INDIANAPOLIS — Just how much drama has there been ahead of the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500?
Enough that NASCAR driver Kyle Larson’s second straight attempt to complete the 1,100-mile double by finishing both the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” and the Cup Series’ Coca-Cola 600 at North Carolina’s Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday seems to have been largely overlooked heading into Memorial Day weekend, the biggest of the year on the auto racing calendar.
Motorsports titan Roger Penske’s credibility was tested this week, and he fired the top three executives of his IndyCar Series team because the cars of Josef Newgarden, who is seeking a third straight Indy 500 victory, and teammate Will Power failed inspection. Team Penske had modified a spec safety part — something IndyCar insists provided no competitive advantage — and it forced the owner to act.
The second major infraction in just more than a year at Team Penske put his reputation at stake. Penske, nicknamed “The Captain,” owns not just a three-car IndyCar team but the American open-wheel series itself, along with Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy 500 — the most important race in the world to him, and one the 88-year-old owner has won a record 20 times.
“We had an organizational failure not once but two times. It hurts me in my gut,” Penske told new TV partner Fox Sports. “There’s a certain amount of credibility you have to have. We let people down. We’ll move on, and our goal is to win the race.”
The grandstands are sold out for the first time since 2016, and the Indy 500 is slated to run hours before the Indiana Pacers host the New York Knicks in Game 3 of the NBA’s Eastern Conference title series a few miles away. Speedway officials expect 350,000 people to attend the race, which will be available for local TV viewers thanks to a blackout being lifted due to the sellout.
“The downside is that most of the talk going into our biggest race of the year is about that,” 2008 Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon, who drives for Chip Ganassi Racing, said of the Team Penske scandal. “There’s so many cool stories going into it.”
One of those is that Robert Shwartzman will become the first Israeli driver ever in the 33-car field when he leads it to the green flag Sunday as the first rookie to have won the pole position since 1983. The 25-year-old is both Russian and Israeli, though he races under the flag of Israel.
He locked up his top spot during last Sunday’s qualifying with Italian team Prema Racing, a dominant organization in Europe that this season expanded to IndyCar. Shwartzman has never before raced on an oval and will start on the front row alongside two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato and Pato O’Ward, who lost to Newgarden on the last lap year.
Shwartzman has been embraced by the crowd in Indianapolis.
“It’s been since the moment I felt like we were fast and people start noticing us that we were actually not too bad, we’re pretty competitive, it started picking up this level of people just, cheering, cheering, cheering,” Shwartzman said. “When we took the pole, it’s unbelievable, the roar, how loud it is. It’s been a long time since I heard that.”
The three Team Penske cars did not participate in the final day of qualifying. Scott McLaughlin crashed earlier that day, before Newgarden and Power were disqualified, and his car did not have the illegally altered piece on it.
McLaughlin will start 10th and is motivated to help Penske repair the team image. Newgarden, the two-time IndyCar season champion from Nashville, will start 32nd with Power in the final spot after the penalties.
“I know we have fast cars,” McLaughlin said. “Everyone feels that way, as well.”
No driver has ever won from the last row, but Newgarden believes it can be done. The field won’t be surprised after Newgarden not only was the fastest car in Friday’s final two-hour practice on Carb Day at IMS but won the pit stop challenge when his team beat Power’s in the finals.
“The Penskes are freaking missiles,” O’Ward said. “It’s going to be fun watching Josef carve his way through traffic.”
Said Newgarden: “We have the tools and the people to battle to the front, which is what we plan to do.”
O’Ward’s takeover
The 26-year-old Mexican driver for Arrow McLaren has become an IndyCar favorite, and he has twice had his heart broken in the Indy 500 with runner-up finishes. O’Ward’s third-place starting position is the best of his career at the Indy 500, and momentum for a victory has been building.
His energy vibrates around the speedway, where his purchase of a bomber jacket at the infield merchandise tent caused the item to sell out online and boost Indianapolis-brand Homefield to a national level. There were only five jackets, all size XL, still available Friday morning.
O’Ward also got the Indiana Dairy Association to bring a cow to the speedway Friday so he could milk it — a rookie tradition at the Indy 500 that he missed because his first appearance was during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We need more guys like Pato in NASCAR,” said Larson, the 2021 Cup Series champion who drives for Hendrick Motorsports on the stock-car circuit but is an Arrow McLaren teammate to O’Ward at Indy.
Hole in the resumé
Alex Palou has won four of the first five IndyCar races this season, but the 26-year-old Spaniard who drives for Ganassi has flown under the radar this month. The winner of three of the past four IndyCar series titles will start sixth in the Indy 500, where his best finish is second, although he’s been inside the top nine the past four years.
Palou, seeking a third straight series title, admitted if he never wins the Indy 500, his career would not be complete — and the 14-race winner has also yet to earn a victory on an oval.
“In that race, you don’t think about the championship at all,” Palou said. “A third place is not good enough. A second place is not good enough. It’s only first that counts.”
He’ll have a double (maybe)
The NASCAR star is again attempting to complete the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600, an accomplishment that he fell short of last year because of rain.
A long delay in Indianapolis made Larson late to Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, and the race had not only started by the time he arrived but been stopped by rain. He didn’t turn a single lap of the NASCAR leg.
He has not shown the same speed at Indy as he did a year ago, and being teammates with O’Ward has dulled some of the spotlight on him. Larson will make the NASCAR race his priority.
“I feel like I get a lot of attention in everything that I do and race, and I don’t really like that because I feel like it takes away from the spotlight of others,” Larson said. “This year has been better because I feel like I’ve kind of flown under the radar. Last year I felt, like, crazy. It’s been more normal, and I like it that way.”
Notable on Carb Day
The final opportunity to put cars on the track before race day turned out to be an eventful one for Rahal Letterman Lanigan and several other teams.
Graham Rahal, who struggled just to make the 33-card field, got only about 40 minutes of practice in before a mechanical issue produced a puff of smoke and fluid out the back of the No. 15 car. He wound up going to the garage area early.
“It just seems like we’ve always been behind and things keep happening,” said Rahal, whose team was still trying to diagnose the problem. “We can’t get caught up here. The car was better today, a lot better. … It is what it is at this stage. You just got to go.”
Sato, who will start for RLL in the middle of the front row, also failed to make it to the end. He pulled his car behind a wall and waited for time to run out on the session before his team began to troubleshoot his problems.
Ryan Hunter-Reay’s practice quite literally went up in smoke. Fire erupted out the back of the No. 23 car, which had been eighth-quickest in practice, and the 2014 Indy 500 winner had to quickly escape from the vehicle as the emergency crew arrived.
“I had a methanol fire back in 2003, and I just remember what went on there and that same kind of feeling. So after I felt a liquid or whatever it was — it could have been some kind of fire-retardant liquid — it just started to smoke more and more.”
Hunter-Reay wasn’t sure the extent of the damage to the rear of the car or what it could mean for his race.
In addition, Shwartzman spent long stretches in his pit box as Prema Racing tried to get his car working better in traffic; Andretti Global’s Colton Herta, who went to a backup car after a crash last Saturday, had trouble with his brake systems; Ed Carpenter’s hybrid system had to be replaced because it wasn’t working properly; and 2016 winner Alexander Rossi, who also drives for Ed Carpenter Racing, went to the garage just 30 minutes into practice because of water that suddenly began leaking from the back of his car.
The result was a busy Gasoline Alley just 48 hours before the green flag drops.
“I think the car has been good and we were happy with where we were in practice Monday,” said Rossi, who will start on the outside of the fourth row. “But that’s what Carb Day is for, to find issues like this.”