As a car race, this year’s Indy 500 won’t go down as a classic. In fact, it had some unfortunate similarities to last year’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard NASCAR Sprint Cup event. Both races were a series of short sprints—with little passing—punctuated by yellow-flag pit stops with the field bunched up.
The longest stretch of green-flag racing in this year’s 500 was from Lap 28 to Lap 56, which was less than a full fuel run. Everyone was in fuel-saving mode anyway, so there wasn’t a lot of racing to speak of.
Although a few drivers (mainly Dan Wheldon and Townsend Bell) gained ground on the track, most changes in position occurred during pit stops. Every 20 to 30 laps, someone could be counted on to crash, and the whole scene got reset again. There was never enough green-flag running for anyone to develop or execute any kind of strategy.
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Helio Castroneves certainly was a deserving winner, having dominated this past month. When HCN dropped to sixth place, you never got the sense that he or the Penske team was worried that he had dropped that far back.
In fact, Castroneves and the No. 3 team seemed to just bide their time while their competitors eliminated themselves one by one. Castroneves was fortunate that Ryan Briscoe and Penske’s No. 6 team lost a lap with a handling issue at the 150-mile mark that they never quite recovered from. ESPN
“I’m comfortable,” Castroneves said. “Certainly every sport has their issues, and we can’t compare one to another. I do feel we’ve got our share. We just have to continue working, and I’m hoping the Indy Racing League will continue to do that.”
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