Full house of more than 300,000 fans saw a roller-coaster 500.
- O’Ward’s Bittersweet Weekend
- Backup Cars Fail to Deliver
- Tough Race for Team Penske
- Start Left Something to Be Desired
- Several Early Exits
- But Wait, There’s More
In a race where so much was made about the chances of his other four Chip Ganassi Racing teammates, Marcus Ericsson was almost a forgotten member of the CGR quintet of drivers in Sunday’s Indianapolis 500.
But once the 200-lap race was over, the 31-year-old Swedish driver went from forgotten to unforgettable, capturing the 106th Running of the Indianapolis 500.
“I can’t believe it, I’m so happy,” Ericsson said with both a smile on his face and welling of tears in his eyes. “It’s going to take a while to take it in. It’s just so incredible. I’ve worked so hard to do well in the Greatest Spectacle In Racing. My whole family and girlfriend were here. It’s just unbelievable.”
Pato O’Ward finished second, followed by veteran driver and Ericsson’s Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Tony Kanaan. Felix Rosenqvist was fourth, followed by Alexander Rossi.
Rounding out the top 10 finishers in the Greatest Spectacle In Racing were Conor Daley, 2021 Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, Simon Pagenaud, Alex Palou and Santino Ferrucci.
IndyCar gets right back at it next weekend when it races for the final time at Detroit’s Belle Isle park. Next year, the race shifts to a street course in downtown Motor City.
Pato O’Ward’s holiday weekend included a new contract and a runner-up finish in the 500.
Jamie SquireGetty Images
O’Ward’s Bittersweet Weekend
Friday, Pato O’Ward signed a new three-year contract extension with Arrow McLaren SP, and looked to bookend the weekend with a win in Sunday’s big race.
Unfortunately, the Mexican driver finished one spot lower than the eventual winner.
Complete Indy 500 results – PRINTABLE PDF
“It’s a bittersweet moment,” O’Ward said. This is our best 500 result. We were just there for the win. My team gave me a frickin’ rocket ship. Just frustrated out of our control cost us that and cost us more of a chance at getting a run on the leader. We did everything to protect against that. It still wasn’t fast enough, which is annoying.”
O’Ward came so close to challenging Ericsson going into Turn 1 on the final lap, but just didn’t have enough to overtake the eventual winner.
“When the restart happened, I had one shot, I had to go flat and it just wasn’t enough,” O’Ward said. “We have to come back here and give it hell again. It’s my best in the 500 but still a tough pill to swallow when did everything correctly.”
O’Ward has now finished second in 2022 and was third in 2021.
“We need to come back with something better next year because it wasn’t good enough,” O’Ward said.
Colton Herta was a non-factor on race day after crashing his primary car on Carb Day.
Icon SportswireGetty Images
Backup Cars Fail to Deliver
Colton Herta and IndyCar rookie David Malukas both started the race in untested backup cars after they wrecked their primary cars in Friday’s Carb Day.
Herta finished 30th, exiting the race about after Lap 130 due to mechanical issues, while Malukas finished 16th.
“Now all you can think of is what if Friday didn’t happen,” Herta told NBC. “It’s disappointing.”
Josef Newgarden is still winless at the Indianapolis 500.
Icon SportswireGetty Images
Tough Race for Team Penske
On a day that Roger Penske was celebrated for all the improvements he made to Indianapolis Motor Speedway and welcomed 300,000 race fans to the track for the first time since 2019, Team Penske had an overall disappointing showing.
Josef Newgarden will have to wait yet another year for his hoped-for first Indy 500 win, finishing 13th, the best showing of his teammates.
Will Power started the highest (11th) of the three entries for Penske, but his car got “wicked loose” in the first quarter of the race as he said on his team radio. Then when he came onto pit road for an adjustment, the car stalled and his team had to push him back into his pit spot before he was able to refire.
Power could never recover and finished 15th.
And New Zealand driver Scott McLaughlin, in his second full season in the NTT IndyCar Series, crashed on Lap 153 and was unable to continue. McLaughlin ended up 29th in the 33-car field.
But Team Penske has two other organizations that can commiserate with it.
First, Andretti Autosport. Other than Rossi’s fifth-place finish, the rest of AA’s entries had rough outings: rookie Devlin DeFrancesco (19th), Marco Andretti (22nd), Colton Herta (30th, mechanical issues) and Romain Grosjean (31st, crashed).
And then there was Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, which saw Graham Rahal finish 14th, followed by rookie Christian Lundgaard 20th and Jack Harvey (24th).
The start of the 106th Indianapolis 500 won’t go down as the cleanest start in race history.
Justin CasterlineGetty Images
Start Left Something to Be Desired
It was surprising that IndyCar race control didn’t call for a restart at the beginning of the event.
Cars are supposed to cross the start-finish line in uniform rows of three, but by the time pole-sitter Scott Dixon, as well as first row compatriots Alex Palou and Rinus Veekay, crossed the line and took the green flag to start the race, cars were scattered seemingly all over the pace.
Given the fact that roughly 300,000 fans were in attendance—plus the length of the event that would provide plenty of time for cars to move up—perhaps race control officials felt it was more prudent to let the race go on rather than incur fans’ wrath and booing if the field had to go through a restart.
Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin wasn’t able to make the 500-mile distance on Sunday.
Icon SportswireGetty Images
Several Early Exits
One of the most promising prospects to win Sunday’s race came to an abrupt end when Dutch driver Rinus VeeKay lost control of his car heading into Turn 2 on Lap 39 and slid backward into the retaining wall.
“I’m so sorry, guys,” VeeKay said on his team radio. He added that the car just snapped around and he lost control, leaving him along for the ride.
VeeKay, who finished 20th as a rookie in 2020 and improved to eighth in last year’s Indy 500, will go down in history as being the first driver out of Sunday’s race, finishing at the back of the pack in 33rd place.
VeeKay was among the top picks to win Sunday’s race, qualifying on the outside of the front row for the second straight year (and in his first year in 2020, he qualified fourth).
“We put the car on the front row and were P2, I turned into Turn 2 and the car gets loose,” VeeKay told NBC Sports. “Once that happens, you’re a passenger and you can’t do anything. Just a bummer. We had a good shot at it. Caught me off-guard.”
• On Lap 69, British rookie Callum Ilott had an almost identical crash as VeeKay’s wreck, losing it entering Turn 2 and ended his day, as well.
Ilott suffered a minor injury to his right hand, but said he expects to be okay in a few days.
Former Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean was making his first Indianapolis 500 start.
Chris GraythenGetty Images
• Then on Lap 107, just barely past the halfway point of the event, Romain Grosjean, who was making his first appearance in the 500 after a lengthy career in Formula 1, also lost control and slid backwards into the Turn 2 wall.
“We felt good, it’s just disappointing to finish that way,” Grosjean said on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network. “The rear went out without warning. I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t trying anything different. I’m going to try and analyze and move on from that. It’s bittersweet. It’s not the way I wanted to finish the race.”
Like VeeKay, Grosjean also said over his team radio, “Sorry, guys.”
• Scott McLaughlin then suffered a hard hit on Lap 153 when he slammed into the Turn 4 wall. While it was a different place, it was a similar wreck to those endured by VeeKay, Ilott and Grosjean across the track in Turn 2.
“Just a bruised ego,” McLaughlin told NBC. “It just caught me, snapped around and put me in the fence. It’s the fifth crash here, but unfortunately it happens.”
Helio Castroneves came up short in his bid for a record fifth Indy 500 victory.
Jamie SquireGetty Images
But Wait, There’s More
Helio Castroneves’ chances of repeating and becoming the first driver to win the 500 five times, fell short as last year’s race winner finished seventh Sunday. “This is a place where within three hours, anything can happen,” Castroneves said. “I wish I would have had a little more potency. The car was really good, it just didn’t have enough speed.” … Two-time Indy 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya finished 11th in what potentially could be his last appearance in the Greatest Spectacle In Racing. Montoya turns 47 on September 20. … In a mid-pack race within a race, David Malukas passed Kyle Kirkwood in the closing laps to finish 16th and earned highest-finishing rookie honors.
Follow Autoweek contributor Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski
Keyword: Subplots Aplenty Spice Marcus Ericsson's Win in 106th Indianapolis 500