INDY 500: Honda breaks its drought

Honda finally broke Chevrolet's 2016 dominance on Sunday.

At IndyCar's biggest race, at the grandest Indy 500 on record, the California-based Honda Performance Development team claimed pole position with James Hinchcliffe, finished 1-2 in the race, earned the fastest lap, and set the new standard for fuel mileage as Alexander Rossi led Andretti-Herta Autosport to Victory Lane.

"I think it's a just reward for so many years of support we've shown to IndyCar," HPD vice president Steve Eriksen told RACER. "To be able to take home this trophy and revel in it is fantastic. I was touring the new Honda America president around and we were showing him the history of the place, and having him here was a fantastic tie-in to winning the 100th."

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With a settle to score against its rival Chevrolet, whose teams owned the 2015 Indy 500 and have won the first five IndyCar Series races of the year, HPD's big Indy win was made possible by the brand's newest updates to its 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 engine. Aero kits aside, Honda's angry little engine made the biggest difference this month, and with its design and development coming out of HPD's speed shop near Los Angeles, the homegrown angle to the win is unique for a company with Japanese origins.

"This is huge for us," Eriksen said. "We started work on this quite a while ago and to have it all come to this end, it's such a reward for all the associates at HPD who worked on it. It reaffirms our focus on the most important race of our season, and perhaps the entire world. We've done that with absolute laser focus, and I think that shows in our results."

HPD race team leader Allen Miller was relieved to see Rossi make it to the finish line first after saving fuel like a man possessed.

"All I was doing was watching the front straight and saw him come by really slow, but he made it," Miller told RACER. "We never give up, never say die. We all got together, decided what we needed to do after the last Indy 500, put our heads down, and we never gave up. Last year was hard, but we're back to fight now."