There have only been 10 rookie winners in the 100 Indy 500 races.
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They would have preferred a family gathering on Indianapolis Motor Speedway to kiss the bricks.
And suddenly, there Alexander Rossi was, with a bottle of milk in his hand and a folk tale to never forget. Andretti earlier this month was voted by the 27 living winners as the best driver never to win the race, but he has now won the 500 four times as a vehicle owner.
Rossi said he didn’t know how much fuel he had for the final few laps.
It was so unlikely, the 24-year old rookie said after the race he has no idea how his team did it.
Andretti Autosport didn’t go home empty-handed Alexander Rossi was the stunning Indy 500 champion.
He would cut things so close that he would complete the last lap at just 179 miles per hour – 46 mph slower than his top speed – and would require a tow to get his Honda into Victory Lane; so close that even his Andretti teammate, Munoz, was mystified. I don’t know how my teammate did it without stopping. Munoz wound up taking second place in what amounted to two wins for Andretti Autosport. He seemed devastated after his second runner-up finish in four years.
“I know I didn’t have enough fuel”.
So, did the one hundredth Indy 500 live up to its billing as “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing?”
There were five rookies in this year’s race, including Rossi, who is a lock for Rookie of the Year honors as the fastest-qualifying rookie and highest-finishing.
In the process, Rossi became the 10th rookie in Indianapolis 500 history to win the race and the first since Helio Castroneves in 2001.
“We rolled the dice and made it happen”, an emotional Rossi said. “We struggled a little bit in the pit stops but Bryan (Herta) came up with an unbelievable strategy”. They said, ‘go, go, go!’ It looked like Townsend (Bell) got into Helio and bounced into me.
Although he’s a relief driver for Manor Racing in F1, Rossi has no scheduled F1 races and IndyCar right now is his top commitment. Herta was the winning auto owner in 2011 with Dan Wheldon, the actual 100th anniversary of the first race in 1911, and now can claim a win in the 100th actual race.
This Herta effort this year relied heavily on its alliance with Andretti, and the family was hoping Marco Andretti would give them their first Indy 500 title since patriarch Mario Andretti won in 1969.
Instead, Marco Andretti never contended on a day at least three of his teammates were among the best in the field.
“I think if I was in Alex’s position, I’d be the happiest man in the world right now”, said Newgarden, who led with eight laps to go only to finish third after making a late pit for fuel.
While Munoz and Newgarden combined to lead only 24 of the 200 laps, both were poised to win late.
Just seconds after crossing the finish line, Rossi’s vehicle had enough.
This time, something as simple as tire pressure forced Andretti off the pace and into the pits out of sequence, leaving him a lap down with a quarter of the race remaining in the 100th running of the race Sunday.
Lady Gaga was also at the speedway for the 100th running of the Indy 500, though she kept a very low profile, dressed down in jean shorts with her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. “I just can’t believe we have done this”. “If we get a race going, we’re going to be good, we’re going to be able to beat these guys”.
Colombia’s Carlos Muñoz finished second as he did in his 2013 Indy debut with American Josef Newgarden third and Brazil’s Tony Kanaan, the 2013 Indy 500 victor, in fourth. Castroneves escaped the incident, however, the contact spun Hunter-Reay and Bell into each other. It a tough defeat for Newgarden. “The thing that I tried to explain to him, when you come over here, you’re going to really enjoy the racing. Well, more than a stint because we came in for that splash of fuel at the end”.
While fuel strategy played a big part in the finish, pit problems were a theme throughout the race.
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“…Those [Andretti] guys, I think to put it politely, I don’t think they were quite as strong as us today”.
