After yet another incredible round of late racing on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval, Sunday’s 104th running of the Indianapolis 500 ended under an anti-climactic and controversial yellow flag. For Takuma Sato, it meant glory.
The 43-year-old Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver edged Scott Dixon on track with just over 25 laps to go. They shuffled to the front with 15 to go, and then glided to the checkered flag under caution.
With five laps to go, as Sato and Dixon nearly ended up side-by-side at the start-finish line, Sato’s teammate Spencer Pigot got sideways in Turn 4. The slide into the pit lane attenuator smashed his car – and Dixon’s hope for a second Indy 500 win.
Dixon led 111 laps, moving into third all-time at the Indy 500 with 563, edging legends A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti. Sato needed just 27 laps led to become the 20th multiple winner in the Indy 500 – the first since Juan Pablo Montoya won his second in 2015.
“This is unbelievable. Thank you so much. I can’t find the words, can’t find the words,” Sato said in Victory Lane. “Scott was coming right around out of (Turn) 4, just screaming, coming, and I held him off.
“This is unbelievable.”
Dixon was left hands on his hips in pit lane, a little perplexed why, so near the scheduled end, the race wasn’t red flagged. The most recent finish under caution was 2013, when Tony Kanaan won.
The IndyCar series frontrunner, like Sato, was looking to pick up his second Indy 500 – his first coming in 2008.
“This is a hard one to swallow, for sure. We’d had such a great day,” Dixon said on the broadcast. “I wasn’t sure (Sato) was going to be able to make it on fuel mileage. We had pitted one lap after them.
“I think they were even hesitating there to figure out whether they had to save fuel and get to the end. I thought it would have been a really interesting race to the end.”
Dixon had been the dominant car, passing pole-sitter Marco Andretti almost immediately after the green flag flew. At one point, Dixon stretched his lead to more than 10 seconds, mastering the pit strategy battle that started within the race’s first 10 laps. But a yellow came on Lap 83 that pulled everyone – including Sato – back within view of the New Zealander.
Still, Dixon held a comfortable lead on a Lap 154 restart, appearing poised to charge to the end. But Sato passed him three laps later, sparking their back-and-forth duel. The Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver pitted Lap 168, giving Dixon a brief lead before he followed suit. It would be the last time he’d run up front.
With 15 laps to go, Dixon hugged up close on Sato at the start-finish line and tried to swing around the outside in Turn 1, but Sato hung on just a couple tenths ahead with the official lead after Zach Veach and Max Chilton had to dip into the pits moments earlier.
Sato’s defense over the final 20 laps looked eerily similar to last year’s duel between winner Simon Pagenaud and runner-up Alexander Rossi. Pagenaud hung on to the inside line, forcing Rossi to try and work around the outside over the final two laps. Rossi couldn’t ever make it stick.
With seven laps to go, Sato came up on lapped traffic as his lead on Dixon had extended to over a second, with Sato’s teammate Graham Rahal closing in. Dixon lacked that extra spark to make a charge that could match Sato’s pace.
“Takuma ran hard all day long,” said team owner Bobby Rahal, who claimed his team’s second 500 title. “In the end, I was really worried up against that traffic. Things were bunching up, but Takuma got through pretty good, Scott got through pretty good, but there was just enough of a gap, and that’s all it took.
“Who knows what would have happened those last five laps.”
