Rossi watched the 500 as a young racer in California his first memory of “The Greatest Spectacle In Racing” is Marco Andretti almost winning as a rookie in 2006 but he never had any plans to be a participant.
Advertisement
If there was any doubt about the buzz and atmosphere returning to the ol’ Brickyard 20 years after Indy car’s civil war almost destroyed the Indianapolis 500 and the sport itself, the 100th running of the 500 answered in a resounding way.
Rossi learned Monday evening that his victory was worth $2,548,743 from an overall purse of $13,273,253.
Alexander Rossi is a stranger in his own home, but the way he capped the 100th running of the 500 was the exclamation point to a weekend celebrating more than a century of excitement at the track everyone knows something about.
Race leader Carlos Munoz was forced to pit with four laps to go for fuel, opening the door for Rossi.
Not only is it the first win for a rookie in the Indy 500 for 15 years it also marks an astonishing turnaround for Rossi, a talented victim of Formula One’s pay driver market. He said that, ‘The extraordinary @ladygaga is riding with me in my @Honda 2-seat IndyCar at the start of this historic Indy 500.
“I knew to drink the milk, but I didn’t know how much to drink”.
“For half a lap short of fuel…”, he said.
“Just incredible”, added Bryan Herta, Andretti’s new business partner and a man destined to supplant Tom Sneva as the Gas Man (more on that later). In doing so, Rossi believes he answered several lingering questions.
“I was really disappointed when it comes with fuel and you lose the race because of that”, he said. “We all know it’s a different kind of animal, if you will, in terms of the motorsports world”.
“I hope people don’t think it’s a fluke or it’s lucky, because so many people worked so hard to get that lucky”, Herta said. There were moments I was really stoked, really heartbroken, really stoked. The Californian earned a victory for Andretti Autosport by running the final 36 laps without a pit stop.
Newgarden, who drives for Ed Carpenter, was left scratching his head. In 2011, there were four females in the field, including Danica Patrick who logged the best finish of her gender, a third in one of her seven starts.
It continued during a race that saw 54 lead changes, mostly between Hinchcliffe and American drivers Ryan Hunter-Reay, the 2014 victor, Josef Newgarden and Townsend Bell. It is the second win for the Andretti team in three years.
Rounding out the top-five was Charlie Kimball, the only driver among that group to not lead a lap. Hinchcliffe, the pole victor who missed the race past year after a near-fatal accident in a practice session, faded to seventh. The Canadian won $502,993 in the No. 5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda, which included the $100,000 Verizon P1 Award.
Advertisement
■Juan Pablo Montoya: The two-time and defending victor spun and crashed by himself on the 64th lap in last place. Meyer drove relief for Wilbur Shaw in 1927. It was the only lap Wheldon led that day. Madness personified. We didn’t see the expected late-race caution that many of us anticipated, and that turned the last stanza into a fuel mileage event as drivers tried to stretch their last tank to the end. Gordon Johncock did so in 1973 as did Helio Castroneves in 2001. They don’t have a deal, but Andretti thinks the Nevada City, Calif., driver is enjoying being back in the USA after eight years in Europe chasing his F-1 dream.
