INDIANAPOLIS — The ending to the 104th Running of the Indianapolis 500 was about as anticlimactic as the year has been during this global pandemic. Whether you like it or not, for the first time since 2013, the Greatest Spectacle in Racing ended under caution. Rahal/Letterman/Lanigan Racing’s Spencer Pigot lost his No. 45 Honda on Turn 4 exit and had a hard contact with the pit entry attenuator which brought out the seventh and final caution of the day. Pigot, was awake and alert following the crash but transported to nearby Methodist Hospital in downtown Indianapolis for further evaluation.

While RLL was concerned for Pigot, they had to balance their emotions. Their other two drivers landed on the podium with Japan’s Takuma Sato crossing the finish line first in his No. 30 Honda for his second career Indianapolis 500 triumph — both coming in the last four years. He becomes the first repeat Indy 500 winner since Juan Pablo Montoya did it in 2015 for his second career ‘500 win, ending a six year streak of first time winners tasting the milk. Coincidentally enough, both have two Indy 500 wins and 10 drivers have won this race two times now. Sato, is the 20th multi time winner too.

The winning pass came on Lap 172 when Sato passed Scott Dixon on track following the final pit sequence and held on for his sixth career NTT IndyCar Series victory. Dixon, dominated the race and led a race-high 111 of 200 laps but just didn’t have enough there in the closing laps before the caution to get up to Sato and pass him. He said he was concerned on his fuel number and didn’t want to push it too hard since Sato pit one lap before him. He didn’t think at the time either could make it to the end on fuel.

It was a tough pill to swallow for Dixon who moved all the way up to third on the all-time Indy 500 lap leaders chart. He passed names like Mario Andretti, AJ Foyt, Wilbur Shaw, Emerson Fittipaldi, Parnelli Jones and Bill Vukovich on the list as he’s now led 563 career laps here in the ‘500. Only Al Unser (644) and Ralph DePalma (612) have more.

It was also Dixon’s 48th career runner-up finish and 97th top two of his career, which the second place run is eight shy of tying Mario Andretti for most all-time and the two top ties AJ Foyt for most ever. Dixon, has had five of those 97 top two finishes this year alone with three wins and two runner-ups now.

This was also his 121st career podium and 171st top five finish. Both are second best ever too.

But, Dixon still only has one win here (2008) but does have four top eight results in this race in his last six tries. He jumped out to the early led from his second starting spot on Lap 1 and would lead the opening 26 laps before pitting. He’d pretty well lead the first half of the race other than pit sequences.

Graham Rahal earned his 31st career podium, two of which coming at Indy this year. He was runner-up to Dixon back on July 4 in the GMR Grand Prix. This was Rahal’s best Indy 500 finish since a fifth place run in 2015 and only his third top five of his career here.

Santino Ferrucci backed up a seventh place run last year with a fourth place finish on Sunday in his No. 18 Honda. It gave Honda a clean sweep of the top four finishing positions.

Josef Newgarden rounded out the top five in his No. 1 Chevrolet for his fifth top 10 finish in his last six Indy 500 tries, three of his last five being in the top five at that.

Here are my main takeaways.

Should Race Have Been Red Flagged?

The Indianapolis 500 has produced some thrilling late race finishes over the course of its 104 year history here. How can you forget that 1982 battle between Gordon Johncock and Rick Mears. Then the 1989 fight with Emmo and Al Unser Jr. What about the 1991 battle between Mears and Andretti or a year later of Unser Jr. vs. Scott Goodyear.

Even 2006 with Sam Hornish Jr. and Marco Andretti.

I could go on and on.

After a span of five races ending under caution in a seven year span, the DW12 era led to even closer finishes.

Yes, 2012 ended under caution, but Takuma Sato crashed out while trying to pass Dario Franchitti for the lead. Scott Dixon was passed by Franchitti two laps from the end before that. 2011 saw JR Hildebrand crash on the last lap while leading. 2013, saw Tony Kanaan win in popular fashion.

On Sunday, we were shaping up for a late race battle between Sato and Dixon again. Then, Spencer Pigot crashed out on Lap 194 which brought out the final caution and froze the field. Everyone was clamoring for IndyCar to throw a red flag. I mean, they did so in 2014, why not again to set up a wild finish in front of a world wide audience?

Instead, they never did and Sato beat Dixon under caution for his second win.

An anticlimactic finish for a made for TV event. With so many fans watching from home in a difficult trying year, why not red flag it to set up what would have been another crazy Indy 500 finish?

“I definitely thought with five to go, I thought they were going to immediately because, one, the size of the crash, and two, where it was, it wasn’t going to be a quick cleanup,” said second place finisher Scott Dixon.”I was kind of surprised they didn’t. I kind of heard they said, Normally we don’t do that. History would tell you that’s not true either.”

I thought they would to. With such a mess on the front stretch at pit entry, a lengthy cleanup would ensue. There’s no way they could have cleaned it all up in a span of five laps to get this race green again. Plus, with so much debris, I thought maybe they would have to save the leaders from potentially cut a tire from running over debris.

But, they didn’t.

“INDYCAR makes every effort to end races under green,” a statement read from the series Sunday evening. “But, in this case following the assessment of the incident, there were too few laps remaining to gather the field behind the pace car, issue a red flag and then restart for a green-flag finish.”

I mean, they’re not wrong. It was coming to five to go on the first yellow lap. By time you got back around for the red, it would be four-to-go. Then, to get another lap under caution, you’re set up for a two lap shootout – if that.

I get why they didn’t then. I mean, it’s to preserve history too. It’s not like Sato fluked his way into the lead. He deserved this win. Why penalize him and throw a rare red flag at the end just because we want a thrilling green flag finish? Who’s to say we would have ended under green?

Restarts have been wild here and there’s a good chance we would have seen another caution which would have ended this race…under caution.

What happens if someone got injured for a made for TV red flag prior?

This was the safe way and I’m okay with that.

“Well, I’m really pleased they checkered the thing, obviously, as any team owner would be, right?” said Bobby Rahal. “I don’t know any team owner out there that would say, Let’s…

“You can prognosticate all you want about what if they red flagged it and you had a restart. Like I said earlier, maybe the guy in third would have been the guy in the upper hand, big tow, went by both of them. Who knows.

“All I know is we won the Indy 500 today and that’s what counts.”

Still, I get that this leaves with an empty feeling after witnessing a race in front of an empty stadium that seats over 230k in the grandstands and can fill an additional 70k in the infield. The last nine years have seen the final pass for the win over the final six laps of the race.

This year, Sato passed Dixon for what proved to be the win on Lap 172. We wanted a good finish but this one will have to do.

Heavy hits

I’m not sure why we saw so many heavy hits, but we did on Sunday. Marcus Ericsson slammed into the Turn 2 wall on Lap 25 to bring out the first caution. Dalton Kellett had the air taken of his front of his car on Lap 83 and crashed in Turn 3. On the Lap 92 restart, Conor Daly’s No. 47 Chevrolet whipped around in Turn 4 and he crashed on the inside wall. Rookie Oliver Askew hit the inside wall extremely hard in the same crash and luckily walked away.

Another rookie in Alex Palou made heavy impact with the Turn 1 SAFER barrier on Lap 121 too. He walked away under his own power. Then, Alexander Rossi crashed on Lap 144 on Turn 2.

To end the day was Pigot’s crash at pit entry.

Rough Day For Rookies

There’s a reason we’ve only had nine rookies to ever win in the 104 year history of this race. We had some fast rookies in the field this year, but all saw why Indy is so tough on Sunday too.

Rinus VeeKay qualified over 231 mph. He started fourth. Alex Palou had never raced on an oval before 2020 and was in the top 10 in literally every practice session run this month and started seventh. Pato O’Ward was quickest on Carb Day while his rookie teammate Oliver Askew was fifth. Dalton Kellett was there too with AJ Foyt Racing.

But, O’Ward was the best rookie in sixth. The other four struggled.

Kellett crashed in Turn 3 on Lap 83. Askew crashed on Lap 92. Palou crashed on Lap 121. VeeKay had an early pit road penalty for hitting a crew member.

That’s why O’Ward’s day was such an eye opener as he was a top 10 car for much of the afternoon and was in the hunt in the end for a top five.

For everyone else, that’s why Indy is so tough.

Rough Month For ECR Other Than VeeKay

The Month of August was a frustrating one for Ed Carpenter Racing. Yes, Rinus VeeKay was a surprise story for most of the month in being the fastest teenager ever in qualifying. He started fourth. Yes, Conor Daly had good practice pace and looked good in race trim, but he was generally quiet for the rest of the time. Boss Ed Carpenter never made any noise all month which was shocking.

Then, in the race itself, it was a disaster for them.

Carpenter, got into the wall on the opening lap. He’d finish 26th as a result after having lengthy repairs on pit road. Daly, crashed out on Lap 92 and finished 29th. VeeKay, had an early race penalty on pit road for hitting a crew member and finished 20th. He never regained his early pace.

20-26-29 was surprising to me.

Andretti Autosport, Penske Enter As Favorites, Leave Disappointed, RLL Steals A Win Over “Big 3”

Heading into the Month of August, Team Penske had to be the ones to beat for this year’s 104th Running of the Indianapolis 500. But, heading into Sunday’s race, this ended up being Andretti Autosports’ race to lose. By the end of it, Rahal/Letterman/Lanigan Racing topped the “Big 3” in putting two cars on the podium at Indy with one sipping the milk in victory lane.

How did this happen?

I mean, Borg Warner already had all 11 of the combined Penske and Andretti drivers’ faces sculpted with the only thing left just being which one would get inscribed on the historic trophy at the end of 500 miles of racing on a beautiful Sunday afternoon at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Penske won this race each of the last two years. They were so dominant here in the last several seasons with Penske not only owning the track now, but boasting a race record 18 ‘500 wins overall.

Plus, they swept the last two races on the season which happened to be an oval at the Iowa Speedway last month.

But, they had a disappointingly quiet month. They were never really near the top 10 of the speed charts and qualified a disappointing 13-22-25-28 for this year’s race.

That led to AA as the favorites. I mean how could you pick against them? They were 1-2 on opening day of practice and had three of the top four speeds. They had 3-6-8 on Day 2. Fast Friday was 1-4-7-9. They put five cars in the Fast Nine on Saturday. On the no tow reports, they were 1-2-3-4-5 and 1-2-3-5 on the first two days too.

So, good in traffic and good on their own. With seven of the 33 cars belonging to them, this was their race to lose.

Oddly enough, they were never much of a factor on Sunday. They led a combined 33 laps all day.

Chip Ganassi Racing had Scott Dixon. The “Big 3” teams have combined to win this race in 13 of the last 15 years and 17 of the last 19 overall.

For Indy Car in general, they’ve combined to win 33 of the 40 races run entering the ‘500 since the new car came out in 2018 and 59 of 73 races since 2016.

Still, RLL beat them in the year’s biggest race on Sunday.

Marco Andretti won the pole but failed to lead a single lap himself. He’d finish a disappointing 13th for his fourth year in the last five that he failed to score a top 10 finish at Indy.

Alexander Rossi was their best pick, came up through the field early and looked to have arguably the second best car all race. But, he was penalized for exiting pit his pit stall and hitting Takuma Sato in a controversial penalty that dropped Rossi from third to 21st. The race was for Rossi to come back up through the field, but he found out what happens when you push too hard here and found the wall on Lap 144. He’d finish 27th.

Zach Veach stayed out long on his final stint but had to pit from the lead on Lap 184. He finished 15th.

Ryan Hunter-Reay wasn’t much of a factor and finished 10th. Colton Herta and Jack Harvey had quiet days and finished eighth and ninth respectively. James Hinchcliffe was the top finisher in seventh.

Yes, they had four cars in the top 10, but to come away without a top five furthers their frustrating 2020 season.

For Penske, they had to go off strategy early due to needing track position. With James Davison bringing out an early race caution on Lap 4, the Penske’s pitted to go off strategy. It would remain that way until Dixon was so good, he was ahead of them even during the third pit cycle. So, with another caution, the Penske’s threw in the towel and ended up on the same strategy of the leaders.

Other than Josef Newgarden, they just didn’t have it. Will Power finished 14th. Simon Pagenaud had contact with Ryan Hunter-Reay on the Lap 131 restart and had to pit for repairs. He finished 22nd. Helio Castroneves was 11th.

Newgarden, was in the top five on Dixon’s strategy and would finish fifth.

Dixon, was P2 for Ganassi.

That’s how RLL took it to them and earned their fourth win since 2018, double the rest of the competition and seventh victory since 2016. The next best other than the “Big 3” is two.

Last Year’s Top 2 Had Tough Days

A year ago, Simon Pagenaud and Alexander Rossi had an intense battle for the win in the 103th Running of the Indianapolis 500. They traded the lead in dramatic fashion in the closing laps with Pagenaud finishing just .2086-seconds ahead of Rossi.

Both have said that they don’t want to ever let anyone else win this race. Pagenaud, didn’t want to give up his ” reigning Indy 500 champion” title. Rossi, said that “finishing second here sucks.”

But, they had rough days on Sunday.

Pagenaud, went off sequence early due to James Davison bringing out an early race caution on Lap 4. He and several others would pit on that caution. So, when Marcus Ericsson crashed out on Turn 2, the leaders made their first stops of the day. That led to Pagenaud cycling up to second under the caution.

On the ensuing restart, he passed rookie Oliver Askew for the lead on Lap 31 and would lead the next 15 laps before pitting for his second time. Unfortunately, he’d never get his track position back and on Lap 131, the defending race winner made contact in Turn 2 with 2014 Indy 500 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, causing damage to his No. 22 Chevrolet. He’d have to pit for repairs and ended any shot of a repeat win. We’ve had just two repeat winners in the last 66 years here. Pagenaud, finished 22nd on Sunday.

Rossi, had a bullet. He was fast and went up to the top three quickly. He’d have a top three car but a pit penalty for exiting his pit stall and hitting Takuma Sato ruined his day.

Rossi, was penalized for an unsafe release under that caution and would go from third to 21st. He was pushing hard to come back up through the field but he says his car was never set up to be that far back and while pushing to hard, he crashed on Lap 144 and finished 27th.

Honda Caps A Dominating Month

Honda started the month 1-2-3-4 on the speed charts on opening day of practice for the 104th Running of the Indianapolis 500 and finished the month there on Sunday. They had eight cars in the top 10 overall to cap a dominating month with their 13th career Indy 500 victory. Only Offy’s (27) have more.

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