RACE REPORT: 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500 Presented by Gainbridge

• Herta took on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the seventh time in his INDYCAR career this afternoon.
• Herta maintained a strong start to the race, gradually gaining positions, but unfortunately ran into trouble on Lap 64 when he got a pit lane speed violation, forcing him to take a drive-through penalty.
• On Lap 66, Herta faced difficulties during his second pit stop of the race, overshooting his marks. Instead of adjusting in pit lane, Herta decided to take one lap around the track in order to immediately return to pit late to make-up the pit stop. Due to the fact that he was already low on fuel ahead of his second stop, he was forced to refrain from going full-speed on his reset lap. The slow speed combined with the unplanned third pit stop set the No. 26 a lap down in the race.
• Never able to regain a spot on the lead lap, Herta finished the race a lap down in P17.

“Tough day for the Gainbridge team. We were working our way through the field and had even made it into the top 10 after the first 50 laps, but we had an issue in the pits and were never able to recover after that. It’s unfortunate, because I think with the strategy we’d worked out and the speed in the Gainbridge Honda we could’ve had a much stronger result today.”

• Rolling off 23rd, Kirkwood dropped a few positions after his opening pit stop before slowly carving his way back through the field, even moving into the lead by Lap 61.
• By Lap 85, Kirkwood had worked his way up to 11th, and 50 laps later, the American would finally break into the top 10.
• By the time the checkered flag waved, Kirkwood had worked his way into sixth, earning him the title of Josten’s Biggest Mover of the Race, his career-best Indianapolis 500 finish and his 27th top-10 finish of his INDYCAR career.

“It was a good day today with both Marcus in contention for the win and finishing second, and then our No. 27 Siemens team finishing the day in P6. We’ll definitely take that result from where we started. It’s not exactly what we wanted, considering we had such a strong race car. We just had a couple of hiccups early on that hurt us. Overall, we fought hard from where we started, and it was a good day.”

• Rolling off ninth as the highest Andretti INDYCAR starter, Ericsson quickly moved into the top five by Lap 11.
• Despite a slow pit stop on Lap 60 that cycled the Swede down to 24th, Ericsson steadily worked his way up the field throughout the race and found himself in the top three by Lap 135.
• With just 30 laps to go, Ericsson had fought his way to the front of the field in a tense battle between the No. 10 and No. 4 cars. The Swede held onto the lead going into the final lap of the race, but the No. 10 car overtook Ericsson in the final moments of the race before a yellow flag on the final stretch of the last lap ended the race with the No. 28 Allegra® in second.
• Today’s result marks Ericsson’s third top-three finish at the Indianapolis 500, his second second-place finish on the iconic oval and his 21st top-five finish of his career.

“This is a winner-takes-it-all kind of race, so this moment is pretty painful. Looking back, at one point we were last in the lead lap, so it was starting to look like a bad day, but the thing with the No. 28 Allegra® crew is that we keep fighting. We never give up and keep pushing through, and that’s exactly what we did today. We just kept fighting. I had some really good stints there in the second half of the race when I felt the car came more to me. It put us back in contention, and then that last stop was really good – great call on the strategy as well. So, I’m really proud of that fight back, but here, second place isn’t a good result.”

• Marco Andretti’s 20th Indianapolis 500 start came to an unfortunately abrupt end on the opening lap of the 200-lap race, when the MAPEI/CURB Honda made contact in Turn 1 with the No. 18. The incident caused the No. 98 to spin and make contact with the SAFER Barrier, leading to race-ending damage to the car.

“I couldn’t have done anything in that situation. Once I was committed up there, I couldn’t move. I was just at the wall. Whoever was next to me definitely crowded me, and I ran out of room. Disappointing way to end the month.”

“Today was full of highs and lows. I feel bad for Marco’s day ending on the first lap before he had a proper shot at things. At the same time, I’m also super happy for Marcus and Kyle both being in the top six, even though it’s bittersweet. Any other race, you’d be happy with two in the top six, but the Indianapolis 500 is a winner-takes-all event. Congrats to the No. 10 car, but it’s still not the outcome we’re looking for at the end of the day.

I’m disappointed with the No. 26 car. We were doing everything according to strategy, and then we had a problem during a pit stop and went past the pit box. So, we had to drive around a lap, pit and then restart the car because it was out of fuel. So, we were playing catch-up from there, but we never gave up fighting and got the car to the finish. Most races, you can be happy with decent finishes, but at the Indy 500, it’s all about winning, and we didn’t win. Although, we were closer than we were last year, so we’ll build on that when we come back next year.”