-Reay was one of a handful of incidents where a driver just kind of blew pit lane. Wilson spun, Will Power spun and avoided hitting anything, Simona de Silvestro had a spin and Hunter-Reay nearly drove over Patricio O'Ward and nearly clipped a tire in de Silvestro's pit box.
It was odd to see because we haven't seen that many pit lane incidents over the years. They happen. There was the one year when Dale Coyne Racing had three of its cars get together on pit lane. Marcus Ericsson spun entering pit lane two years ago, but we saw three spins and a notable lock up today.
As for Hunter-Reay, I thought he was going to be there in the fight. I am not sure he was going to win, but I thought he was going to finish in the top five and he let it get away from him.
22. Dalton Kellett was the first car a lap down in 23rd. He didn't do much, but he still completed 199 laps. That is a big step from last year. Kellett deserves some praise, because I bet a lot of people thought he was going to be bumped. Not only wasn't he bumped, he qualified in the top 30 and avoided the Last Row Shootout. Don't get me wrong, Kellett is not a diamond in the rough. I think this is as good as he can be, but he was respectable all week.
23. Max Chilton was 24th. Yeah, that sounds about right. I wonder what Carlin could do with a full-time driver that isn't Chilton. Chilton is fine. He is not spectacular but there are worse drivers out there. However, we have seen Carlin show oval speed with Conor Daly. Even Chilton has had some good qualifying runs on road courses. What could a different driver do full-time with this equipment? Will we ever find out?
24. As covered above, Pietro Fittipaldi was 25th. That's pretty much all you can say. I don't think Fittipaldi was shown once. He didn't do anything wrong, but this was not his greatest race either.
25. Sébastien Bourdais tried the Scott Dixon strategy of stretching it almost 40 laps on that final tank and Bourdais had to stop with three laps to go, relegating him to 26th. This was a rough May for A.J. Foyt Racing. I bet Bourdais is happy to see Belle Isle, Road America and Mid-Ohio as the next four races. It could even be five races as the Toronto race could be made up with a second race at Mid-Ohio.
26. Felix Rosenqvist had the same strategy as Takuma Sato. Rosenqvist led 14 laps, but he had to stop with six laps to go only to speed on pit lane and serve a penalty. This knocked him down to 27th, one lap down. I don't recall Ed Jones running this same strategy, but he had to make a pit stop on lap 198 and he finished 28th. I don't remember Jones having a problem. This wasn't a stellar day for him either, but it was better the 28th.
27. Alexander Rossi had the greatest 29th-place finish in Indianapolis 500 history. He had the same issue as Scott Dixon. He had to make an emergency fuel stop and he stalled, had to recycle the car, and lost a lap. Unlike Dixon, Rossi never cycled back to the lead lap. I am not sure we can judge Rossi on this performance. He didn't do anything wrong. The situation could not have worked against him anymore than it did. He never got that break. We have seen plenty of drivers have an early miscue and recover to finish in the top ten. Hell, Takuma Sato was a lap down in 2019 and still came back to finish third behind Pagenaud and Rossi. This year's race did not do anyone favors. And it sucks, because Dixon was better than 17th and Rossi was better than being trapped off the lead lap for basically the final 400 miles of this race.
28. Will Power and Simona de Silvestro both spun entering pit lane, as mentioned above. Power was going to be close to a top ten finish, but I am not sure he was going to get there. De Silvestro drove well, but likely was going to be either one of the final cars on the lead lap and one of the first cars a lap down. That spin took her out of the race. Power gets 30th and de Silvestro gets 31st.
29. Graham Rahal's botched pit stop, and subsequent spin was crushing to watch. Rahal had a great day brewing. He was set up for the sprint to the line and he was likely going to make up three or four spots after that pit stop. But the loose left rear tire came off on the access road in turn two and Rahal was along for the ride.
There was nothing Rahal could have done, and that accident could have been a million times worse. Thankfully, no one collided with Rahal. Thankfully, that loose tire didn't fly into the crowd. Thankfully, we have the aeroscreen.
This was out of Rahal's hands. You hope these accidents never happen. Sometimes they do and they are always difficult to swallow. If there is any positive, at least Rahal avoided his record-tying third 33rd-place finish.
30. Stefan Wilson lost the car entering the pit lane on the first stop and I had to say it but it feels like this is it for his Indianapolis 500 career. It feels like every other year we see a one-off driver make a mistake that is avoidable. Jay Howard had a dismal Indianapolis 500 in 2017 and it was topped off when he brushed the wall in turn one and then Scott Dixon ran over his damaged car. One-offs do not usually have great races and there is a reason we do not see many guys return after three-year absences.
Wilson is a good guy and a good driver, but he is not a regular competitor. Did that cause this accident? Not necessarily, but this accident makes me wonder if he has lost some appeal. Will teams think twice when looking over possible one-off entries. There are plenty of drivers on the sidelines. The teams have choices.
31. Thirty cars completed this race. All 30 cars completed at least 197 laps. Thirty cars completed at least 492.5 miles! I did not see that race coming. We normally see a few cars have problems. We had the fastest Indianapolis 500 ever at 190.69 mph! Normally fast races do not see a lot of cautions, and we only had two, the fewest since the adoption of cautions at Indianapolis. But still, only three cars retired from this race and no car that took the checkered flag finished more than three laps down.
In past years, Rossi would have his problem and still finish in the top 15. There was mercy in this race. This was a strong field. I didn't think it was this strong.
32. It was a good race. After seeing Carb Day and hearing everyone talk about how the cooler temperatures would lend to cars having more grip and improve the conditions for passing, this race was quite tame in comparison. It was still lively, but the bar had been set for something a little active, especially in the first half of the race. I don't think drivers were taking it easy and not passing, choosing to stay in the draft and save fuel. I think it was still difficult to make a move. We saw plenty of jockeying in the final laps though, so maybe drivers were pacing themselves.
I have no complaints. It was a tremendous Indianapolis 500. It is hard to imagine anyone can be upset after this one.
33. 364 days until the 106th Indianapolis 500.
