A sell-out near 350,000 crowd will gather for the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500, with the sell-out also meaning a blackout of the event will be lifted on local TV for the first time since 2016.
Amazingly, it’s reported that the Speedway will be the second biggest city in Indiana on Sunday given the influx!
In terms of predictions, I think it’s clear that rookie poleman Robert Shwartzman and his rookie team Prema are going to struggle to stay up front having done so little race running in practice and with what IndyCar ranks as the worst pit crew in its Pitstop Performance Award rankings. In some ways qualifying has already made the event a success for Prema and Shwartzman and anything else is a bonus.
Second-placed qualifier Takuma Sato’s aggressiveness can be a blessing and a curse, so I think two-time runner-up Pato O’Ward – starting from his best Indy 500 qualifying spot so far in third – is the car to beat from those on the front row.
But picking victors from the positions that most frequently win this race is not what you’ve come here for. So we’ve decided to go beyond the starting grid and practice times to give you some drivers who won’t and probably shouldn’t be top of your pick list, but might just cause a shock on Sunday.
19th Kyle Larson
Two crashes before the 500 begins and starting 14 places worse than last year, McLaren’s NASCAR superstar guest Kyle Larson hardly seems a wise pick for the race win.
However, I’m convinced the second crash – the first one was last month at the open test – was not fully his fault and his poor qualifying position is in part at least down to conservative set-up choices hampering his run from his draw.
What you might not have seen is how quickly Larson mastered the hybrid, and just continues to impress with his innate ability and car control.
He’s been happy with his race car in recent practice sessions and he has the knowledge of the race from last year to go off, experimenting more and more with the nuanced tools in the cockpit that he was too scared to mess with last year.
Winning is certainly a massive long shot, especially when he has two strong team-mates ahead in O’Ward and Christian Lundgaard. But stranger things have happened and this felt like a good chance to explain how good he’s been this month even if the results don’t show it.
It looks increasingly likely this will be Larson’s last Indy 500 for a while, so if you’re a fan of him or ‘the double’ where a driver does the Indy 500 and Charlotte NASCAR race in the same day, enjoy it!
23rd Kyle Kirkwood
It feels harsh to say Kyle Kirkwood is an underdog, but starting 23rd, he has his work cut out to be in contention to take a first 500 win.
In practice, he was consistently the fastest car and driver in the time charts without a tow, and as qualifying is done on a clear track, that meant he had to be the favourite for qualifying.
But there was a sudden mysterious loss of pace admittedly in changing track conditions in terms of wind and temperature, and it seems he and his Andretti team still don’t _really_ know what happened to cause such a drop.
However, Kirkwood has been happy with his race car – as has team-mate Marcus Ericsson starting in ninth – and the team has been really strong in the races at Indy for years now. Kirkwood had multiple pit issues and a drive-through last year but still scored a top 10.
If we get the peak car he has had this month, he’ll certainly be challenging for victory.
11th Conor Daly
Conor Daly is a native of Indiana and a home favourite, and starts 11th which is his equal best start in the race.
But crucially, he says his car this year is better than the one he led the most laps in back in 2021 for Ed Carpenter, before a wheel smashed him in the aeroscreen…
Now he’s at Juncos Hollinger, which got its best qualifying result, and who better than to pull off a giantkilling than the team that knocked Fernando Alonso out of the 2019 Indy 500?
15th Santino Ferrucci
What a rollercoaster month it’s been for Santino Ferrucci. After two years of being one of the cars to beat or at least one in contention for the top five, this year has been very, very difficult.
While his team-mate David Malukas – who starts seventh – has seemingly cruised through the month, AJ Foyt Racing and Ferrucci have thrown everything and the kitchen sink at the car in terms of set-up. It’s been a mess.
But, starting from 15th certainly doesn’t rule him out and his car looked better in Carb Day practice. In six starts, his worst finish is 10th.
32nd Josef Newgarden
Already in 2024 you got the feeling that the fans weren’t as happy about a Josef Newgarden win as they would be for other drivers, but after the Penske attenuator scandal that led to Newgarden and Will Power being put to the back, him winning again would be massively unpopular with a lot of fans.
But I genuinely think Newgarden is the favourite to win this race, at least he’s my pick.
No one has ever won the race from 29th or worse, but I think that’s a lot in part to the fact that fast cars very rarely end up in Last Chance Qualifying at the 500. Newgarden’s car was a top 12 car in qualifying, and it’s rare drivers or teams get things so wrong that they put a top 12 car on the back two rows of the grid.
I also think there’s an obsession with focusing on it being difficult to pass deep in a pack, whereas that is just a small part of how you get to the front. Strategy is crucial and if you have a good pit crew – Newgarden’s won the pitstop challenge at the Speedway on Friday – you will make up spots that way.
Cars also retire or crash, and the undercut can be really strong early on with heavy tyre drop off, so there’s positions available there too.
Callum Ilott went to the back in a McLaren car that wasn’t that great last year, and it had the anti-roll bar ‘weight jacker’ jammed on for the whole race, and he went from the back to 11th. So you can go from the back to a strong position.
I think Newgarden will be up there around the top 10 by halfway.
His car looks like a rocketship. At times it’s been a joke seeing it draft up and pass other cars with ease as if it were a Hot Wheels being ‘driven’ by an over-excited three-year-old with their hand on a carpet.
Newgarden’s only an underdog because of his starting spot and that he’s at risk of being taken out in other people’s incidents.
But if he started in the top 12 he would have been the favourite.
No one has ever won three in a row, or from this far back. Can he do it?
