For the Daily Reporter
INDIANAPOLIS — The Indianapolis 500 rolls off the starting line Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As always, it contains many storylines to follow as the championship-within-a-race unfolds.
Mario and Marco
It’s the 50th anniversary of Mario Andretti’s historic 1969 Indianapolis 500 victory.
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His grandson, Marco Andretti, will be starting in the fourth row as he tries to become the second member of the family to put his face on the Borg-Warner Trophy. Marco’s car pays homage to the 1969 victory — with his Dallara painted in the same day-glo orange and using the same number font as Mario’s 1969 Hawk.
“Crossing that finish line was just the greatest moment of my life,” Mario said of his 1969 victory. “It was just amazing, just like the 900-pound gorilla was lifted off my shoulders. I figure from here on, it’s going to be easy to put a half a dozen together. But this turned out to be the one.
“The memories are vivid, no question about it, and again, just looking back, I just feel just how blessed I’ve been, and now we’ve got skin in the game with the kids having fun with it, and it just gives me every reason to be here every year, and like the first year, we just always look forward to coming here with the same energy and the same desire.”
As the driver of the two-seater, Mario will help lead the field at the start of the race. Marco, who finished second in a duel with Sam Hornish Jr. as a rookie in 2006, hopes to be the first across at the finish and have the same memories as his grandfather.
Can Helio win four?
After winning twice in his first two Indianapolis 500 starts in 2001-02 — and becoming the race’s 10th driver to win at least three races in 2009 — Helio Castroneves has spent the last decade pushing to join the exclusive four-time winner’s club. He has had six top 10 finishes in the decade since, including being the runner-up to Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2014 and Takuma Sato in 2017.
In his second year as an Indy-only driver for Team Penske, he starts this year’s race on the outside of Row 4.
“I’m excited again to be another year and have Roger (Penske) and (Tim) Cindric gave me another chance,” Castroneves said. “I can’t wait.”
There have been three four-time winners of the Indianapolis 500 — A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears. Like Castroneves, Unser was an Indy-only driver when he won his fourth in 1987. Foyt won his fourth in 1977 on the 10th anniversary of his third win. Both Unser and Mears won their fourth Indianapolis 500s while driving for Penske.
Winners in the field
In addition to Castroneves, the field features six other winners — Scott Dixon (2008), Tony Kanaan (2013), Ryan Hunter-Reay (2014), Alexander Rossi (2016), Takuma Sato (2017) and Will Power (2018).
Power (sixth) and Rossi (ninth) are the only two former winners starting in the first three rows.
Rookies
The race also features six rookies, with Colton Herta being the farthest forward, starting fifth. Herta won both road course races and the Freedom 100 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in an Indy Lights car in 2018.
The son of veteran driver and car owner Bryan Herta, Colton made a splash by winning the second race on this year’s IndyCar Series calendar at Circuit of the Americas.
Marcus Ericsson, Santino Ferucci, Ben Hanley, Jordan King and Felix Rosenqvist are also making their first Indianapolis 500 starts.
Penske at 50
Roger Penske first entered the Indianapolis 500 as a car owner in 1969, making this his golden anniversary at Indianapolis. His team made its first trip to the IMS Victory Lane with Mark Donohue in 1972, and nobody has been there more since. Penske-entered cars have won 17 Indianapolis 500s with 12 different drivers, the most recent being Will Power’s victory last year.
Penske also has a streak going of major races at IMS. Power won both the INDYCAR Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500 last year. Brad Keselowski won NASCAR’s Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard in September, and Simon Pagenaud won this year’s INDYCAR Grand Prix on the IMS road course.
“It’s all about the team,” Penske said “(We have) over 700 years of experience in the garage area this year. I think it’s the continuity. We have low turnover with our team. We always have had the best drivers. To me, the time and effort we put into Indianapolis is so important because over the years, we’ve built our brand around Indy.”
This year, Team Penske is fielding cars for Castroneves, Power, Pagenaud and 2017 IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden.
“We have four guys here that want to win the race,” Penske said. “There’s only going to be one. I think the effort and time, to see them work together, we have an open and transparent relationship with the drivers. We’re a team, one team, not four teams. I think that’s kind of the way we operated.”
Pagenaud from the pole
Pagenaud is trying to become the first polesitter since Castroneves to win the Indianapolis 500. He’s also trying to follow in Power’s footsteps to become the second straight driver to win both IndyCar Series races at Indy — the INDYCAR Grand Prix of Indianapolis and the Indianapolis 500.
Pagneaud is the first native of France to start from the pole in the Indianapolis 500 since Rene Thomas in 1919.
Now, the focus is on the 500-mile race. While 20 winners have come from the pole, more than any other starting position, it’s been a decade since a polesitter has won the race. Last year’s victory by Power was the first from the front row since 2018.
“It’s a long race, 500 miles,” Pagenaud said after qualifying. “I think at the beginning you taste the water or you test the water. You try to see how your car behaves in the front of the field, and that’s going to be a luxury, and then it’s very important to also see how the car behaves in traffic. So then if something happens, you can find a way to pass people. So that’s really going to be the name of the game. You also have fuel saving during the race, which is a very important thing to do, saving your tires, having clean pit stops.
“There’s a lot that goes into it. There’s a lot of execution that you have to put together to go to the end of the race and win. The last 30 laps is really where you need to position yourself and be ready to attack. That’s going to be what we’re going to try to do.”
Three in a row up front
Ed Carpenter Racing just missed the pole, but the Indianapolis-based team will have three of the top four spots on the grid, with Carpenter starting second, Spencer Pigot third and Ed Jones fourth.
Carpenter, a three-time polesitter, was runner-up to Power in the 2018 Indianapolis 500. He is trying to become the first Indiana native to win the Indianapolis 500 since Wilbur Shaw of Shelbyville won his third in 1940. But he also has two teammates in Pigot and Jones starting up front.
“The strength of the team is what I’m most excited about,” Carpenter said. “To have Ed Carpenter Racing cars starting second, third and fourth I think just speaks volumes to the organization and all our people and effort that they put into building our cars and the consistency of all the equipment is something I’m really personally proud of.”
Kaiser, Juncos bump Alonso
Coming into the Month of May, much of the focus was on Fernando Alonso, the two-time Formula One World Champion who was seeking to make his second start at Indy.
In a dramatic final run of Sunday’s Last Row Shootout, Kyle Kaiser bumped Alonso with a four-lap run of 227.372 mph — beating Alonso’s 227.353.
Running for Juncos Racing, Kaiser suffered a practice crash the day before qualifications. The team spent much of the intervening hours rebuilding the car and preparing it to make that final qualifying run and put itself in the field.
“It felt like we qualified on pole when I came in,” Kaiser said.
“I have to give the team pretty much all the credit here because they’ve been working super long nights. I think they had 40 straight hours of work trying to get that car together, getting us ready to practice the next day at 8 a.m., just an unbelievable effort. … This was just an amazing battle from their end, just looking for every little thing we could do, no matter what it was, sanding the car, just changing pieces, just doing everything possible to try and get the speed out of it.”
Several other feel-good stories will be part of the field. Ben Hanley and first-time entrant DragonSpeed will be making its first Indianapolis 500 appearance. And after failing to qualify last year, two drivers are back in. James Hinchcliffe qualified as part of the Last Row Shootout, while Pippa Mann clinched the final spot in Saturday’s first-day qualifying and will start 30th. Mann will be driving for another first-time entrant, Clauson-Marshall Racing.
Closest field
The spread of 1.8040 seconds from the fastest to the slowest qualifier makes this the closest field by qualifying speed in Indianapolis 500 history.
“All the cars are so close these days, and it’s very difficult to make a difference,” Pagenaud said.
“All the teams are raising the game, all the drivers are raising their game, as well. It’s honestly tremendous to be in this era of the sport because you get better and better every weekend, and it never stops.”
IndyCar Series consistency
Five different drivers have won the five IndyCar Series races this season — Newgarden, Herta, Rossi, Sato and Pagenaud. The series record for most consecutive races with different winners to start a season is seven, in 2017. This will be the first oval of the season, but the series remains deep and competitive, which will make for a tremendous race.
