As the laps accumulated and Alexander Rossi’s final tank of fuel dwindled, his timing stand teammates would determine how fast he could go and still finish the Indianapolis 500. He finished the race in third place. “Whatever she picks, it’s going to be a very lucky guy”, Kanaan said Friday after landing atop the leaderboard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
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I left him with this goodbye, which I clearly remember: “Well, maybe I’ll see you in Victory Lane someday at Indianapolis”.
Rossi took the lead on lap 196 after several drivers took to the pits for gas.
Follow the leader: The 54 lead changes was the second most in Indy 500 history.
Three days later, organizers announced they had sold an estimated 350,000 to 375,000 tickets and that the race would be televised locally for the first time since the 1950s. “I hope I can just look ahead while I’m driving”. “I’m really proud of my team”. I’ve been here for 15 years and I’ve never, never seen anything like this. With this being the race’s centennial, the event was sold out. “But at least people had an fantastic show to watch for the 100 running”. 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.
Marco Andretti has been preparing for Sunday for an entire year. In fact, before Rossi got to the head of the pack and stayed there, it was Munoz, Newgarden and Kanaan who were battling it out for the win at the 2016 Indy500.
Yes, rookie Alexander Rossi is the latest Indianapolis 500 champion. Thankfully, there was not anyone around him when he came to the finish line as his vehicle was running on fumes. The one run when we had the first air pressure adjustment we were really good. We tried to trim and trim and trim. It’s just not reflective of the auto that we had and the pit stops that we had. “I’m one of the family today”.
“I can’t overstate how hard it was for Alex to do what I was asking him to do on the radio: To drive to a fuel number that was nearly impossible, but still keep pace and keep track position”, Herta said. “Just to put your mark on the 100th would be huge”. “I kept saying, Wow”, Andretti mentioned.
He will now also become the 103rd face on the famed Borg-Warner Trophy. That ended his bid for a third Indy 500 win, after winning past year and in 2000.
“To get a 1-2 finish in the 100th running of the Indy 500 is pretty good”, Andretti said. “Before I won here, I thought I might be done in the sport”.
“I have no idea how we pulled that off”, he said, in a television interview immediately after the race. “Whoever wins this thing needs to be on top of their game and promote like insane and work hard”.
“It was tough. But I just really focused on doing the job I could”. No. Is it going to be as big as this year? They’ve captured that audience again that maybe we had lost there for a little bit.
Although a pair of Americans – Josef Newgarden and 2014 victor Ryan Hunter-Reay – will start on the front row Sunday, a Canadian will lead the field to the green flag.
But despite running in the top three to five all day and leading 14 total laps – including Laps 179 to 181, 184 to 190 and 192 to 193 – Newgarden was one of most of the field who needed a late-race splash for fuel inside the final 10 laps.
Hunter-Reay led a race-high 52 laps but had his bid for victory stifled following an incident on pit lane.
“The reason I went to Europe was I won a test with BMW Sauber F1 after winning the Formula BMW World Finals in 2008”.
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The California native won not because he had the fastest vehicle, he didn’t, but because he best executed the principle that has defined the Indianapolis 500 since 1911: On a day when others blundered, were victimized by bad luck or out-strategized, Rossi and his Andretti Herta Autosport team were flawless when it mattered the most, seizing the opportunity before them.
