IndyCar

Castroneves earns fourth Indy 500 win with Meyer Shank team

by Matt Beer
5 min read

Helio Castroneves defeated Ganassi’s Alex Palou to earn a record-tying fourth Indianapolis 500 victory and a first IndyCar victory of any kind for his new team Meyer Shank Racing.

Castroneves and Palou swapped positions eight times in the final 21 laps while cycling back towards the front as pitstop strategies shook out and then while fighting for the outright lead.

Palou – in only his second season of IndyCar – looked like he might have made enough of a break after passing Castroneves into the first corner with four laps left, but Castroneves successfully retaliated on the penultimate lap.

Despite Palou’s best efforts, Castroneves hung on over the final lap to take his historic victory by 0.4928 seconds – at the age of 46, 12 years after his third Indy win and three and a half years since he stopped racing in IndyCar full-time.

Palou at least emerges from the race with a substantial championship lead of 36 points thanks to the double score available at Indy and poor results for his closest rivals.

Arrow McLaren SP driver Pato O’Ward had been part of a three-car pack with Castroneves and Palou that looked increasingly like favourites for victory as the race unfolded, but he lost third place on the final lap to Simon Pagenaud – the Penske driver having made brilliant progress from 26th on the grid.

Rinus VeeKay Indy 500 2021

Ed Carpenter Racing had a long spell running 1-2 and lead-swapping with Rinus VeeKay and Conor Daly, but while they fell back to eighth and 13th respectively in the end, team boss Carpenter made it through to fifth.

He and VeeKay were split by two one-off entrants – Santino Ferrucci in Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s extra car and a brilliant run by Sage Karam for Dreyer & Reinbold. Both made gains by running long in the penultimate stint and capitalising as those who’d stopped earlier had to keep an eye on fuel conservation.

Juan Pablo Montoya made good progress to take ninth for Arrow McLaren SP on his IndyCar return, with Tony Kanaan completing the top 10 for Ganassi.

Scott Dixon Ganassi Indy 500 2021

His polesitting team-mate Scott Dixon fell a lap down when his car refused to restart after having to make an emergency stop in a closed pit during the first caution, caused by Stefan Wilson crashing in the pit entry. Dixon went off-strategy trying to recover but ended up only 17th.

Last year’s winner Takuma Sato also rolled the strategy dice by hanging on very late for his final pitstop and hoping a caution might keep him up front. It backfired and he fell to 14th when he finally pitted with six laps to go.

Ryan Hunter-Reay was right up with the eventual winners for much of the race, only for a late pit-speeding penalty to leave him 22nd.

The Wilson pit crash caused one of only two cautions in the race – a record that also contributed to a new record race average speed of 190.690mph.

The other yellow was for a scary accident in which Graham Rahal crashed heavily when his left-rear wheel detached itself in the pit exit lane having not been properly fitted.

Daly’s car hit the loose wheel and sent it flying into the infield, yet Daly was able to continue to the finish with only minor damage.

Race Results

Pos Name Team Car Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Hélio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 200 20 2h37m19.384s 40.089s 5 103
2 Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 200 35 +0.493s 39.835s 5 85
3 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 200 3 +0.563s 40.118s 6 71
4 Patricio O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 200 17 +0.941s 40.116s 5 65
5 Ed Carpenter Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 200 0 +1.243s 40.127s 5 66
6 Santino Ferrucci Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 200 2 +9.088s 39.587s 6 57
7 Sage Karam Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 200 2 +13.436s 40.184s 5 53
8 Rinus VeeKay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 200 32 +14.242s 40.082s 5 56
9 Juan Pablo Montoya Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 200 0 +14.881s 39.983s 5 44
10 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 200 0 +15.443s 39.912s 7 45
11 Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 200 0 +16.517s 40.165s 6 39
12 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 200 0 +22.305s 40.294s 5 36
13 Conor Daly Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 200 40 +22.692s 40.259s 5 37
14 Takuma Sato Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 200 7 +23.296s 40.125s 5 33
15 J. R. Hildebrand A.J. Foyt Enterprises Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 200 0 +23.528s 40.205s 7 30
16 Colton Herta Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 200 13 +28.803s 40.163s 5 37
17 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 200 7 +38.641s 40.274s 6 36
18 Jack Harvey Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 200 0 +40.157s 40.05s 6 24
19 Marco Andretti Andretti Herta-Haupert w/Marco & Curb-Agajanian Dallara DW12-Honda 200 0 +40.359s 39.922s 6 22
20 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 200 0 +40.834s 40.325s 8 20
21 James Hinchcliffe Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 200 0 +40.847s 40.258s 5 18
22 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 200 0 +41.576s 40.108s 6 19
23 Dalton Kellett A.J. Foyt Enterprises Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 199 0 +1 lap 40.536s 6 14
24 Max Chilton Carlin Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 199 0 +1 lap 40.564s 8 12
25 Pietro Fittipaldi Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Dallara DW12-Honda 199 0 +1 lap 40.456s 6 10
26 Sébastien Bourdais A.J. Foyt Enterprises Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 199 0 +1 lap 40.289s 6 10
27 Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 199 14 +1 lap 40.095s 8 11
28 Ed Jones Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan Dallara DW12-Honda 199 0 +1 lap 40.238s 6 10
29 Alexander Rossi Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 198 0 +2 laps 40.339s 10 10
30 Will Power Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 197 0 +3 laps 39.99s 6 10
Simona De Silvestro Paretta Autosport Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 169 0 DNF 40.436s 5 10
Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 118 8 DNF 40.206s 3 11
Stefan Wilson Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 32 0 DNF 40.909s 0 10
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