Chicago: Australia’s Will Power won the 102nd Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, taking the chequered flag in America’s fabled race on his 11th attempt.
Power, runner-up on the 2.5-mile oval of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2015, was screaming into his radio mic as he crossed the line ahead of pole sitter Ed Carpenter, with New Zealand’s Scott Dixon third.
“Man, I just can’t believe it,” said Power, the 2014 IndyCar Series champion who gave team owner Roger Penske a 17th victory in the Indy 500 — the most for any owner.
Power, who started from the outside of the front row of the starting grid, was running fourth on the race’s final restart from a caution and had moved up to third with five laps remaining.
Power clearly had plenty of speed in the second half of the 200-lap race, but in the end the way opened for him as race leader Stefan Wilson and second-placed Jack Harvey had to pit with just over four laps remaining.
“I’m just like ‘I have to get these guys, I don’t know how much fuel they’ve got, this is the restart of my life,’” Power said.
“And then I go on and two pit and I’m like ‘Man, I think I’m going to win this!’
“I’m screaming — with one to go I’m screaming ‘Man I’ve got this.’”
A stream of marquee names had fallen by the wayside by then. Takuma Sato’s title defence ended on the 47th lap when the Japanese driver crashed into slow-moving James Davison.
Danica Patrick, who said the race would be the last of her groundbreaking 20-year racing career, hit the wall on the 68th lap.
France’s Sebastian Bourdais, back at Indy a year after he suffered hip and pelvic injuries last year and three-time winner Helio Castroneves of Brazil also failed to make it to the finish.
Castroneves hit the wall while running in the top five on lap 146.
He immediately petitioned team owner Penske for another shot next year, looking into his car’s onboard camera and saying: “Please Roger, I’ve got to go back.”
