Rosenqvist storms through last-lap shootout to claim Indianapolis 500 glory

Felix Rosenqvist has won the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500 after a scintillating shootout with David Malukas in which the Honda-powered Meyer Shank Racing entry defeated the Chevrolet-powered Team Penske car by just 0.0233s – the closest margin in the storied event's history.

Rosenqvist had run in the top 10 all day, and he was among many drivers to switch to an alternate strategy that sent him, the Arrow McLaren-Chevrolet of Pato O’Ward and Rosenqvist’s teammate Marcus Armstrong to the front, albeit on a fuel-save strategy. The task of Malukas, Alex Palou and Scott McLaughlin still looked impossible running 16 seconds behind albeit at up to 10mph faster.

They were brought back into play by a late yellow which became a red flag, allowing the potentially faster cars to take the penultimate restart in close proximity. Armstrong and Malukas passed O’Ward and Rosenqvist but then another caution flew for Mick Schumacher striking a wall. It left a final restart with one lap to go, and Armstrong was immediately passed by Malukas whose position looked secure as the two Meyer Shank cars battled through every turn.

But Rosenqvist caught the draft of the Penske car coming out of Turn 4 drew and executed a perfect slingshot to pass Malukas on the yard of bricks.

Rosenqvist is the third Swede to capture Indy 500 glory, after Kenny Brack in 1999 and Marcus Ericsson in 2022. It is Meyer Shank Racing’s second IndyCar victory, both of which have come at the Speedway, with team co-owner Helio Castroneves capturing glory in 2021.

HOW IT HAPPENED

As Brendan Fraser dropped the green flag, Chip Ganassi Racing’s polesitter and defending race winner Alex Palou led a rather scruffy start, but not for long, as second-placed starter Alexander Rossi of ECR-Chevrolet drafted past him to lead into Turn 1, while Santino Ferrucci shot his AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy into third pursued initially by David Malukas, but then Felix Rosenqvist of Meyer Shank Racing.

As expected, Palou and Rossi then proceeded to swap the lead back and forth, while in sixth ran Conor Daly in the Dreyer & Reinbold Racing-Chevy, just ahead of Pato O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren-Chevy. Rosenqvist’s charge continued, passing Ferrucci, who lost enough momentum that he also had to cede fourth to Malukas. Much further back, Josef Newgarden was making strong progress, and lap 7 saw him up to 16th from 23rd.

The first caution came out on lap 18 when Ryan Hunter-Reay spun the fourth McLaren entry exiting Turn 2, and his initially successful attempt to save it left Katherine Legge meant had to swerve to avoid spearing him. The silver No. 11 HMD Motorsports with Foyt car looped into a spin and into the inside wall on the back straight. The gutted driver at least now had a headstart on her trip to Charlotte to run the Coke 600.

When pitlane opened, the majority of the field dived into the pits, with the exceptions of Rinus VeeKay (Juncos Hollinger Racing), Dale Coyne Racing’s Romain Grosjean, AJ Foyt Racing’s Caio Collet and DRR car of Jack Harvey.

Palou in fifth led the runners who had pitted, whereas Rossi tumbled to 17th due to a problem with his right-rear wheelnut. Instead, Palou now had his mirrors full of Rosenqvist and Scott McLaughlin’s Pennzoil Penske-Chevy. Ferrucci, Malukas, Daly, Scott Dixon and Pato O’Ward completed the top 12.

ECR’s fortunes got worse yet – Christian Rasmussen had to return to pitlane after refueling problems, and then on the restart, team owner Ed Carpenter spun into the wall, after he appeared to get squeezed in Turn 1 by Takuma Sato’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan car moving down on him while Will Power (Andretti Global) was on his inside.

Under this second caution, VeeKay and Harvey pitted, leaving Grosjean and Collet up front, but Rosenqvist as the net leader, as both he and McLaughlin had gotten around Palou at the previous restart. That situation didn’t last long: as Collet passed Grosjean into Turn 1 on the lap 31 restart, Palou passed McLaughlin and Rosenqvist once more and briefly took the lead, but Daly had the crowd on their feet when he zoomed to the front and was able to swap the lead back and forth with the fuel-light Collet.

Also notable was two-time winner Newgarden’s stunning drive to eighth (and the No. 2 crew’s exceptional work). He was now ahead of Rosenqvist who had gotten boxed in and lost momentum. In fact, once Grosjean and Collet finally pitted on laps 39 and 40 the Penskes ran 3-4-5, Malukas ahead of McLaughlin ahead of Newgarden, while Palou and Daly continued in the top two spots. Behind the Penske trio ran Rosenqvist, Ferrucci, Dixon, Simpson and O’Ward.

Collet and Grosjean, having pitted under green, were now almost a lap down, forcing Palou to run in their wake. He appeared content to do that as it allowed him to save fuel. On lap 61, several leading runners made green-flag stops, with Palou and Rosenqvist waiting until lap 62 and they emerged ahead of the Penske cars, while Dixon, who had gone a lap longer still, emerged in a net third, although he was swiftly passed by Malukas.

But not for long – by lap 68, Dixon was up to second and on lap 69 he passed his teammate Palou to add to his record of laps led at Indy. The teammates then worked together swapping the lead and kept Rosenqvist at bay. Daly, who had lost his left mirror, was in seventh ahead of O’Ward, Marcus Ericsson and Simpson.

Aside from the choreography at the front between the 2025 and 2008 winners, the order remained static for the next 30 laps, until what appeared to be a blown gearbox spewed fluids onto Power’s rear tires while he ran 13th, sending him into pit-exit lane and then into a spin. Almost simultaneously, Rossi pulled his ECR car into pits apparently with a blown Chevrolet, and he considerately stopped in Power’s vacant pit box to avoid dumping fluids down pit lane.

The leaders pitted at the end of lap 98, and emerged with Dixon and Palou still leading but with Newgarden, Malukas, McLaughlin and O’Ward all now ahead of Rosenqvist, who led his compatriot Ericsson. Daly was down to ninth, with Meyer Shank’s second car, that of Marcus Armstrong, now up to 10th. Kyle Kirkwood’s No. 27 Andretti Global crew had also done well to jump their car to 11th ahead of Ferrucci.

At this point, sprinkles of rain arrived, so Oriol Servia stayed out on track in the Corvette pace car, until at the end of lap 105, the race was red-flagged, and the cars trickled into pit lane. They were only static for 12 minutes. Four warm-up laps began and then the field was unleashed on lap 109.

Dixon’s lead didn’t last long, swallowed up by Palou and Malukas in Turn 1, and he dropped to fifth, jumped by exceptionally brave and charging Daly and Newgarden. Now Malukas and Palou started to swap the lead. Behind Dixon, Rosenqvist ran sixth ahead of McLaughlin, O’Ward, Ericsson and Armstrong. Sadly, the pace car had to return to the course for moist track conditions on lap 116. During these slow laps, Grosjean was sent to the back of the field for passing under yellow as he was heading into pit lane.

The green flag was waved once more at the end of Lap 125, and that spelt the end for Newgarden, who dipped his left tires onto the rumble strip as he came up to speed. That snapped him into a spin that sent the No. 2 car thudding hard into the Turn 4 wall, head-on before grinding his left side along the wall.

When the pits opened, Rosenqvist, O’Ward, Armstrong, Ferrucci, Rasmussen and Sato were among those who stopped, figuring they might be able to make it on one more stop.

The green waved on lap 132, and in a wild restart, Daly hit the front, while McLaughlin charged to second and then first. Dixon dropped to fourth, while McLaughlin, Palou and Daly went hard at it. When Dixon tried to pass Daly, the part-timer made an overly defensive move to retain third. Malukas, meanwhile, had regathered his momentum, and having dropped behind the stealthily-climbing Ericsson, repassed the Swede and both of them passed Dixon to run fourth and fifth.

Malukas kept going, demoting Daly to fourth, and started shadowing the McLaughlin vs. Palou battle. Perhaps significantly, on lap 143, Rosenqvist passed teammate Armstrong to lead the most recent pit stop visitors. On lap 146, Malukas passed McLaughlin for second, and drafted past Palou on the main straight. But he and McLaughlin both pitted on lap 147, and the No. 3 team beat their counterparts on the No. 12 car. Next time by, Palou pitted and emerged ahead of the Penskes but Malukas got around him on the run down to Turn 3. Dixon had gone a lap longer but this time it didn’t pay off for him and he fell behind Ericsson.

However, the Palou vs Malukas battle was a fight for 16th, behind the off-strategy pack, led by Rosenqvist who was being pursued by O’Ward, Dale Coyne Racing’s rookie Dennis Hauger, and Armstrong. O’Ward, Armstrong and Hauger stopped on lap 165, Rosenqvist stopped the next time by, but Hauger was taken out of the equation by a pitlane speeding violation, ergo, drive-through.

Rosenqvist emerged behind O’Ward, but they were up to fourth and fifth, headed only by Malukas, Palou and McLaughlin, who would also need to stop again.

Malukas blinked first, pitting on lap 175, Palou and McLaughlin following suit on the next lap. Now O’Ward led, pursued by Rosenqvist and Armstrong, but the McLaren driver was having to nurse his fuel, lapping at 210mph and sitting in the tow of Graham Rahal, while Rosenqvist was nursing a car whose rear looked increasingly wayward.

With 18 to go, O’Ward and Rosenqvist lapped Rahal, and on lap 185, Rosenqvist could hang no longer and zapped past O’Ward on the front straight. He had two more laps worth of fuel, but he allowed rookie Mick Schumacher to unlap himself in order to sit in his slipstream and save more fuel.

With eight laps to go, out came the seventh caution, as Collet crashed his Foyt car hard into the SAFER barrier on the right and bounced across to the other side of the track in flames. Out came the red flag with seven laps to go.

The race restarted with five to go and Armstrong burst through from third to snatch the lead while Malukas followed him through to take second ahead of Rosenqvist and O’Ward. The yellow flew again for Schumacher making light contact with the Turn 2 wall, and then it came down to one lap to go.

Armstrong was a sitting duck for Malukas on the restart but Rosenqvist was ready and went side-by-side with Armstrong all around the last lap in his pursuit of the No. 12 Penske. Gunning hard out of the last corner he slipstreamed Malukas, popped out and crossed the line 0.0233s ahead to claim his second IndyCar win.

McLaughlin and O’Ward displaced Armstrong on the run to the line.

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