The 104th running of the Indianapolis 500 will go down as one of the most unusual in the event’s history, with no fans in the stands.
But the start of the event’s Penske-owned era was still a phenomenal spectacle, with plenty of storylines.
So much has to go right for you and your strategy to even be on the lead lap into the final showdown, and some big stories can go unnoticed. Here’s our attempt to rectify that.
Winners
IndyCar’s new fighter pilot canopy
The aeroscreen was always going to be a bone of contention when it was introduced. Like the halo, the head protection device is not subtle aesthetically and some traditionalists disliked how far it moved IndyCar towards a closed-cockpit look.
But having suffered devastating losses such as the deaths of Dan Wheldon and Justin Wilson, IndyCar has pushed hard to improve the safety of its chassis.
It’s been obvious through the season that the drivers now feel safer, particularly in the Iowa incident Colton Herta’s flying car struck Rinus VeeKay’s aeroscreen and debris landed on Marcus Ericsson’s screen too.
With only two small crashes through the Indy 500 practice weeks, the first proper test of the aeroscreen and its chassis integration at the Speedway came with six high-speed impacts in the race – including two particularly savage ones.
Spencer Pigot lost it off Turn 4 and smashed into the end of the pitwall, effectively ending the race. He was taken to hospital but later released unhurt.
Oliver Askew went into the SAFER barrier – another IndyCar/IMS introduced development – just before the pitlane in a violent crash triggered by an attempt to avoid Conor Daly’s spinning car.
Askew, Alex Palou, Ericsson, Dalton Kellett, Alexander Rossi and Daly were all quickly released from the infield care centre after crashes, proving that IndyCar’s safety quest is paying off.
Driving 220mph laps is never going to be 100% safe, but the aeroscreen and the strength of the Dallara chassis have made a difference in crashes that would’ve had far more serious consequences in the past.
The rookie staking a claim for long-term success
While his much higher profile Arrow McLaren SP team-mate Fernando Alonso struggled, Pato O’Ward ran in the top five in his strategy group most of the day and raced his way into the top three before difficulty overtaking set him back – especially at restarts.
Epic pit work put him in position, but ultimately he struggled to pass even when battling cars with more downforce than him.
“I think our highest possibility to actually get that win was midway through the race when we were sitting behind Rossi and [Scott] Dixon,” said O’Ward when asked by The Race.
“When I was sitting behind Dixon, I couldn’t get runs. I couldn’t catch up. Even when I was in the draft, it was so hard to keep Santino [Ferrucci] behind me and Graham [Rahal]. We just lost a lot of positions. I just couldn’t catch them.
“I truly thought I was getting decent restarts. They weren’t amazing, but they weren’t terrible. They should have been enough to at least just stay in position. But I couldn’t.
“I got overtaken on the outside like by two cars at the same time. I was saving a lot of fuel. It was really hard to keep them behind me, honestly, in those circumstances.
“So it was much more important to finish the race than to risk something and end up in the wall.”
While all of the other Indy 500 rookies had problems – three crashed and one hit a crew member, causing a penalty – O’Ward put together a strong race.
Perhaps more importantly with the season winding down, he moves up to a brilliant third in the standings.
O’Ward had a rollercoaster season in 2019, completing just over half the IndyCar calendar before being led on a wild Formula 1 goose chase by Red Bull that encompassed a brief F2 appearance then Super Formula in Japan.
However, he landed on his feet late in the year signing up for the McLaren-backed IndyCar squad, which has gone for two young drivers in Askew and O’Ward like it has in F1 with Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz Jr.
It’s a move McLaren CEO Zak Brown says has paid off. Both have impressed, but O’Ward has made the most of his extra experience and while Scott Dixon has all but won the IndyCar title, there’s an epic fight for second and O’Ward’s definitely in it.
Points standings
1 Scott Dixon 335
2 Josef Newgarden 251
3 Pato O’Ward 218
4 Graham Rahal 214
5 Simon Pagenaud 212
The cursed Andrettis
Everyone in motorsport knows the Andretti name, and most know that its association with Indianapolis isn’t especially positive.
Despite all the pace Mario, Michael, Jeff, John and Marco Andretti have shown at the Indy 500, three-time polesitter Mario’s 1969 win is the family’s only triumph in IndyCar’s greatest race in driving terms (Michael’s Andretti Autosport team has now won it five times at least).
Then 33 years after Mario’s 1987 pole, his grandson Marco Andretti qualified on top in 2020. Mario said he “hit his head on a nine-foot ceiling” watching.
Marco was the class of the field in terms of one-lap speed throughout the month of August. But in Sunday’s race he dropped back quickly and struggled to hold his own on the restarts.
“We had high hopes coming into the race today after being fast all month,” he said.
“But we didn’t have it today. We didn’t have the pick-up we needed on the restarts, that left us a sitting duck and we weren’t able to gain ground on pitstops to make up for anything. Everything combined left us 13th.”
So the Andretti curse, if you believe in such a thing, was victorious again. The 51-year wait for another Andretti win continues.
It’s too soon for one driver’s commentary career
James Hinchcliffe has a rollercoaster relationship with Indy. After a massive crash in practice ruled him out of the rest of the 2015 season, he returned triumphant in 2016 to take pole, only to be bumped from the field in 2018 when rain and a wheel issue halted his progress.
For 2020, he had to hastily locate a seat after first being told he was safe and then being booted out of his Schmidt Peterson seat as the team switched to Chevrolet and welcomed McLaren and a couple of young drivers onboard.
Hinch landed at his old team Andretti, and a three-race deal has delivered promise. He says there are talks to extend the relationship and do more races, while Michael Andretti is keen to bring him back and wants him to return full-time in 2021 if the backing can be found.
His Indy 500 this year may have done enough to at least grease a few wheels towards his return.
Hinchcliffe was the top Andretti car at the finish in seventh, and set the race’s fastest lap. Struggling to get into gear at his second pitstop was a costly delay.
If he’s not signed up for more races, he’ll be a welcome addition to NBC’s TV coverage, but a wasted talent behind the wheel as he has proven this month. I think we’ll see Hinch back with Andretti next year, if not before the end of this year…
The David taking on Goliath with youth as well as experience
Rahal Letterman Lanigan is the perennial heavy-hitter on a tight budget. The squad is owned by three-time IndyCar champion and 1986 Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal, ex-TV talk-show host David Letterman and entrepreneur Mike Lanigan, but isn’t on the scale of the likes of Ganassi and Penske.
It’s been hit hard by COVID-19 like the rest of the motorsport industry but has found solutions like hosting virtual wine-nights for sponsors and switching liveries overnight on double-header race weekends to keep all important backers happy.
It’s also having a consistent year with Graham Rahal fourth in the IndyCar standings, and it always delivers strong race cars at Indianapolis – which this time resulted in first for Takuma Sato and third for Rahal.
Part of its recent success has been part of a move to add youth, something the team keeps on pushing for. Back in June Graham Rahal told The Race youth in the engineering department was on the future agenda, and Bobby Rahal alluded to that focus following the Indy 500 win.
He said: “My partners and I, we’ve committed ourselves to really investing in the team and bringing good people in. We brought Piers Phillips in a little over a year ago, we brought young engineers into it.
“We kind of had a youth movement in our mechanics because frankly in IndyCar racing a lot of mechanics are not my age, but not that far away from it. We’re trying to build for the future. It’s been working out.
“This just gives all those young people, everybody, a huge buzz to have this happen. For the young guys especially, all that hard work all of a sudden seems worth it, doesn’t it? It’s a good day for us.”
Sato’s win was RLLR’s second at Indy following a 2004 triumph with Buddy Rice. Consistent title challenges still aren’t happening for RLLR, but with only two regular season cars it’s hard to match the might of the likes of Andretti and Penske.
At least they know with Sato and Rahal the team knows it has a competitive package at Indy, and to some that’s even bigger than an IndyCar title.
“The best way I describe it to people is I’m never introduced as three-time IndyCar champion,” adds Bobby Rahal.
“I’m always introduced as the 1986 Indy 500 champion. And, oh yeah, by the way, he won three IndyCar championships!”
Losers
Fans wanting to see a Triple Crown win
Edd Straw has summarised Alonso’s race in much greater detail, but I’d be remiss not to mention him here.
Throughout this month it’s been difficult to tell if Alonso’s had forced optimism or genuine confidence.
In his defence, I think many of the Chevrolet runners who were out of position at the back of the pack believed they’d come through to challenge, but ultimately it just wasn’t possible in the race.
It’s at least two years now until Alonso can return as he’s bound to Renault in F1. In May 2023 he’ll be 41, still younger than Sato at 43 and perhaps he’ll be in a better position to chase his dream of the Triple Crown with a team ready to win.
While Arrow McLaren SP managed sixth with O’Ward, it didn’t have the pace to win this year and ultimately still has some work to do.
What happened to Penske?
The narrative was written for the 2020 long before the race. OK, Honda trumped Chevrolet in qualifying, but we’d seen such strong race runs from all of the Penske cars that they just had to slice through the pack. It turned out very different.
Josef Newgarden was the team’s top performer having started 13th – the highest of the group – and finished fifth, a place he was demoted to when Rahal and Ferrucci passed him in the final stint. It was heartbreaking for double IndyCar champion Newgarden who is still yet to win a 500.
Will Power and Simon Pagenaud worked forwards from 22nd and 25th respectively. But Pagenaud was forced into an early off-sync strategy that didn’t pay off and was out of contention even before he clipped the rear of Ryan Hunter-Reay’s car, requiring repairs.
Power looked strong and led that off-sync strategy with Pagenaud, but again things didn’t fall his way and he overshot his pit box resulting in a penalty.
Three-time winner Helio Castroneves also followed his team-mates’ strategy, and it was a day to forget as he finished what is likely his last 500 with Penske in 11th. Power was 14th and Pagenaud 22nd, two laps down.
“I think if we started further up, we would not have lost as much time in traffic,” said Pagenaud. “I feel like we had one of the best cars.
“At the end of the race, we were running I think the fastest laps of the race. The car was really, really good and it would have been good for the last shootout, but it wasn’t our year. We’ll come back next year and we’ll be strong.”
It was Roger Penske’s first year as owner of the venue, and just putting on a race given the current pandemic can only be applauded.
We’ll have to wait until next year to see the 30 new screens, 5000 gallons of paint and all the other improvements he’s made. While his team flopped, the boss never faltered in his leadership.
The people who make the Indy 500 special
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway and then NBC did a fantastic job of appeasing fans that weren’t allowed to attend the Indy 500 due to spiking coronavirus numbers in the area.
The circuit even arranged for all 33 drivers to visit season ticket holders the day before the race to say hi and deliver goodie bags, which was such a lovely touch.
However, fans missed out on not being able to attend what is the most fan orientated and most populous sporting events in the world, period.
The ones watching on TV were also robbed of a more exciting ending. Sato and Rahal Letterman Lanigan say they had enough fuel to make the end while Dixon and Graham Rahal suggested otherwise.
Pigot’s crash in the closing stages brought out a yellow with five to go, after which a red flag could have neutralised the lap count and provided the chance for a three-lap shootout for the win. Rarely does motorsport get more exciting than a last-lap fight for Indy 500 honours.
Instead, the yellow remained and the race finished under caution.
An IndyCar statement read: “IndyCar makes every effort to end races under green, 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.”
A nightmare year continues for an ex-F1 driver
Before yesterday, Rossi hadn’t ever finished outside of the top seven in an Indy 500 – an event he won on his debut in 2016 – but a crash while trying to come through the pack after a pitlane penalty undid his day.
He was pinged for an unsafe release that caused contact with eventual winner Sato. It was a tough one as O’Ward was on the outside making it three wide, and Sato was in a box not far behind before coming out, so some believed it to be a racing incident.
“Because of a pitlane penalty that we still don’t fully understand, we didn’t get to stay up front,” was Rossi’s summary.
Whether it was fair or not, it really did take a very strong contender out of the mix. He’d comfortably run up front when the opportunity arose and he and Dixon were working together at various points to make sure they were both in contention and saving fuel.
After trying to drive his way back to the front, @alexanderrossi's day is done early after an on-track incident.
Watch live now on @NBC. #INDYCAR // #Indy500 pic.twitter.com/CAEK4ynKnt
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) August 23, 2020
But the only unsafe release penalty of the race sent Rossi to the back of the pack, and he crashed not long after, losing the rear of his car at Turn 2 on lap 144.
It’s an extra kick in the teeth that mistakes and mechanical issues have left Rossi – who has finished second and third in the championship the last two seasons – 14th in the standings.
We’re scheduled to have a double-header at Gateway this weekend, a double-header at Indianapolis the first weekend in October and a St Petersburg season finale at the end of October – with a potential Mid-Ohio weekend thrown in in September – but we could have as few as four races left and Rossi’s chances of the title are all but mathematically impossible.
The rookies on race day
It boded so well for the rookies entering the race. Alex Palou and VeeKay made the fast nine in qualifying and Askew reckoned he had a car able to pass as well as anybody, all of which was exciting.
However, it all started to go wrong just before half distance. VeeKay, the top Chevy qualifier, slid in his pit box and hit his crew members. Luckily it was low speed and no one appeared hurt, but a stop go penalty on lap 70 ruined what could have been a strong result – his late race pace showed as much as he took 20th.
Dalton Kellett – a driver without standout results in his junior career – had impressed veteran AJ Foyt Racing team-mate Tony Kanaan with his calm approach and quickness getting up to speed at Indy. However he said he was ‘impatient” and crashed on lap 83 at Turn 3 while trying to pass Dragonspeed’s Ben Hanley.
Spaniard @AlexPalou has dreamed of racing in the #Indy500 for years.
A crash ended the rookie's day just past the halfway mark. Coverage continues on @NBC. pic.twitter.com/3FWcbTS5eS
— IndyCar on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) August 23, 2020
Not long after, Askew crashed on the lap 92 restart. Daly had spun ahead and Askew appeared to lose control as the car was not going fast enough to generate enough downforce. He speared into the wall just before the pitlane entrance and was lucky to come away winded and with knocked knees.
Palou then crashed at Turn 1 on lap 122 ending a strong run that could have produced a top 10 finish.
That meant VeeKay and O’Ward were the only rookies to finish. O’Ward at least delivered a strong run to sixth to make up for the others’ disappointment.
