By Brad Lewis & Logan Swinkels
The 108th running of the Indianapolis 500 was perhaps the most chaotic in race history with a four-hour rain delay, 16 different leaders, eight cautions, penalties to contenders and the first back-to-back winner in 22 years.
Ultimately, after 200 manic laps of the world’s most famous oval, American Josef Newgarden won after a last-lap pass on Mexican Pato O’Ward - the Penske driver becoming the first in 22 years to secure back-to-back victories at The Brickyard.
As for the Kiwi challenge? Scott Dixon drove a masterful race, driving through the field to lead with 40 laps to go having started 21st, but slipped back to third behind Newgarden and O’Ward.
Pole sitter Scott McLaughlin led a majority of the first 100 laps, but a slipping clutch issue saw him struggle at restarts and in the pits to he come home sixth. Marcus Armstrong retired early with a dead engine.
The race was set to run at 12:45pm local time, but heavy thunderstorms pushed the race start back four hours, eventually the weather played ball for the 200 laps with most of the on-track carnage caused by the drivers.
Nine drivers failed to finish in total - including Penske’s Will Power who's late-race crash dented Dixon’s race-win hopes. The 2008 champion, alongside Arrow McLaren’s O’Ward had an effective one-lap lead over the field thanks to their smart race strategy, but when Power hit the fence that advantage diminished.
Dixon emerged from the final round of stops in the lead but was passed by a charging Newgarden, O’Ward and Alexander Rossi and looked to be settling for fourth, until he managed to slip past Rossi on the final lap.
Post-race, Dixon couldn't help but feel like it was a result that slipped through his fingers while acknowledging the efforts of those he shared the podium with today.
"I wish I could win, honestly," Dixon said.
"On that restart, when they (Newgarden and O'Ward) both blew by me, I thought 'this is going to be a problem' so once they started going back-and-forth, I was just flat out trying to keep up on their toes. We definitely didn't have the speed today."
McLaughlin came into the race having set the record for the fastest time in the Indy 500's 108-year history, averaging around 377km/h across his four laps - but on the day, sixth was the best the 30-year-old could manage after leading for 66 total laps.
"Congrats to Josef firstly, hell of a drive just bombing Pato around the outside at (turn) three - (it took) giant humongous things to do that," McLaughlin said post-race on NBC.
"We had a clutch drama all day unfortunately, that's just how it is, ultimately I'm glad for the fans - they got a full race in, and that's exactly what we want to see at Indianapolis.
"It was pretty intense - the fuel saving with the all the yellows made that happen, but it was hard. You wanted to play it safe and save the fuel, but you didn't want to get caught up and fall too far back.
"It's my fourth time here, best result yet, but it's hard not to feel selfish - congrats to Team Penske, but this place you just want to do it for yourself."
Dixon currently sits third in the driver standings on 127 points, 25 behind leader Alex Palou, while McLaughlin's sixth on 88 points following the 'push to pass' disqualification drama that enveloped Team Penske last month.
IndyCar returns to action this weekend on the streets of Detroit.
Crafted by Project Diamond