Story By: ANNE FORNORO / AJ FOYT RACING – INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Weather delayed the start of the 108th Running of the Indianapolis 500 by four hours but for the nearly sold-out crowd, it was worth the wait as Josef Newgarden and Pato O’Ward waged an epic battle trading the lead with daring passes in the closing laps. Newgarden clinched his second straight Indy 500 and 20th triumph for Team Penske with a pass on the final lap.
AJ Foyt Racing’s Chevrolets both ran at the sharp end of the grid with Santino Ferrucci finishing eighth to set a record of six straight top-10 finishes in six starts. Sting Ray Robb led four times for a total of 23 laps in the No. 41 Goodheart.vet/Pray.com Chevrolet and finished 16th after starting 23rd.
Although 18 drivers led at least one lap including Ferrucci, Robb led the third highest amount of laps trailing only Scott McLaughlin (64) and eventual winner Newgarden, who led 26 laps including the most important lap.
“I think that was the most fun I’ve had in a race car on an oval,” said Robb afterwards. “The team did such a good job on the stops. I went long on one but they kept it together. Great stops all day, great strategy. That last yellow, if it wasn’t for that, I think we would have been fighting for the win. I’m so proud of these guys, I thought we were the car to beat out there. It feels so good. I’m so happy.”
“Goodheart has been with us for five years,” he continued, saying, “I think it’s the first dog (referring to the No. 41’s paw prints livery) to cross the start/finish line in the lead in the Indy 500 so huge thank you to them for sticking with us and getting the rewards for it. Pray.com was a new partner this year and we wouldn’t be here without them so I’m grateful that they’re a part of this. I love our brands, our partners, and I want more to join the ride so they can experience this with us. ”
Ferrucci’s hopes for improving on his third-place finish in 2023 were dashed when the second to last fuel stint saw him struggle for speed and he dropped back to 15th. After he made his final stop with 27 laps to go, he posted his fastest lap of the race in the No. 14 Homes For Our Troops Chevrolet and climbed back to eighth, which is where he finished.
“Real proud of the team today, solid effort all around. It’s been a far from a perfect month of May. This was definitely one of the most difficult months of May I’ve had in my six years at this place with the least amount of track time. But we made history today with six top 10s in a row from my rookie start, we raised hopefully over $4 million for our charity Homes For Our Troops which is impressive and that means more than anything else.
“I think we look back on this month as a whole to understand how we could have been better, try to learn, and come back next year to compete to win again. Our teammate Sting Ray did an incredible job leading the race, no easy feat especially in his second year. He looked good and did a helluva job to come up from where he did and nearly get in the top 15. It’s great momentum for the 41 car and all of the boys. They really needed that because they had a rocky start this year.”
Race engineer James Schnabel, who visited victory lane here twice, once with Will Power and last year with Newgarden as his performance engineer, commented on his first Indy 500 as a race engineer.
“Really proud how this 14 car crew came together,” said the 30-year-old Hoosier. “In the end, it wasn’t our race but it wasn’t due to a lack of effort, we pushed hard, Santino did a great job, made a lot of good passes. The strategy split around lap 106, but those strategies (of those choosing an alternative to the leaders) ended up getting to the front. It is difficult to say if we should have done something different there, I don’t think we should have at this point. The second to last stint we really struggled for pace and by the time we got to the last stint we were better on pace but we were too far behind. Overall, Santino did a great job, passed a lot of cars, and it was a really good job by all the crew to pull together.”
The race was slowed eight times for a total of 47 laps. Nine cars made contact but none of the drivers sustained injury.
Following Newgarden and O’Ward were Scott Dixon, Alexander Rossi and Alex Palou. Pole winner McLaughlin finished sixth. The teams head to Detroit this week for the temporary street course in downtown. The Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix will be broadcast on the USA Network and streamed on Peacock starting at 12 noon ET.