Power wins 17th Indy 500 for Team Penske

Will Power elated with first Indy 500 win

Team Penske’s Will Power drove the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske to Chevrolet to victory in today’s 102nd Running of the Indianapolis 500 Presented by Penngrade Motor Oil. It was the first Indianapolis 500 win for the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series champion and 17th win in The Greatest Spectacle in Racing for Team Penske.

Pole sitter Ed Carpenter came home second 3.1s behind Power with Scott Dixon third. The Andretti Autosport duo of Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay rounded out the top-5.

Walking the grid this morning, no one knew what to expect. From Team Penske all the way down the grid, folks just didn't know how this would go. Granted, the Chevy crew has posted some monster numbers during qualifications, but the Honda speed seemed to keep up under normal boost conditions in practice. Worse yet, this was a hot one — the track temp was over 100 degrees by 11:00, and it will go down as the second hottest Indy on record (1937 is still the hottest). And of course this is a new "car", a new aero package, and people are still trying to figure this one out, one with a whole lot less downforce.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]In the end, Simon Pagenaud commented to us, "This was a driver's race. And the best driver won."

The start wasn't exactly a 3-wide start. Not to say that the front row had agreed prior to get single file immediately, but yes, that's how it looked. The start stood, and after a couple of laps all 33 cars were single file as everyone tried to see just what this track had in store today. The pole sitter, Carpenter, led for the first 31 laps, until pit stops began.

Max Chilton's team had figured on 20 laps before the tires started going away, but tires didn't seem to be much of a story today. The first round finished in a couple of laps. And when the dust settled, Ed Carpenter resumed the number one position (he led 65 laps on the day) with Tony Kanaan following in second, then the Penske foursome of Josef Newgarden, Pagenaud, Helio Castroneves and Power.

And so it went until lap 48 when Takuma Sato ran over James Davison. Davison was running slow when Taku caught him in the short chute and ran into the back of him. TV commentary that "Sato had nowhere to go" was not warmly received in the media center (especially the drivers among us), and Sato later commented that the situation seemed to suck him in. The 2017 winner finished 32nd, with Davison 33rd.

The green flag fell on lap 55, with Zachary Claman De Melo leading the field. While De Melo got the position by not pitting — and was quickly passed by those with new tires — he did hang around the top-5 for a long time. He finished 19th on the day, but showed that he can just as easily run up front, if he gets up front.

The second caution flew on lap 58 when Ed Jones hit the wall. For a few minutes it looked like a rookie mistake for a second-year driver. Ed ran well last year (and should've been rookie of the year) but the car mysteriously broke loose and spun out. Jones finished 31st, and watched the end of the race over at Methodist Hospital, complaining of head and neck pain.

Danica Patrick after a disappointing day at Indy

And so it went for a while — green on lap 62, caution on lap 68, for instance, when Danica spun out in much the same way. Danica finished 30th in what is billed as her last race, and an obviously emotional Danica held an impromptu presser during the race to say goodbye. Her best Indy finish was 3rd in 2009.

Green flag racing resumed on lap 73, and the normal routine "middle of the 500" parade took over during the Danica presser. Tony Kanaan pleased the crowd by leading until lap 89 until Ed took over on lap 90 when he started the next round of pit stops. One of the nice surprises for the month is when Oriol Servia took over the lead at lap 95, followed by Bourdais on lap 96, and Graham Rahal on 97. Servia would also lead laps late in the race in a fuel strategy — 16 laps in all — and finished 17th when his fuel gamble didn't get that last yellow flag that he needed. Rahal would lead 12 laps and finish 10th.

The scariest moment of the race came on lap 103 when Zach Veach's car caught fire in the pits. The flames extinguished themselves when he drove away, but not before the fuel sensor was damaged. There is a sensor that locks out the gearbox when the fuel probe is inserted, and for the rest of the race Zach had to use a manual override to be abut to drive the car. Zach's day showed moments of brilliance, but he finished 23rd, 2 laps down.

The yellow flag flew once again on lap 139 when Sebastien Bourdais looped his car. It was now obvious that there was a tendency of the cars — while pretty much on their own — to suddenly break rear traction in the corner with the expected results. Bourdais was uninjured, and finished a very disappointing 28th.

Helio Castroneves was already thinking about going win #4 in 2019 after crashing out today

No sooner did the green flag fly again on lap 145 (Will Power leading) than Helio looped it in turn 4. The three-time winner was uninjured and finished 27th, with Tim Cindric claiming that Helio would be back next year.

And again, the green flag flew on lap 153, only to have Sage Karam loop his car in Turn 4 in much the same way. Karam was unhurt, and finished 26th.

On lap 161, the racing resumed and life got very interesting for the fans. This restart featured some of the closest non-contact racing in recent memory, with 4-wide starts. Better yet, Alexander Rossi (who started next to last) was pushing for the lead. And he did take the lead on lap 173 for a lap as he dueled with Ed Carpenter, Simon Pagenaud, Carlos Munoz, Oriol Servia and Robert Wickens. This is what the crowd came to see, as the best of the field started moving in for the kill.

The last caution came out on lap 189 when Tony Kanaan took his turn looping his #14 Chevy. TK had run up front early, but a tire puncture on lap 99 had put him a lap down. He'd worked his way up to (at least) 9th before crashing out. TK finished 25th.

It all came down to a 7-lap shootout at the end. The green flag fell with Stefan Wilson and Oriol Servia leading the way on a fuel strategy, but a lap later they had to peel off for fuel. Stefan finished 15th, Oriol 17th. From there Will Power was able to pull a 3 second lead over Pole-sitter Ed Carpenter for the win. Scott Dixon, on a fuel run which benefited from lots of caution laps, finished third. Alexander Rossi finished fourth.

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Alexander Rossi's passes were breathtaking all day

At the beginning of the day it was easy to say that one of the Chevy-powered cars would win, given the smack-down that they put on Honda on Pole Day (not to mention that the 2 cars bumped out here Honda-powered). But while Chevy won, six of the top ten were Honda-powered. Nine of the (record-tying) fifteen leaders were Honda drivers.

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At the end of the day, this was a legacy win for Power. Power, as you probably know, has put up rather historic numbers in 193 career IndyCar starts. Today's win was Power's 34th, tying him for 8th-place all-time with Al Unser Jr.

And while the wins are certainly impressive, a rather convincing argument could be made that he is the best qualifier in IndyCar history. His 51 poles rank fifth in IndyCar history, 14 behind Mario Andretti's 65. That number, however, becomes all the more impressive when you realize that all the drivers ahead of Power (Andretti, A.J. Foyt , Bobby Unser and Helio Castroneves) each have at least 100 more starts. While it's hard to compare eras, from a pure percentage standpoint, none of them come close to Power in this regard.

What this win does for the 2014 series champ is put an exclamation point on his legacy. In addition to all the wins, poles, and his one championship, Power will soon have his likeness etched on racing's most storied trophy. Now, instead of being a championship-winning driver with lots of wins and poles, Power is now an Indy 500 winner and a series champion, who has won poles and races at a historic rate.

And while one could argue that we should have perhaps shifted the discussion concerning Power’s place in IndyCar history before, today unquestionably erased any lingering questions one may have had.

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