1. Some things are just meant to be.
Álex Palou doesn't have to lead 99% of the laps to win a race. Palou understands the long game. He understands patience is a virtue and it will get him to victory lane more times than not, especially when driving for Chip Ganassi Racing. Álex Palou didn't need to lead the pack for all 500 miles today. He didn't need to put his name on this race from the opening lap. As long as he was at the front late, Palou would be the man to beat.
After the final round of pit stops, Palou was second. He had spent a good number of laps in the middle of the top ten and inside the top five, but he wasn't looking to enforce his will on the 109th Indianapolis 500. He knew he didn't have to at that point. With each stint, Palou moved up. That is common for Palou. He is bound to gain two or three spots with each in- and out-lap. He went from trailing David Malukas to ahead of David Malukas, and only behind Marcus Ericsson, who had used an alternate strategy to take the lead.
Ericsson had the advantage. Stopping seven laps after Palou, Ericsson had the fuel to push. He could have run a pace that was greater than Palou and the field could keep up with, but Ericsson found himself stalled behind the back-markers of Devlin DeFrancesco and Louis Foster. Ericsson couldn't push the pace and he couldn't create a buffer to Palou, something desperately needed when it comes to Palou. You cannot give Palou a chance to breathe, and Palou had all the air in his lungs to blow the house down.
Palou went for it with 14 laps to go and Ericsson didn't have a counter. Maybe Ericsson thought he would have the time and the moment would come, but he never got close. Palou benefitted from the traffic. He could use the draft to save a little fuel, and it effectively made him level to Ericsson in the final battle.
It felt inevitable this would be Palou's race when the final pit stop shuffled him up to second. A man who had won four of the first five races of the 2025 season with his worst finish being second wasn't going to lose. Every race he has positioned himself to be the man to beat. In the Indianapolis 500, Palou dared someone to beat him, and no one was up to the task.
It has already been a historic season. Victory in the 109th Indianapolis 500 caps off what is already the apex of a legendary career. Palou has three championships. A fourth is coming in 2025. No one has started a season like this since A.J. Foyt in 1979. We could have been staring at a man one race away from matching the longest winning streak to open a season in IndyCar history. An average finish of 1.1667 through six events is pretty staggering in its own right.
What is the limit? Is ten victories in play? Palou is halfway there and we aren't even halfway through the season. We are in the middle of something special. Don't look away now.
2. Two runner-up finishes in three years at Indianapolis is tough to accept for any driver, even if you already have won the "500" once. Marcus Ericsson should feel a little fortunate to be second. This wasn't his day. At one point, he was outside the top twenty while on the main strategy. The team had to come up with something different to put him in position to win this race. It worked!
Ericsson went from an afterthought to the leader of the Indianapolis 500 in the closing laps. For the first 130 laps of this race, that did not look likely. He said he should have protected the inside on the lap Palou made his move into turn one. Maybe, but there were 14 laps remaining. That move was coming at some point. It will feel like a race lost, but I don't think Ericsson was winning this race as long as Palou was second. This day was meant for Palou. Ericsson just got to be the lucky soul to say he finished second to one of the best to ever race in IndyCar.
3. What will stand out the most from the 109th Indianapolis 500 is it felt like a race nobody wanted to win, and by nobody, I mean all the pre-race favorites. For most of this race, it was unexpected names in control. For the first 75%, the unlikeliest of fairy tales were shaping up and leading to you asking yourself, "Really? This is going to happen? Really?"
David Malukas in third is one of those examples. I don't know how good Malukas was in this race. He did a brilliant job on his penultimate stint to extent fuel while keeping up a strong pace. He positioned himself to be there at the end. In a dogfight with Álex Palou and Marcus Ericsson, Malukas wasn't winning this race. Third was as good as it was going to be, and it is the kind of outing Malukas needed. He missed last year's race with an injury. In his first "500" with A.J. Foyt Racing he started seventh and finished third. Malukas led the team the entire month. He wasn't a shrinking violet. Malukas held his ground and had the best race of his career.
4. It was a quiet day for Patricio O'Ward to finish fourth. O'Ward lost some spots early, but it felt like he could run ninth or tenth for the first half of the race and still find himself in the mix. That is what it felt like we saw last year from him. This year, O'Ward wasn't quite able to get into the conversation in the closing laps. It wasn't a poor race, but from a front row starting position this race was setup to be O'Ward's to control, and we didn't see it.
That is fine. O'Ward's day will come. We will just have to wait until 2026.
5. If anyone has a clue what Felix Rosenqvist did to start fifth and finish fifth, congratulations! Because all I saw was a driver that just hung around. That is half the battle. Don't lose ground. Rosenqvist never did. He never moved into one of the top positions. For a driver who had finished 27th in three of the last four Indianapolis 500s, this is the kind of day Rosenqvist needed. The car was good. It could hold its ground. It felt we should have seen this race last year if the engine had not let him down.
It is not much, but it is a small victory for Rosenqvist and Meyer Shank Racing.
6. If Kyle Kirkwood had started better than 23rd I think he would have been a factor in this race. Kirkwood had a good opening stint, but then a slow pit stop knocked him out of the top fifteen. He spent the rest of the race climbing forward, and it got him sixth at the checkered flag. If it wasn't for all that work, Kirkwood might have been the Andretti car at the front in the closing laps.
Second and sixth is a remarkable day for Andretti Global, because at one point none of its cars were better than 16th. These were a hard-earned results, and unnecessarily so.
7. Seven starts. Seven top ten finishes. Seven times completing all 500 miles. Seventh-place for Santino Ferrucci.
I feel like Ferrucci has had five Indianapolis 500s like this. Not bad. Not impressive. Good run. Good speed. No mistakes. The car ends up in the top ten. You cannot ask for more than that. Ferrucci never factored into the top five battle. It always felt like he was behind two or three too many cars to be noticed. He lost at least a spot or two in the final pit cycle, and then Kirkwood passed him in the closing laps.
Seven consecutive times completing all 500 miles matches the record Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon were carrying into this race. Ferrucci hasn't failed to finish off the lead lap yet. Why should the eighth time be any different in 2026?
8. Christian Rasmussen was on the same strategy as Marcus Ericsson. For Rasmussen, the entire Ed Carpenter Racing team stayed out when the third caution of the race came out for rain about 19 laps into the race. The ECR cars went over 40 laps on that first stint and it shook out to where Rasmussen could make his final stop comfortably with 25 laps to go. It got him many positions, but he didn't quite have the track position to have his race work out like Ericsson's.
It ends up being eighth for Rasmussen, a good day, four spots better than last year. ECR had good race pace. If it wasn't for the issues of Alexander Rossi and Ed Carpenter, this could have been a greater day for this team. At least Rasmussen could get some kind of consolation prize for this group.
9. Christian Lundgaard did not have an outstandingly good day. Lundgaard spent much of the race battling in the middle of the field, and at times it did not look like he was comfortable out there. In an odd way, a slow tire puncture set Lundgaard up to be more on the strategy of Ericsson and Rasmussen where Lundgaard could run hard and not have to conserve fuel as the final pit window approached. That help Lundgaard gain some spots in the final stint.
At halfway, there is no way Lundgaard thought he was finishing ninth. This race was always going to be a learning experience for him after his first three years at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. He should be encouraged for next year.
10. For one moment in this race, everyone thought Conor Daly would be the driver to beat. The race appeared to be in his control, but when it became clear the leaders would need to save fuel to make it into that final pit window, Daly suddenly lost rear grip and spots. He slid back at a time when he could not afford it. Daly was losing ground when he, and everyone else around him, was saving fuel.
It was strange to see because he wasn't driving harder. It makes no sense how his tires were gone and to the point where he could not drive five-miles-per-hour slower than the average race pace. Daly made his final stop with 34 laps to go, which meant he had to save fuel on the final stint, and that cost him a little more time. He still finished tenth, but it was looking to be much greater than that. This race went pear-shape quickly on Daly.
11. The box score for this race will never been able to fully articulate the story. At multiple points, an unthinkable driver was leading this race. Takuma Sato started second, so it should make sense he would lead some laps, but it didn't feel real in that opening quarter of the race that Sato was the guy to beat.
Sure enough, Sato would slide through his pit box and lose all that ground and then some, but digesting this box score will be something. It never felt like Sato was going to be the guy today even as he led all those laps. A one-off driver for a team that was not strong on pace was not going to steal this race. In a way, the lack of race experience this season was likely a cause for that slide through the pit box. It is tough to win this race. It is even tougher to do it as a one-off. Sato got 11th though.
12. Callum Ilott had a really good race for Prema. Pit strategy got Ilott into the top ten for most of this race and he was holding his own. It was nothing special, but Ilott looked pretty good for a driver who had not drawn any attention to himself all month and was clearly the second-most talked about Prema driver entering this race.
The key thing for this team and Ilott was it ran all 500 miles. This team needed to learn and it got a full race out of it. Not only did it learn, but the team was competitive. Some of that qualifying pace transferred over to the race. This is a good place to start for Prema's sophomore appearance in 2026.
13. Hélio Castroneves was on the verge of a top ten finish before he had to stop with one lap to go to top off for fuel. If Castroneves had finished in the top ten, everyone would have been impressed because he did not register once in this race. I hate to think this is where Castroneves is at in his career, but he is over 50 years old. There is a reason why we went 25 years between races with drivers 50-and-up. I don't think Castroneves is going anywhere. I am penciling in a 26th attempt in 2026. I might even feel good to count on a 27th in '27, but I know there aren't that many left and they might not be the races we wish to see Castroneves end on.
14. Devlin DeFrancesco was 14th ahead of Louis Foster in 15th. Not a bad day for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, but not a great day. DeFrancesco and Foster were both off-strategy. It led to DeFrancesco leading some laps, but most alternate strategies are not going to work. A good number are not going to get you close. This got DeFrancesco 14th and Foster 15th. Maybe a little better than if they had done nothing different from the leaders.
I will tackle Graham Rahal here, because he was 20th, and three RLLR cars in the top 20 is fine. We have seen in recent years RLLR not qualify well at Indianapolis but race well enough to get into the top-half of the field. Rahal didn't get there. He couldn't find a balance at the rear of the car, and attempting an alternate strategy was not going to change that.
With Sato starting on the front row and pushing for a top ten result, RLLR has some speed. It must find what it can do to spread that across all of its entries while also improving their cars for race conditions.
15. Nolan Siegel spun off of turn two and brought out a caution as Palou came off of turn four and was running to the checkered flag. I don't think we lost anything. I don't think Ericsson was going to slingshot Palou at the finish line. Palou was going to win this race even if Siegel had not spun or race control held the caution flag.
As for Siegel he was just outside the top ten when the accident happened, and I don't think he was mentioned once all race. This did cost Siegel best rookie finisher as he was running 12th when he spun, and this gave Louis Foster the top rookie finisher honors.
Does that mean Louis Foster should be Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year? More on that in a moment.
That is what we call a tease, people!
16. Colton Herta sped on pit lane early in the race and lost a lap. With how this race shook out with the alternate strategies and drivers staying out under caution, Herta never had the chance to wave around back onto the lead lap. He honestly spent probably the last 150 laps a lap down and couldn't get back into the fight. Herta looked competitive in that opening stanza. I think he was good enough to finish in the top ten and push for the top five like Kirkwood did. This is just another case of where this team must clean up the errors on pit lane across the board.
17. It was never fully explained what happened to Ed Carpenter, but he made an extra pit stop with 20 laps to go. This knocked Carpenter off the lead lap and it cost him a run for a top ten result. It wasn't clear if it was a mechanical issue or the team just didn't get the car full of fuel and instead of trying to stretch it the team just took its lumps immediately. Carpenter had a good day prior to this.
That was the second biggest blow for Ed Carpenter Racing as Alexander Rossi had a gearbox issue while running in the top five, and Rossi's race was over after 73 laps, 31st in the record book.
Based on where Rasmussen finished and where Carpenter was running before that final pit stop, it looks like Rossi was going to be set for just a top ten result, but the opportunity was robbed from him. To make matters worse, there was the pit lane fire as the team checked the car. That wasn't connected to the gearbox issue. A little fuel splashed onto the car as the crew was checking it over. It was a painful finish, literally to some, to what was a promising day.
18. Will Power had to make an additional pit stop with four laps to go. Even before then, Power was absent in this race. He might have been in the running for a top ten finish, but we didn't see it or hear from him all race. This is Power's sixth consecutive Indianapolis 500 finishing outside the top ten. He was a lap down in 19th.
After everything that went down for Team Penske, a race where it wasn't a factor is penance in its own right. This kind of Indianapolis 500 will not be the norm for Team Penske, but this was the "500" everyone else needed to see from Team Penske this year.
19. I don't know what Marcus Armstrong did today other than avoid Marco Andretti spinning on the first lap in anger. Armstrong ran 198 laps and finished 21st. He had a pit lane speeding penalty as well. This feels like a missed opportunity because Armstrong's original car looked poised to make the Fast 12 and be at the front of the field. This backup car never got close to that level.
20. Let's cover both Dreyer & Reinbold Racing cars because they finished 22nd and 24th. Both went off strategy. Both spent a fair portion of the race at the front. Jack Harvey sped on pit lane for his final stop. Harvey likely was not going to finish better than 15th. It was a more notable day for Harvey than many likely expected. He ran well, and he needed a good day at Indianapolis especially since he is a one-off. He at least earned himself another year at D&R if they want him and if he wants it as well.
21. This race was Ryan Hunter-Reay's entering the final round of pit stops. Lost in the shuffle of all of these strategies was Hunter-Reay stretched his fuel, including waiting to stop until the last minute before a restart to make sure the car was full with one fewer lap to run. It hit a point where Hunter-Reay could easily make it to the final pit window without having conserve anything. Hunter-Reay made his penultimate pit stop and came out ahead of all the "leaders." Everyone thought Hunter-Reay would pit and then Daly and company would be in front, but Hunter-Reay held his ground because the field was already starting to save.
It looked promising that Hunter-Reay could get into that window and not have to worry about pedaling the car in the final laps while the cars directly behind him would have to watch their pace to make sure they could make it. In that case, Hunter-Reay could control the race and put the hammer down to make the field chase and eventually cough.
It was Hunter-Reay race... as long as he didn't stall in the pit lane. And he stalled in the pit lane! He led 48 laps and on his final pit stop, Hunter-Reay stalled and the car never restarted.
It was too good to be true. The one-off driver who is driving a car that was built overnight Friday into Saturday after a pit fire on Carb Day, and which only had about 20 installation laps on it was not going to win the Indianapolis 500. It looked like it, but reality kicked down the door when it became too real.
Hunter-Reay and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing did everything right. It put the car in an unexpected position and the race was theirs until it wasn't.
22. If there is any driver who should be angry after this race it is Scott Dixon because Dixon was brought in to get his left rear brake caliber changed on lap 29 as the race was about to restart on lap 30. Worse though is we all saw the left rear brakes on fire on the pace laps. We were all concerned about this issue. When the team did this change, it was at the end of an 11-lap caution period and the team had already made a pit stop.
I understand the team waiting to see if there was something to be concerned about and once they made that pit stop realizing it had to be fixed, but the team waited a good three laps after they changed tires to make change the brakes. It should have been done immediately.
That caution was for weather. Anytime drops are felt, that caution is going to be at least 10-15 laps. Never has someone felt rain drops and then decided after three laps under caution, "We're good." They are going to wait and make sure everything has passed.
Dixon's team should have bit the bullet and made the change as soon as possible under caution. Waiting until the race was about to go green was race suicide. Dixon lost three laps and never got those back. Dixon was fortunate with the amount of attrition he could rise to 23rd. But it feels like Dixon could have been in the top ten even after changing the brakes.
One caution lap takes a lot of time at Indianapolis. If Dixon's crew could change the brakes in three green flag laps, it could be done in one caution lap and Dixon would have remained on the lead lap. He would have had work to do but if there is one driver that could move forward with over 170 laps to play with, it is Dixon. That is the most baffling thing about this race. I don't understand how the Dixon crew got it this wrong.
23. It was shaping up for Josef Newgarden to be in the mix for the victory after starting 32nd. Newgarden was in the top ten after 80 laps. He was up to seventh after 300 miles. It was lining up for Newgarden to at least be lurking in the background, but then a fuel pump failed as he made what would have been his penultimate pit stop. The streak for three was over.
In a way, IndyCar needed this result more than a third consecutive Indianapolis 500 victory. As great as Newgarden is and for all that he has accomplish, IndyCar didn't need a shadow over this accomplishment. It was always going to be there if Newgarden had won. It would have been fair and square and it would have been astonishing to see Newgarden win from 32nd. You cannot dismiss a driver winning from 32nd, but we needed a break. I don't think anyone could stomach Team Penske immediately ending up back on top after what happened last week with the modified attenuator. We needed a break. Penske wasn't kicked out of the race, but it was far from having its greatest day.
24. From one story of the month to the story of the last two years. Kyle Larson's second attempt at The Double faced another rain storm. This was more a spritz. It wasn't even enough to call it a shower. It still erased all the wiggle room Larson had for himself before the green flag even waved to start the race. Larson needed 500 uninterrupted miles for running 1,100 miles to be a possibility. The early cautions didn't help. He was up against his deadline of needing to leave to make it to Charlotte on time for the Coca-Cola 600.
Larson stalled on his first pit stop and this put him to the very back. He made up some ground, but he was not rocketing through the field. As the field backed up into turn two on the lap 92 restart, Larson went low and spun the car as he downshifted. He collected Sting Ray Robb and Kyffin Simpson, and The Double attempt was over about 272.5 miles shy of what he needed from Indianapolis.
It is hard to live up to the first time, but in two attempts, weather has been uncooperative both times. In each visit to Indianapolis, Larson made his own errors with the car. He bogged down a restart and sped on pit lane last year. This year, it was stalling in pit lane and making a mistake downshifting, which likely led to that spin.
The Double is hard. There is a reason very few drivers have attempted it and there is a reason why the first three guys to attempt it were open-wheel drivers who were transitioning to stock car racing.
Kurt Busch and Larson are the only drivers to go the other way. Busch only did it once. For all the great talent in NASCAR, it has not been an endless string of drivers wandering into Indianapolis each May to try and achieve grueling task. It is hard to have everything line up outside the car let alone inside two race cars to complete 1,100 miles in two different races.
Do we see a year three? I don't know. Neither NASCAR nor IndyCar made the second attempt easier.
NASCAR said if a driver needs a playoff waiver, he forfeits all his playoff points, which would have put Larson at a significant disadvantage entering the playoffs as he tries to win a championship. IndyCar didn't make it easy for McLaren and making sure Tony Kanaan was prepared as a relief driver. For something both series would be the first to celebrate and use for their own glory, both NASCAR and IndyCar made it more difficult for Larson and any future driver to do this. I am sure that is on his mind.
25. Larson got 27th. Sting Ray Robb was placed in 26th and Kyffin Simpson was 28th after that accident. It isn't like either Robb or Simpson had done anything special before that point. It is a shame for both. Both were innocent bystanders. Simpson had nowhere to go as Larson spun into him. Robb got into the marbles avoiding Larson and that led to a brush with the outside wall and then a spin into the inside tire barrier.
26. Our Indianapolis 500 pole-sitter had two bad pit stops. One due to a slow right rear tire change and the other when Robert Shwartzman slid into his pit box and hit three crew members, as well as breaking his suspension while hitting the pit wall. This ended Shwartzman's debut "500" after 87 laps and placed him in 29th... and I would consider voting for Robert Shwartzman for Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year.
It isn't like Louis Foster or Nolan Siegel did anything great. Foster completed all 500 miles. Not bad. He was 15th. Not bad. Siegel was set to finish 12th and complete all 500 miles before his final trip into turn two ended in the barrier. I don't think either Foster or Siegel did anything in the race more impressive than what Shwartzman and Prema did in qualifying.
They won pole position on debut for both team and driver! Shwartzman made a bad error in his pit box, and his race exit is all on him. When it comes to the 109th Indianapolis 500, who are we going to remember the most? It will be Shwartzman on pole position in an unthinkable achievement. That is enough for me.
27. Rinus VeeKay spun entering the pit lane after what was a promising start to his race as he was in the top ten though on an alternate strategy. VeeKay said he had no brakes when he was entering pit lane and he snapped around. I do wonder if there is something IndyCar can regulate when it comes to the brakes at Indianapolis.
This isn't the first time we have seen a car spinning entering pit lane. We saw it on a near-yearly basis not long ago. These teams are trying to get every advantage they can get. The teams adjust the brake pads so they are set back and not causing any drag, which leads many to believe this is way we see some of these spins. The brake pad is too far back and requires extra effort on the pedal to slow the car down, which can lead to it snapping around.
There are so many safety regulations and there must be a way IndyCar can set it so the brake pads are more effective and try to eliminate these pit lane spins. It looks bad when cautions occur because someone spins entering pit lane. It is really an unnecessary caution, and it can mess up a race when it occurs in the middle of a pit cycle. These accidents will happen, but they seem to happen with too frequently to believe that there is nothing IndyCar can do. Mandating the brake pads are set at a certain position might slow the cars down but it will slow everyone down, and it isn't going to take 20 mph out of the average speed. We are losing maybe a half-mile-per-hour.
VeeKay spun through a few pit boxes. We are one incident away from a car spinning into pit lane while a crew in one of those first pit boxes is in the middle of a stop and it being an ugly scene. Let's prevent that now and before a handful of people are hurt or worse.
The other solution is make all pit entries be on the access road in turn three and have a multi-speed pit limit like we saw at Texas for a number of years. It would at least protect the crew members.
28. There is a cruelty that Marco Andretti was taken out on the first lap in anger because two cars bumped into each other and that bumped Andretti into a spin. I am tired of hearing about the "Andretti Curse." At this point most of it is Marco Andretti only running one race a year and the rest of the grid is significantly better than Andretti's current level. This accident wasn't Andretti's fault, but it is cruel that it is him and he isn't going to get into a race car again until next April in preparations for the 110th Indianapolis 500. If he gets that chance.
This was Andretti's 20th Indianapolis 500. He has been Indianapolis-only for the last five years. Each year has gotten a little worse. He was in the last chance qualifying session this year. Michael Andretti is no longer leading Andretti Global. The Andretti name has become a brand and Dan Towriss is the man in charge. I don't believe Marco Andretti has an Indianapolis 500 ride in perpetuity like he once did.
If Dan Towriss believes there is a bigger name for that fourth car that gives the team a greater chance at winning, he isn't going to keep giving Andretti a ride from the kindness of his heart. McLaren has run Kyle Larson the last two years and apparently had Kyle Busch lined up before that. Jenson Button apparently had someone interested in getting him an entry this year.
If Andretti Global believes it is a global name, it is going to want someone who can actually be a contender as a one-off. Marco Andretti isn't that guy. He hasn't been that guy in a decade.
29. I don't think many wanted to see Team Penske succeed today. I don't think anyone want to see Scott McLaughlin's day end in a more crushing fashion though, spinning into the inside wall on the front straightaway on the pace laps. In an attempt to warm his tires, McLaughlin lost it and his race was over before it began. He looked broken when he was out of the car. There is not much more embarrassing for a race car driver than wrecking a race car when you are going 80 miles per hour.
J.R. Hildebrand ran a little high exiting turn four and it cost him an Indianapolis 500 victory, but he still finished second and it would have happened to any driver put in that same position. Thirty-two other drivers were able to keep their tires warm and not spin into the wall on the pace laps.
I think everyone wanted McLaughlin to be a non-factor and finish 13th. I don't think anyone wanted this. McLaughlin is a fantastic driver, and he just had the lowest moment any driver could imagine.
The good news is this sets ups the redemption arc for next year when he goes from out before the race began to first to the checkered flag in 2026. Write it down now. It is bound to happen.
30. This is kind of an Indianapolis 500 issue where there are 26 drivers that will run the entire season and then there are seven drivers who likely will run a combined seven races the entire year.
One of those one-off drivers is the exception in Kyle Larson, but for Ryan Hunter-Reay, this is his only race. For Takuma Sato, this is his only race. Ed Carpenter is only running Indianapolis this year. Marco Andretti isn't running another race. Jack Harvey will be a pit reporter at all the other races, but he isn't going to be driving. Hélio Castroneves actually ran a Stock Car Brasil race earlier this month and Castroneves might be running more in that series later this year, but for 2/3rds of the one-off drivers, it is literally Indianapolis and that is it.
None of them are running sports cars part-time or even full-time! We don't get someone who is full-time elsewhere having Indianapolis fall nicely in a break in their schedules that they can run it.
It is doubtful we are going to see any of those guys in another IndyCar race this year. At least none of them are planning on it. Carpenter isn't running a USAC Silver Crown car on pavement for fun in his spare time. This isn't entirely new, but this isn't like we are seeing a collection of the sharpest drivers arriving at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to run the Indianapolis 500. It is worse now with the hybrid system and how that changes the car. It has been pretty drastic and no one has stepped into this car since the system was introduced and been competitively quick.
I don't know how to change it though. There is no great way to simulate the hybrid and the weight it adds to the car. IndyCar could mandate every driver must run at least two races prior to the Indianapolis 500, but that would definitely kill Larson and any future NASCAR driver attempting The Double. It wouldn't be that beneficial if there are no oval races before the "500." Sure, it would be helpful to get the drivers seat time and a chance to experience it at St. Petersburg, Long Beach or Barber is better than nothing, but it then requires those drivers to fund another $500,000 or more in funding. It would drive some drivers away. Somebody would be there to fill the vacancy, but let's be careful what we wish for.
It isn't going to be fixed anytime soon. It is just something that crossed my mind today and really over the last two weeks.
31. Somehow, this race was completed in two hours, 57 minutes and 38 seconds despite there being 45 caution laps. The final 92 laps were essentially all green flag laps. That makes up for the six cautions in the first 106 laps. There were a few sloppy restarts and that is nothing new for IndyCar on ovals.
There must be a better way because too often it is cars stacking up on top of one another. It was bad two years ago when that race had restart after restart and they couldn't run two consecutive green flag laps. I thought that would have been a wakeup call. It wasn't. Today wasn't a mess, but it was closer than it should have been.
I have said it before but restarts at this present time, and many race procedures for that matter, are set for chaos. There used to be a time where you couldn't pass before the start/finish line. Every restart is a free-for-all now. Pass whenever you want. Now, it is advantageous to be ninth and you can get a run on the three cars in front of you if they stack up. You can be up three spots before you even get to the start/finish to begin the first lap back under green.
There is a simple way to clean all this up. Just ban passing before the start/finish line on a restart. No one is allowed out of line. No one can move ahead. You must remain in line until start/finish. It would eliminate any stacking up and cars moving early. Everyone will hate it because they will see it as restrictive, but you cannot have it both ways. What do we want? It is going to remain sloppy if we do nothing. We can still have good racing and keep some order. No one ever complains a race is too well run, ut we all lose it when it looks like amateur-hour.
32. This was an odd race. Between the unexpected rain delay to the main characters of IndyCar not being a factor. If last year's race was a
statement race for IndyCar, this was a pretty misleading race for the series as a whole. Takuma Sato and Ryan Hunter-Reay combined to lead 99 laps! Devlin DeFrancesco was tied for the third-most laps led. Team Penske didn't lead. Scott Dixon didn't lead a lap. McLaren led only two laps, laps nine and ten.
But in a way, it was the perfect statement of what the 2025 season has been. No one is as consistent as Álex Palou. There has been one constant this season. Palou wins and it is always someone else behind him. It was Dixon and then it was O'Ward. Kirkwood won a race, so he got the best of Palou, but then it was Lundgaard finishing behind him. Two weeks ago, it was Graham Rahal of all people giving Palou a run. Today it was Marcus Ericsson out of nowhere.
Absurdity has been the identity of this 2025 season, but it always ends with Álex Palou on top. Tune in next week in Detroit when Marcus Armstrong and Meyer Shank Racing will end up second to Palou and no other driver ranked in the top five of the championship finishes better than 13th. Palou might lock up the championship before we get to Bastille Day.
33. 364 days until the 110th Indianapolis 500.
