Penske’s Pagenaud beats Rossi to claim first Indianapolis 500 win – IndyCar

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Penske’s Simon Pagenaud won a ferocious late fight with Alexander Rossi to claim his first victory in the Indianapolis 500.

Poleman Pagenaud had controlled most of the first half of the race, but Andretti Autosport driver Rossi’s car came on stronger after the third round of pitstops and began to rapidly advance towards the front.

In the closing stages Rossi took the lead moments before a collision between frontrunners Sebastien Bourdais and Graham Rahal that led to a chain reaction multi-car crash and brought out the red flags.

The race restarted with 13 laps to go, and Pagenaud immediately reclaimed the lead with a successful attack on Rossi.

The pair swapped places twice more in quick succession before a spell of Pagenaud leading and successfully rebuffing all of Rossi’s attempts.

Rossi managed to get around the outside of Pagenaud into Turn 1 as they began the 198th of the 200 laps, but Pagenaud returned the favour one lap later and held on to win by 0.2086 seconds.

The result meant Pagenaud repeated Penske team-mate Will Power’s 2018 feat of winning both the Indianapois road course race and the 500 in the same year.

Takuma Sato charged back from falling to the rear of the field with an additional pitstop for a loose wheel to shadow Pagenaud and Rossi’s lead fight and finish third.

Josef Newgarden was also right in contention at the finish and took fourth, having led for a spell in the middle of the race.

Penske had three cars in the top five, with Will Power also on a recovery charge to take fifth.

He had run second to Pagenaud for a spell early on but was penalised for running over an air hose when he came into a pitstop too fast.

Front row starter Ed Carpenter and team-mate Spencer Pigot were Penske’s main threats initially but ended up back in sixth and 14th.

Dale Coyne Racing’s Santino Ferrucci finished as top rookie in seventh, taking the place with a late move on Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Veteran Tony Kanaan got AJ Foyt Racing in the top 10 in ninth, followed by Andretti Autosport’s guest driver Conor Daly – a frontrunner for much of the day – and back row starter James Hinchcliffe.

Ganassi had a disappointing day. Both Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist gained ground with long stints after qualifying down the field, but Dixon could only finish 17th following a late extra stop for floor attention and Rosenqvist was among the cars caught up in the Bourdais/Rahal crash.

Four-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, making one of his regular IndyCar returns for the Indianapolis month, was only 18th in the fourth Penske entry following a pitlane clash with James Davison.

Marcus Ericsson and Jordan King finished back in 23rd and 24th after further pit incidents, in Ericsson’s case a wild spin and in King’s an unnerving moment when he clipped a tyre that struck one of his crew mwmbers.

Colton Herta, Honda’s top qualifier, ended up as the race’s first retirement with a very early problem he believed to be a gearbox failure.

Qualifying hero Kyle Kaiser, who had bumped Fernando Alonso and McLaren out of the field, crashed out.

Results

Pos Driver Team Car Laps Gap
1 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 200 2h50m39.2797s
2 Alexander Rossi Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 200 0.2086s
3 Takuma Sato Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 200 0.3413s
4 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 200 0.8979s
5 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 200 1.6173s
6 Ed Carpenter Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 200 1.9790s
7 Santino Ferrucci Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 200 2.8055s
8 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 200 4.0198s
9 Tony Kanaan AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet 200 4.7708s
10 Conor Daly Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 200 5.3459s
11 James Hinchcliffe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 200 5.4821s
12 James Davison Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 200 6.2250s
13 Ed Jones Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 200 7.5500s
14 Spencer Pigot Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 200 8.5566s
15 Matheus Leist AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet 200 10.4153s
16 Pippa Mann Clauson-Marshall Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 200 12.9803s
17 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 200 14.7595s
18 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 199 1 Lap
19 Sage Karam Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 199 1 Lap
20 J.R. Hildebrand Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 199 1 Lap
21 Jack Harvey Meyer Shank Racing Dallara/Honda 199 1 Lap
22 Oriol Servia Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 199 1 Lap
23 Marcus Ericsson Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 198 2 Laps
24 Jordan King Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 198 2 Laps
25 Charlie Kimball Carlin Dallara/Chevrolet 196 4 Laps
26 Marco Andretti Andretti Herta Dallara/Honda 195 5 Laps
27 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 176 Contact
28 Felix Rosenqvist Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 176 Contact
29 Zach Veach Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 176 Contact
30 Sebastien Bourdais Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 176 Contact
31 Kyle Kaiser Juncos Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 71 Contact
32 Ben Hanley DragonSpeed Dallara/Chevrolet 54 Mechanical
33 Colton Herta Harding Racing Dallara/Honda 3 Mechanical

Drivers’ standings

Pos Driver Points
1 Simon Pagenaud 250
2 Josef Newgarden 249
3 Alexander Rossi 228
4 Takuma Sato 203
5 Scott Dixon 203
6 Will Power 184
7 Ryan Hunter-Reay 157
8 James Hinchcliffe 145
9 Spencer Pigot 133
10 Santino Ferrucci 129
11 Sebastien Bourdais 124
12 Graham Rahal 123
13 Jack Harvey 118
14 Ed Jones 118
15 Felix Rosenqvist 117
16 Colton Herta 110
17 Tony Kanaan 110
18 Matheus Leist 108
19 Marco Andretti 105
20 Zach Veach 83
21 Marcus Ericsson 81
22 Patricio O’Ward 67
23 Ed Carpenter 65
24 Max Chilton 59
25 Conor Daly 40
26 James Davison 36
27 Helio Castroneves 33
28 Ben Hanley 31
29 Pippa Mann 28
30 Charlie Kimball 23
31 Kyle Kaiser 22
32 Sage Karam 22
33 J.R. Hildebrand 20
34 Oriol Servia 16
35 Jordan King 12



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