What seemed like an easy and safe victory became one of the most spectacular finals in recent memory, as Marcus Ericsson held on after a late restart to win the 106th Indianapolis 500 Mile Race.
With five laps to go, Ericsson, a 31-year-old Swedish driver, held a nearly three-second lead over Pato O’Ward, the 23-year-old Mexican driver of the Arrow McLaren SP. But a late accident by Jimmie Johnson, the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion who raced in his first Indianapolis 500, brought out a red flag that stopped the race with four laps left.
In a two-lap penalty shootout after the restart, Ericsson knitted left and right to interrupt the flow and fight an intense O’Ward charge to grab the checkered flag.
“I knew the car was fast enough, but it was still hard,” Ericsson told NBC after the race. “I had to do my best to keep them back. I can’t believe it, I’m very happy.”
The thrilling finale unfolded in front of a packed house, the first of 500 in two years due to the pandemic, while IndyCar continues to struggle with Formula 1 to capture the attention of racing fans. open wheels.
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Ericsson, who spent five years without a Formula One victory before joining the IndyCar series in 2019, started the day in the second row and remained quietly in the top 10 for most of the year. race. His victory was the first Indianapolis 500 Mile victory for the Chip Ganassi Racing team in 10 years.
Two of Ericsson’s teammates in Ganassi dominated much of the race. New Zealander Scott Dixon, a six-time IndyCar champion who started the day with a pole position, swapped first place with teammate Alex Palou of Spain for the first laps. A badly timed pit stop in Palou, moments after a cautionary flag closed the pit road, sent him to the back of the field and basically ended his chance of victory.
Dixon, who won the Indianapolis 500 Miles in 2008, continued to lead most of the race until a speeding penalty at his last pit stop ruined his bid for a second victory.
Hélio Castroneves, the popular Brazilian driver, was hoping for a fifth record victory in the Indianapolis 500 Miles after winning his fourth last year. From the 27th, he patiently rolled his dice on the field and finished seventh.
Johnson, one of the most accomplished drivers in NASCAR history, had ranked an impressive 12th, but a tentative start saw him lose ground soon and run close to the back of the group for most of the race before the his late accident triggered the final drama of the race.
The crowd, which IndyCar officials said approached 325,000 people, marked a return to normalcy after two years of Covid outages. In 2020, the race was rescheduled in August with no spectators allowed, and last year’s attendance was limited to 135,000, about 40 percent of the capacity of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Sunday’s race concluded a busy month of open-wheel racing in the United States. In early May, Formula One hosted its inaugural Miami Grand Prix, a star-studded show that garnered the highest audiences on American television ever for a live Formula One race.
As global motor sport continues to grow in popularity, driven in part by the Netflix series “Drive to Survive,” there is uncertainty as to whether Formula 1 will threaten or enhance the North American-based IndyCar series. Formula One held its historic Monaco Grand Prix earlier in the day.
But after American racing mogul Roger Penske bought IndyCar in 2020, some, such as Colombian IndyCar driver Juan Pablo Montoya, who finished 11th in Sunday’s race, are optimistic about the future of the series.
“IndyCar is really on the rise right now,” Montoya said earlier this month. “And with Roger Penske taking over and Formula 1 growing in the United States, it’s exciting to think about what the next few years will bring.”