Truth be told, Rossi believed he could do it all along, never wavering from some seriously lofty goals he first had dreamed up as a go-kart driver more than a decade old.
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May 29 Only three men have ever won both the Indianapolis 500 and Monaco Grand Prix and Alexander Rossi is halfway to becoming the fourth after the rookie scored an unlikely win at the Brickyard on Sunday.
Castroneves, looking to become a rare four-time Indy 500 victor appeared to be in position to do just that and led 24 laps on the day, but rear wing damage to his vehicle forced the Team Penske driver to make an extended stop to change the wing. “That’s no secret”, admitted Rossi following his stunning win.
Rossi used fuel strategy and stretched his final tank nearly 90 miles.
Pole-sitter James Hinchcliffe, making a comeback since being severely injured in a practice crash before the Indy 500 a year ago, was strong all day but finished seventh. The drivers were called to their cars by 82-year-old Florence Henderson. Jack Hawksworth 17. Alex Tagliani 18. The strategy play to stay out while most of the leaders pitted for fuel late paid off as Carlos Munoz, the first driver who pitted for fuel, finished second, a quarter-track behind Rossi. He sat in the vehicle for some time before climbing out to take that sweet sip of milk.
Rossi’s final lap averaged 179.784 miles per hour, almost 40 miles per hour slower than the charging Munoz, but he had cushion enough to coast across the famous yard of bricks by the largest margin of victory since the 1996 race. “The emotional roller-coaster of this race is ridiculous”.
“I’m really, really, really upset”.
“I think he sees what I was talking about now”.
For Munoz the bittersweet feeling of finishing second again was mitigated somewhat by his Andretti Autosport teammate ending up in the Winner’s Circle.
‘I had a dental appointment yesterday and I picked up some dry-cleaning this morning, ‘ Letterman said. So in she came, on fumes, for a stop of about 9.6 seconds.
Munoz has contended at Indy before and he’s proven to be fast at the speedway. Most cars had been required to fill up after 32 laps. It was a tough break for Karam, who is trying to work his way back into a full-time ride in IndyCar. He left for Europe when he was 16 and never pursued a career in American open-wheel racing.
The young driver was back at an IndyCar race for the first time since a wreck at Pocono previous year during which his car’s nosecone bounced into Justin Wilson’s cockpit.
Juan Pablo Montoya says, “I just got loose and I lost the vehicle”.
But after he failed to secure the seat for this year, he moved to the Verizon IndyCar Series, and Sunday he drove in a vehicle prepared by the veteran IndyCar teams of Andretti Autosport and Bryan Herta Autosport.
“People in race cars do a lot of dumb things and we were being careful”, Montoya said. How lucky for Rossi that Herta has talked a driver home before, Dan Wheldon, through those final corners to claim the Borg-Warner trophy from behind.
Four F-18E fighters perform a flyover before the start of the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Even more incredible: That Hunter-Reay and Bell coming together in the pits actually helped Rossi, who drafted off Hunter-Reay as a back marker in the closing laps, thereby saving precious drops of fuel.
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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.
