“He is inevitable.”
Welcome back to the other half of another Dre’s Race Review double header, and it’s time to set the grid for the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500. And in the eight days of running so far, we’ve had a surprisingly drama-free affair, but there are still many, many stories to tell. Let’s talk about it.
The New Contenders
A quick rundown of the extra runners that got us up to… *checks notes* Wait, we’ve only got 33 runners? So no bumping? Shit. You see what happens when the series fails to throw Prema a single friggin’ bone here? Well, there you go. Here’s your extra contenders:
Jacob Abel (Abel Motorsports) – Jacob Abel is back, this time with his own family-run team after a sad bumping from the 2025 field (We’ll put this one down to Dale Coyne playing 3D Chess with himself). One of the nicest people in IndyCar, and easy to root for. No, I’m totally not struggling with things to say here.
Ed Carpenter (ECR) – Three-time pole sitter and 2018 runner-up Ed Carpenter is back with his own extra third car for his 23rd attempt at the race, and still trying to make sure he never has to buy a beer in his home state ever again if he wins the big one. The first time he tried this, Michael Schumacher only had six World Championships.
Helio Castroneves (Meyer Shank) – Part-time owner/driver and arguably greatest participant of this race ever, Uncle Helio is back for his 26th attempt, and still gunning to become the first five-time winner of the race (No Booker T). He turned 51 last week and has only now conceded the hair battle to Father Time.
Conor Daly (Dreyer Reinbold) – The new Ed Carpenter in terms of being the hometown hero of the track, Conor Daly is back for his 13th attempt, and he’s become a genuine contender in recent years. He’s coming off four Top 10 finishes in a row, and eighth for Juncos Hollinger last year was comfortably the strongest he’d looked in his time in IndyCar.
Jack Harvey (Dreyer Reinbold) – Turns out, we DO know Jack. The former full-timer turned pit reported for IndyCar on FOX is back for another go with DRR. Last cracked the Top 10 in 2020, but he’s #1 in most people’s hearts. Even if he supports Liverpool.
Ryan Hunter-Reay (McLaren) – The big name pull for McLaren to run their fourth car after Kyle Larson wasn’t so keen for a third go. Captain America was a former winner here in 2014 with his famous “pass on the grass” on Helio Castroneves, and came desperately close in 2023 after being forced into a late splash and dash for fuel. McLaren’s been top contenders here for a while, so why the heck not? Nice pur-papaya livery too.
Takuma Sato (Rahal Letterman Lanigan) – No attack, no chance. Part-time boardroom executive Takuma-san is here for his 17th attempt, having won twice in 2017 and 2020. He turns 50 in January and has now been around long enough to race with two generations of Schumacher. I feel ancient, and that’s before I get jealous of his skincare routine.
Katherine Legge (AJ Foyt/HMD) – The most interesting part-time entry here. Legge was a last minute addition to the field, rumours being there were concerns about there being a potential bump victim if the entrant field got past 33. But that never happened, so here’s an awesome last minute tie-up with HMD Motorsports with some support from AJ Foyt. And as we found last week, she’s attempting to do all 1,100 miles of the Memorial Day Double as she immediately leaves the track to fly to Charlotte to take on the Coke 600 on the same night. She’s the first woman to take on the double, and just the seventh person ever to attempt it. Only Tony Stewart has managed to complete all 1,100 miles back in 2001.
Plan B
Hard to ignore the elephant in the room here – The series only just got 33 entries to cover the field and nothing more. A huge part of what makes the 500 what it is, is the jeopardy of it. Not just from the fact we’re going 240mph on the straights and the obvious danger that comes with that, but also the sometimes difficult nature of just making the field. Sometimes, you’re never truly in until you’re in. From Team Penske being bumped out of the field in 1995, to Kyle Kaiser in a rebuilt Juncos in 2019 slaying Fernando Alonso and the giant of McLaren. There’s nothing like it in top-tier Motorsport with millions at stake, and it was missing here. Qualify and you make the field. That sucks.
To placate this, we had a format change for Qualifying. Yes, another one. I love that IndyCar just keeps changing the rules on the fly in the series and now it has four different qualifying formats across a season (Road Courses with a 6-minute Fast 6, Street Courses with one-shot qualifying and a draw system, Ovals not named the 500, and the 500 itself).
Saturday was supposed to be your standard first day, seven hours, one guaranteed run for the field, then the usual dramatic queue hopping system, even without the risk of bumping. Day 1 would set the grid for positions 16-33. The Top 15 goes through to Day 2. Of those, the Top 9 were safely through to the Fast 12. Positions 15-10 then do an extra one-shot run with the fastest three of those also making the Fast 12. Then the usual Fast 12 and 6 rounds to determine the whole grid.
Just one problem… Saturday was a washout. The rain hit and never really went away. So IndyCar had to scramble to get all of Qualifying in for Sunday. No easy task given you needed everyone to get their one guaranteed run uninterrupted for sake of fairness. So instead we got one-shot qualifying for the entire day. One run to set positions 13-33, then a Fast 12 and 6 round.
Honestly, this was fine. Given the circumstances, this was the best they were going to do. You don’t want to move Qualifying to a weekday where everyone’s likely back at work. And one-shot does come with its own sense of drama and rewarding execution. It was never going to be the Saturday all-day marathon of tactics, but I appreciated this for what it was.
On the day itself, we had some shocks that no-one saw coming. Josef Newgarden, maybe the best oval racer in the world, was nowhere in terms of pace. Team Penske have reclaimed their 500 prowess (Nothing to do with smoothed attenuators or changing the spec of the dampers a couple of years back, honest), but Josef had a very safe run with no real speed. Way, way down the order.
It wasn’t the only giant killing. McLaren have been another top contender across the years, but Pato O’Ward was their lone warrior to make the Fast 12, with Ryan Hunter-Reay, Christian Lundgaard and Nolan Siegel all stuck in the midfield. The pattern here again, was high floor runs with little drop-off over a four-lap run, but no outright raw speed.
A similar case for Andretti, with no representation at all in the Fast 12. Former winner Marcus Ericsson was their fastest car but could only manage P18, with Will Power close behind, but a disastrous P26 for Kyle Kirkwood, running second in the Championship right now.
Kirkwood nearly got a small reprieve. Alex Palou admitted he was struggling on his run, and just barely limped into the Fast 12 in the 11 slot, alongside both his CGR teammates Scott Dixon, and Kyffin Simpson getting in via the final slot.
But there was an elephant in the room – The beige warrior himself, Felix Rosenqvist, who put down a monster run to get into the playoff rounds. To put into perspective how good it was, here’s a chart:
Rosenqvist (1st – 232.599) > 0.786mph > Malukas (2nd – 231.813) > 0.718mph > Simpson (12th – 231.095)
Felix was in another league. So much so his margin of ass-whopping was bigger than Malukas against the rest of the Fast 12. That Fast 12 was Rosenqvist, Malukas, Daly, McLaughlin, Veekay, Rossi, Collet, Dixon, O’Ward, Ferrucci, Palou and Simpson.
The speedway is a cruel and unpredictable mistress, and with the Fast 12 starting late in the afternoon, the track was in the process of getting cooler, but there was also rapidly changing wind, peaking at 20mph down the back straight. Typically speaking, almost everyone was slower in the Fast 12 compared to their original runs… except for Alex Palou, who went half a mile an hour quicker than before to get into the Fast 6. Some teams gambled on removing downforce from the car to try and gain some extra speed, and it didn’t work, like Scott McLaughlin touching 242mph on the back straight and still losing all his speed in the corners. He’d be eliminated in P9, surrounded by Simpson, Daly, Collet, Dixon and Veekay.
For the final round, Alex Rossi had to go first and he set a whopper of an early benchmark with a personal best 231.990. Typically, going later is the move with a track getting cooler. O’Ward and Ferrucci both went slower in their Fast 6 runs, before Malukas came close with a 231.8 run that had a 232mph Lap 4, the only one of its kind. Superb stuff.
We wouldn’t find out until later that night, but Chip Ganassi gambled. Palou went all-out on removing trim for the sake of speed. He was hitting 241 on the back straight, and combined with his ridiculously smooth steering inputs… 232.248. A shot to HMS Rosenqvist and a stunning run, one for the Dane to think about.
In shocking news, Felix’s final run was 1.3mph slower than his best, and a 231.3 when it mattered most had the favourite drop to fourth. Alex Palou, two-time 500 polesitter, and another example of his and his team’s genius. They were the only car and team to consistently find time over the course of the day, when others mostly lost it over the course of the day either gambling, or running in sub-optimal conditions. Hell, Felix after having that final run was completely bemused as to how he lost so much speed.
But that’s the speedway for you. Can anyone stop Alex Palou?
Epilogue
Have to mention Monday practice here as well, because we (somehow) had our first major crash of the fortnight. Takuma Sato grazed the wall on Sunday practice, but Alex Rossi spun at Turn 2 in race practice, went into the outside wall, and Pato O’Ward and Romain Grosjean did the same trying to avoid his wreckage.
If anything, we got very lucky, there was a huge scuff mark on Rossi’s aeroscreen post-impact. Rossi himself, not so much. He had to go to hospital for a once over and repair of his finger and ankle given he was limping out of his car in the aftermath. As it stands, he’ll still be racing on Sunday. Hopefully.
The Grid Rundown
(Before we get going here, we also found out on Monday that Caio Collet and Jack Harvey were both sent to the back of the grid for having modified engine covers. Yep, the same infraction that Marcus Ericsson and Kyle Kirkwood were punished for last season. Onto the grid.)
Row 1 – Alex Palou (232.248) 🏆 / Alexander Rossi (231.990) 🏆 / David Malukas (231.877)
One more element of Palou’s second 500 pole we don’t often talk about – A bonus 12 points over Kirkwood for qualifying, which you get depending on your Fast 12 position. Could be huge in the title race. Alex Rossi, if he makes the show, takes his best ever 500 qualifying result in second. And yeah, safe to say with David Malukas in third, we know why Roger Penske made the investment in the Lithuanian prodigy 18 months ago. Big Dave is the real deal.
Note – If Rossi can’t make it, ECR can name a replacement (I suspect it’d be Callum Illot), but he’d have to go from the back of the grid.
Row 2 – Felix Rosenqvist (231.375) / Santino Ferrucci (230.846) / Pato O’Ward (230.442)
I think Felix is still confused as to why he’s not on pole by half a mile per hour. Say what you will about Santino Ferrucci, he always brings it for the 500 and he’s gunning to be the first man to make eight Top 10 finishes there in his first eight appearances. Pato O’Ward called his final run “Shit, actually”, but I think he’s got a very good and consistent race car underneath him… until he accidentally stuffed it.
Row 3 – Kyffin Simpson (230.883) / Conor Daly (230.712) / Scott McLaughlin (230.577)
Really good quali effort there from Simpson, who’s getting better at ovals by the appearance I feel. Conor Daly I suspect has never had a car this good, he’s genuinely great value for his 8th, his DRR car has been hovering around the Top 10 in just about every major category. McLaughlin will be a little disappointed to only be on the outside of Row 3, but he’ll still be in the fight, he had some scary good top end speed on many of his runs, he’ll be passing cars for sure.
Row 4 – Scott Dixon (230.347) 🏆 / Rinus Veekay (229.585) / Takuma Sato (230.995) 🏆🏆
It’s funny seeing three wildly different speeds here given Veekay dropped off a cliff with his Fast 12 run, Dixon over-trimmed, and Takuma Sato was originally P13 and didn’t make the Fast 12 at all, yet got bumped up via Collet’s disqualification! Shoutout to Scott Dixon who had the luxury of going first on the day after his son Kit picked at the Qualifying draw, dabbed and then refused to elaborare. Atta’boy kid.
Dixon has been solid all week but I do wonder where the speedway’s cartoon anvil falls on his head this time. Rinus Veekay always finds a way to qualify well but is still waiting on his really big race day to land. And Sato… you know the drill.
Row 5 – Ed Carpenter (230.829) / Helio Castroneves (230.811) 🏆🏆🏆🏆 / Christian Rasmussen (230.705)
Funnily enough, Collet’s DQ also meant we avoided having the second oldest row in 500 history. Really solid work from Carpenter and Castroneves here, at a combined age of 96. Have to wonder here though, with Rossi having a car good enough for the front row, and Rasmussen being the hottest thing on ovals in the last year of IndyCar, P15 feels disappointing for the “Sultan of Sketch”. Seriously, Townsend, drop the nickname, even Christian himself hates it.
Row 6 – Marcus Armstrong (230.701) / Marcus Ericsson (230.667) 🏆 / Christian Lundgaard (230.661)
Really close running row here. I suspect all three men will be a bit disappointed to be smack in the middle of the field. Armstrong due to Felix’ total dominance on Sunday, Ericsson to be the best of a really unserious Andretti at the moment, and Lundgaard for another missed opportunity to match teammate Pato where it counts. If your second best McLaren is 18th, that’s disappointing for one of the bigger 500 hitting franchises.
Row 7 – Will Power (230.279) 🏆 / Nolan Siegel (230.213) / Louis Foster (230.212)
Remind me, when was the Will Power revenge tour meant to start? Someone get that man some help. It’s also worth pointing out that 2025 F2 Champion and McLaren junior driver Leonardo Fornaroli was at the track to visit with rumours strong he could be the next F2 to IndyCar export, so it’s not helping that Siegel has thoroughly whelmed at the track that originally caught general manager Tony Kanaan’s eye in the first place. Good for Louis Foster for being the best of the regular Rahal drivers.
Row 8 – Ryan Hunter-Reay (230.202) 🏆 / Josef Newgarden (230.165) 🏆🏆 / Romain Grosjean (229.791)
Another row of big disappointment. I really did expect more from Hunter-Reay given his experience and team combination. Spoken about Josef Newgarden already, and I think he definitely styled out a very PR answer in saying: “That’s all she’s got”. I’d be shocked if that’s truly the case. 24th is a definite improvement given DCR’s horrendous oval form lately, but a rotten bit of luck he’s crashed a tub. I’d feel worse for him but he committed the cardinal sin of asking for skimmed milk if he wins. Disgraceful. Might as well drink water.
Row 9 – Kyle Kirkwood (229.607) / Katherine Legge (229.456) / Mick Schumacher 🔰 (229.450)
A tip of the hat to Katherine Legge here. You forget she’s now 45 and the HMD/Foyt tie-up had only a couple of weeks to put everything together and despite all that, this is Legge’s highest ever qualifying result out of her five attempts at this race. Props all round. Not a bad first effort from Mick Schumacher either given the reputation of RLL around ovals.
Row 10 – Graham Rahal (229.017) / Dennis Hauger 🔰 (228.982) / Jacob Abel 🔰(228.169)
There was this really funny tweet I saw during his qualifying run, where Graham said the car felt “really slow”, and the tweet said that he sounds like a Pokemon repeating his name. Ouch, especially given Rahal’s genuinely been good this season. Dennis Hauger is a lot more like what you’d expect for Coyne, and Abel in P30 is perfectly acceptable given the resources available.
Row 11 – Sting Ray Robb (226.572) / Caio Collet 🔰 (No Time) / Jack Harvey (No Time)
Robb’s run looked like the car was actively trying to harm him. It was terrifying to watch in real time, my god. A real shame for Caio Collet who had genuine pace and actually unqualified Ferrucci at the first time of asking to make the Fast 12 in the first place. Harvey would have been 29th if it weren’t for the DQ, but who cares because FOX loves him in the pitlane!
That’ll just about do it for the Indy 500 rundown. Hard not to have Palou as favourite given his adaptability and overall speed in all aspects, but I think David Malukas, Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist are big contenders for the victory too. It’s going to be a fascinating race, and of course, I’ll be back to review it next week. Till then, sayonara!