WILL POWER
#1 Team Penske (Chevrolet)
Started: 2nd
Finished: 2nd
Score: 8
Power set himself the goal of achieving a clean sweep of the Month of May: a win on the IMS road course, pole for the 500, and then victory in the 500. He got the first one, qualified second for last weekend, and came agonisingly close to drinking the milk.
When you consider how ambitious his target was, it's amazing to think how close he came to actually achieving it.
Power came off second-best against Montoya © LAT |
Juan Pablo Montoya said after the race that while he understood Power would be disappointed at having come up just short, he hoped that in the months to come the Australian would be able to look back and appreciate the quality of the battle at the end of the race.
And it really was epic: first a clash of horns between multiple Penskes and Ganassis, and then finally an intra-team showdown between Power and Montoya. The deciding factor was the tiniest bit of understeer that forced the Australian to lift in Turn 3 on the last lap and allowed his team-mate to skate off across the finish line.
He later pointed to a couple of minor set-up mistakes he thought he'd made as a result of trying to lead from the front rather than spend a few laps sitting back and learning about how his car was behaving in traffic. If that's the case, then it's a pretty faint smudge on an otherwise top-shelf performance.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA
#2 Team Penske (Chevrolet)
Started: 15th
Finished: 1st
Score: 9
Even as he approaches 40, Montoya retains the capacity to surprise, and his stunning win on Sunday once again raises the question of what he might have achieved if he'd committed his entire career to one category.
He didn't qualify that well, but became very confident in his car once he switched back to race trim for the final couple of practice sessions. As would soon become clear, that confidence was well-placed.
That's not to say he didn't have to work hard: this was no repeat of his dominant performance in 2000. He was hit by Simona de Silvestro under yellows during the first stint, which forced him to pit for a new rear wing assembly and rejoin in last place. He then cost himself a few extra seconds when he overshot his pit markers.
Montoya drinks the victor's milk after his second Indy 500 success © LAT |
That lost time was regained a short while later with the help of another caution, and from that point on he was immense.
The Penske vs Ganassi duel represented oval racing at its very best, and his audacious breakaway from Power with three laps to go - at a time when positions had been changing with every lap - was edge-of-the-seat stuff.
This time last year, Montoya was still facing questions about whether he was really up to the task of competing at a Penske standard after so long away from single-seaters.
Now he's led the championship all year, and now he has won the Indy 500 15 years after he first drank the milk. Safe to say those questions have dried up.
HELIO CASTRONEVES
#3 Team Penske (Chevrolet)
Started: 5th
Finished: 7th
Score: 6
There were flashes where Castroneves looked competitive, but for the most part his car looked to be the one Penske entry that didn't seem to be working properly.
He was routinely beaten on restarts, and complained later he simply hadn't been able to pull away. He did lead a handful of laps, but by the time the battle at the front really heated up, Castroneves had already fallen out of range.
Coletti was an innocent victim in this crash between Hawksworth and Saavedra © LAT |
STEFANO COLETTI
#4 KV Racing Technology (Chevrolet)
Started: 29th
Finished: DNF
Score: 5
The ex-GP2 racer spent most of his first oval outing struggling for speed, although he started to get his car a little more to his liking in the second half of the race.
He was left with nowhere to go when Sebastian Saavedra and Jack Hawksworth collided ahead of him, and drove into Saavedra's car as it rebounded off the wall.
RYAN BRISCOE
#5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsport (Honda)
Started: 31st
Finished: 12th
Score: 7
The Australian's late call-up to replace James Hinchcliffe left him with very little time to prepare, and a spot on the last row of the grid.
He was knocked into a spin by compatriot James Davison at the start as the pair tried to avoid the Sage Karam crash ahead of them, but from that point on he made pretty good progress through the field in a car that wasn't quite working to his liking. Solid effort.
Hildebrand achieved a solid result through keeping his nose clean © LAT |
JR HILDEBRAND
#6 CHF Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 10th
Finished: 8th
Score: 7
Got to where he did through quick pitstops and smart strategy rather than outright speed.
It all counts though, and to come in as a part-timer, drive a clean race, and finish as the highest-placed member of his team - one that takes oval racing very seriously - represents a good day's work.
JAMES JAKES
#7 Schmidt Peterson Motorsport (Honda)
Started: 19th
Finished: 18th
Score: 5
Looked OK early on, but as the track conditions began to evolve in a different direction to what his car was set up for, he became increasingly anonymous.
He never managed to pull himself out of the mid-pack.
With Hunter-Reay on his left, Karam had nowhere to go when Sato appeared © LAT |
SAGE KARAM
#8 Chip Ganassi Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 21st
Finished: DNF
Score: 6
Got off the line well and was fighting with Ryan Hunter-Reay through the first corner.
Had nowhere to go when Sato tried to make it a three-way battle, and the subsequent crash put him out of the race within the first minute.
SCOTT DIXON
#9 Chip Ganassi Racing (Honda)
Started: 1st
Finished: 4th
Score: 9
"We led a lot of laps today," Dixon said after the race. "We just didn't lead the right one."
A losing battle with understeer knocked him out of contention in the final, frantic rush to the flag, but up until that point he'd been absolutely superb.
He started from pole, led more laps than anyone else (83), contributed to a thrilling battle for the lead, and bravely hung on for a two-against-one Penske vs Ganassi fight when Tony Kanaan's crash left him to deal with Power and Montoya on his own.
A top-class drive by a master of his craft.
Kanaan was in the lead battle until crashing his Ganassi car into the wall © LAT |
TONY KANAAN
#10 Chip Ganassi Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 4th
Finished: DNF
Score: 7
The 2013 winner was relatively quiet during the opening stint, and also lost some time when he missed his marks during one of his stops.
He still managed to get involved in the lead battle in the second half of the race, but his constant efforts to dial out oversteer led to the team going too far with an adjustment during his final stop.
As soon as he rejoined the track, he lost control and hit the wall.
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS
#11 KV Racing Technology (Chevrolet)
Started: 7th
Finished: 11th
Score: 6
Struggled right through the Month of May every time the track temperatures went up, and knew he was in trouble when race day was bright and sunny.
The Frenchman also proved to be extremely vulnerable on restarts, and was pleased to drag the car home just outside the top 10.
Sato bounced back from his early setback with a feisty drive © LAT |
TAKUMA SATO
#14 AJ Foyt Enterprises (Honda)
Started: 24th
Finished: 13th
Score: 6
Sato loses a couple of points for the move at Turn 1, but regains them for the fact that he was able to come back from being two or three laps down. It wasn't the race he was hoping for, but it became a pretty good exercise in damage limitation.
GRAHAM RAHAL
#15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan (Honda)
Started: 17th
Finished: 5th
Score: 8
The Rahal/RLL combination continues to confound as the only team apparently able to wring anything out of the Honda aero kit, and he suggested after the race he also thought there was a horsepower deficit.
Rahal knew going in he didn't have the equipment to run at the front all day, but he was more than happy to settle for a 'class win' as the highest-placed Honda driver.
Saavedra had a quiet race that ended with a hefty shunt that wasn't his fault © LAT |
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA
#17 Chip Ganassi Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 27th
Finished: DNF
Score: 5
The Colombian spent Sunday afternoon in hospital having his ankle examined after he was taken out by a spinning Jack Hawksworth and then tipped into the path of Stefano Coletti.
He'd been fairly invisible up to that point though, which is a rare thing for a Ganassi car.
TRISTAN VAUTIER
#18 Dale Coyne Racing (Honda)
Started: 32nd
Finished: DNF
Score: 5
Qualified team-mate Davison's car, but only found out he'd be racing in the middle of the week when Carlos Huertas was forced to withdraw on medical grounds.
Vautier struggled for pace early on, but believed the changes made to the car during the stops were waking the car up. He was blameless in the horrific three-Coyne accident in pitlane that left two of his crew members injured and put him out of the race.
Davison was looking decent until his Coyne team's pitlane error sparked chaos © LAT |
JAMES DAVISON
#19 Dale Coyne Racing (Honda)
Started: 33rd
Finished: DNF
Score: 6
Made some good progress from the rear of the grid during the opening stints, but came undone when his crew released him into the path of team-mate Pippa Mann during a pitstop, triggering the crash that injured two Coyne crew members in Tristan Vautier's pit box.
Davison's crew clearly has some lessons to learn, but the driver had no idea Mann was there until they made contact.
ED CARPENTER
#20 CFH Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 12th
Finished: DNF
Score: 5
An uncharacteristically subdued campaign from one of Indy's specialists.
Carpenter's preparations were marred by a huge crash during practice, and on race day he was frustrated to be running in the mid-pack, which might have contributed to the misjudged dive up the inside of Oriol Servia that resulted in both cars crashing out.
Newgarden had a solid run without being spectacular at Indy © LAT |
JOSEF NEWGARDEN
#21 CFH Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 9th
Finished: 9th
Score: 7
Didn't have the speed to match the frontrunners, but did a solid enough job running towards the front of the mid-pack all afternoon.
Newgarden was one of many drivers who struggled to keep his car in sync with the conditions, and he'll consider a top-10 finish to be a satisfactory return for his efforts.
SIMON PAGENAUD
#22 Team Penske (Chevrolet)
Started: 3rd
Finished: 10th
Score: 8
Were it not for one small mistake, there's a very strong chance the Frenchman's likeness would be going onto the Borg Warner trophy as the 2015 winner.
He appeared to have the fastest car in the field during the opening half of the race, and looked completely comfortable dicing with the likes of Dixon and Power at the front.
He was brought undone by a small brush with Dixon on a restart that broke his front wing and forced him to make an additional stop under green. That dropped him to last, and the fact that he was able to climb back to 10th in the final 10 laps says everything about his car speed at the end of the race.
This part-time duo made a good fist of Indy, all things considered © LAT |
TOWNSEND BELL
#24 Dreyer & Reinbold/Kingdom Racing Chevrolet
Started: 23rd
Finished: 14th
Score: 6
For a part-time driver in a part-time team, there were phases where Bell looked fairly racy - no threat to the leaders, but a solid presence in the midfield, especially after he added a click of front wing during his first stop.
He faded towards the end, but should otherwise be reasonably satisfied with his afternoon's work.
JUSTIN WILSON
#25 Andretti Autosport (Honda)
Started: 6th
Finished: 21st
Score: 6
Wilson was quicker than his finishing position suggests: he made up two places at the start to run as high as fourth, and was the lead Honda during the early phase of the race.
He pitted under green slightly early to have a wheel vibration addressed, but then fell off the lead lap when the rest of the field was able to stop under yellow a couple of laps later.
Munoz's attempt to get back into contention was thwarted by a late pitstop © LAT |
CARLOS MUNOZ
#26 Andretti Autosport (Honda)
Started: 11th
Finished: 20th
Score: 6
The Colombian was running pretty well for the first half of the afternoon, but was undone by a drive-through penalty.
The team went off-sequence to try to recover, which briefly got him back towards the front.
But they were unable to stretch his fuel to last the full distance, and he was forced to stop for a top-up with just two laps to go.
MARCO ANDRETTI
#27 Andretti Autosport (Honda)
Started: 8th
Finished: 6th
Score: 7
Andretti was disappointed with his sixth place, but with a manufacturer disadvantage and a field stacked with fast Chevy teams, it's hard to know how much more he could have realistically expected.
That said, he was invisible during the first half of the race as he struggled with balance and a couple of slow-ish stops. He came to life during the final couple of stints, and provided some of the late-race highlights with his intra-Honda battle against Graham Rahal.
Hunter-Reay never looked like making it two wins at Indy in a row © LAT |
RYAN HUNTER-REAY
#28 Andretti Autosport (Honda)
Started: 16th
Finished: 15th
Score: 4
Came into the Month of May as the defending Indy winner, but it quickly became apparent that 2015 was going to be less kind.
Hunter-Reay has struggled badly with the balance of his car all season, and he was unhappy to discover that the problems carried over when he switched from the road course aero kit to the speedway version.
"We definitely have an issue with the car," he said after the race.
And after finishing 15th on merit, it showed.
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO
#29 Andretti Autosport (Honda)
Started: 18th
Finished: 19th
Score: 4
Not the Indy 500 the Swiss driver was hoping for: she drove into the back of Juan Pablo Montoya under yellow, broke her front wing, and buried herself deep in the field with a car that wasn't working in traffic.
A long afternoon ensued.
Servia's race was ended by a mistimed overtaking attempt from Carpenter © LAT |
ORIOL SERVIA
#32 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (Honda)
Started: 13th
Finished: DNF
Score: 6
The Spaniard did not ask for any changes to his car during his early stops, and believed that the track would have come to him as conditions changed during the second half of the race.
Ed Carpenter crashed into him before he had the chance to find out.
JACK HAWKSWORTH
#41 AJ Foyt Enterprises (Honda)
Started: 28th
Finished: DNF
Score: 5
The Brit was fairly quiet during the first part of the race, but believed that he had a car that might have been good enough for a top 10. But he made the mistake that resulted in himself, Sebastian Saaevedra and Stefano Coletti all crashing out.
CONOR DALY
#43 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports (Honda)
Started: 22nd
Finished: DNS
Score: N/A
Suffered a fuel leak that turned into a fire during the installation laps, causing damage that prevented him from taking the start.
A startline issue gave Tagliani an uphill task and he was relieved just to finish © LAT |
ALEX TAGLIANI
#48 AJ Foyt Enterprises (Honda)
Started: 20th
Finished: 17th
Score: 6
Dropped to the back right at the start when he found himself unable to select a gear on the dummy grid.
Once he got going, his limited preparation time became evident in his battle for car speed, but he was satisfied to simply make it to the end of the race.
PIPPA MANN
#63 Dale Coyne Racing
Started: 25th
Finished: 22nd
Score: 5
Struggled all race with a combination of handling problems and accident damage, although some of the latter was a penalty for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She managed to drag the car home, but that was about as good as it got.
CHARLIE KIMBALL
#83 Chip Ganassi Racing (Honda)
Started: 14th
Finished: 3rd
Score: 8
Kimball put in a fine drive to rise from mid-grid to a podium finish © LAT |
Kimball is inconsistent, but this was one of his most convincing drives for some time.
He didn't have the speed to run with the leaders during the first few stints, but nevertheless he did a good job of tuning his car to the conditions as the race wore on and was rarely outside the top seven.
He also handled himself well when he became involved in the battling at the front during the final stint, racing every bit as hard and fair as those around him.
High praise indeed, when you consider that those around him were Dixon, Kanaan, Montoya and Power.
BRYAN CLAUSON
#88 Jonathan Byrd's Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 30th
Finished: DNF
Score: 4
The short-track star only drives an Indycar once a year. Someone like Townsend Bell has been around long enough to make that work, but Clauson doesn't yet have the same pool of experience to draw upon.
He missed most of the practice days, and spent race day struggling to remain with the pack before catching the marbles while trying to keep out of the way of the leaders and spinning into the wall.
GABBY CHAVES
#98 Bryan Herta Autosport (Honda)
Started: 26th
Finished: 16th
Score: 6
A very eventful afternoon for the Colombian, who was forced to recover from a couple of costly mistakes, as well as a misguided gamble on delaying repairs to a damaged front wing.
But in between he showed a few flashes of encouraging pace that a rookie with a small one-car team could be reasonably proud of.
WILL POWER
#1 Team Penske (Chevrolet)
Started: 2nd
Finished: 2nd
Score: 8
Power set himself the goal of achieving a clean sweep of the Month of May: a win on the IMS road course, pole for the 500, and then victory in the 500. He got the first one, qualified second for last weekend, and came agonisingly close to drinking the milk.
When you consider how ambitious his target was, it's amazing to think how close he came to actually achieving it.
Power came off second-best against Montoya © LAT |
Juan Pablo Montoya said after the race that while he understood Power would be disappointed at having come up just short, he hoped that in the months to come the Australian would be able to look back and appreciate the quality of the battle at the end of the race.
And it really was epic: first a clash of horns between multiple Penskes and Ganassis, and then finally an intra-team showdown between Power and Montoya. The deciding factor was the tiniest bit of understeer that forced the Australian to lift in Turn 3 on the last lap and allowed his team-mate to skate off across the finish line.
He later pointed to a couple of minor set-up mistakes he thought he'd made as a result of trying to lead from the front rather than spend a few laps sitting back and learning about how his car was behaving in traffic. If that's the case, then it's a pretty faint smudge on an otherwise top-shelf performance.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA
#2 Team Penske (Chevrolet)
Started: 15th
Finished: 1st
Score: 9
Even as he approaches 40, Montoya retains the capacity to surprise, and his stunning win on Sunday once again raises the question of what he might have achieved if he'd committed his entire career to one category.
He didn't qualify that well, but became very confident in his car once he switched back to race trim for the final couple of practice sessions. As would soon become clear, that confidence was well-placed.
That's not to say he didn't have to work hard: this was no repeat of his dominant performance in 2000. He was hit by Simona de Silvestro under yellows during the first stint, which forced him to pit for a new rear wing assembly and rejoin in last place. He then cost himself a few extra seconds when he overshot his pit markers.
Montoya drinks the victor's milk after his second Indy 500 success © LAT |
That lost time was regained a short while later with the help of another caution, and from that point on he was immense.
The Penske vs Ganassi duel represented oval racing at its very best, and his audacious breakaway from Power with three laps to go - at a time when positions had been changing with every lap - was edge-of-the-seat stuff.
This time last year, Montoya was still facing questions about whether he was really up to the task of competing at a Penske standard after so long away from single-seaters.
Now he's led the championship all year, and now he has won the Indy 500 15 years after he first drank the milk. Safe to say those questions have dried up.
HELIO CASTRONEVES
#3 Team Penske (Chevrolet)
Started: 5th
Finished: 7th
Score: 6
There were flashes where Castroneves looked competitive, but for the most part his car looked to be the one Penske entry that didn't seem to be working properly.
He was routinely beaten on restarts, and complained later he simply hadn't been able to pull away. He did lead a handful of laps, but by the time the battle at the front really heated up, Castroneves had already fallen out of range.
Coletti was an innocent victim in this crash between Hawksworth and Saavedra © LAT |
STEFANO COLETTI
#4 KV Racing Technology (Chevrolet)
Started: 29th
Finished: DNF
Score: 5
The ex-GP2 racer spent most of his first oval outing struggling for speed, although he started to get his car a little more to his liking in the second half of the race.
He was left with nowhere to go when Sebastian Saavedra and Jack Hawksworth collided ahead of him, and drove into Saavedra's car as it rebounded off the wall.
RYAN BRISCOE
#5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsport (Honda)
Started: 31st
Finished: 12th
Score: 7
The Australian's late call-up to replace James Hinchcliffe left him with very little time to prepare, and a spot on the last row of the grid.
He was knocked into a spin by compatriot James Davison at the start as the pair tried to avoid the Sage Karam crash ahead of them, but from that point on he made pretty good progress through the field in a car that wasn't quite working to his liking. Solid effort.
Hildebrand achieved a solid result through keeping his nose clean © LAT |
JR HILDEBRAND
#6 CHF Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 10th
Finished: 8th
Score: 7
Got to where he did through quick pitstops and smart strategy rather than outright speed.
It all counts though, and to come in as a part-timer, drive a clean race, and finish as the highest-placed member of his team - one that takes oval racing very seriously - represents a good day's work.
JAMES JAKES
#7 Schmidt Peterson Motorsport (Honda)
Started: 19th
Finished: 18th
Score: 5
Looked OK early on, but as the track conditions began to evolve in a different direction to what his car was set up for, he became increasingly anonymous.
He never managed to pull himself out of the mid-pack.
With Hunter-Reay on his left, Karam had nowhere to go when Sato appeared © LAT |
SAGE KARAM
#8 Chip Ganassi Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 21st
Finished: DNF
Score: 6
Got off the line well and was fighting with Ryan Hunter-Reay through the first corner.
Had nowhere to go when Sato tried to make it a three-way battle, and the subsequent crash put him out of the race within the first minute.
SCOTT DIXON
#9 Chip Ganassi Racing (Honda)
Started: 1st
Finished: 4th
Score: 9
"We led a lot of laps today," Dixon said after the race. "We just didn't lead the right one."
A losing battle with understeer knocked him out of contention in the final, frantic rush to the flag, but up until that point he'd been absolutely superb.
He started from pole, led more laps than anyone else (83), contributed to a thrilling battle for the lead, and bravely hung on for a two-against-one Penske vs Ganassi fight when Tony Kanaan's crash left him to deal with Power and Montoya on his own.
A top-class drive by a master of his craft.
Kanaan was in the lead battle until crashing his Ganassi car into the wall © LAT |
TONY KANAAN
#10 Chip Ganassi Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 4th
Finished: DNF
Score: 7
The 2013 winner was relatively quiet during the opening stint, and also lost some time when he missed his marks during one of his stops.
He still managed to get involved in the lead battle in the second half of the race, but his constant efforts to dial out oversteer led to the team going too far with an adjustment during his final stop.
As soon as he rejoined the track, he lost control and hit the wall.
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS
#11 KV Racing Technology (Chevrolet)
Started: 7th
Finished: 11th
Score: 6
Struggled right through the Month of May every time the track temperatures went up, and knew he was in trouble when race day was bright and sunny.
The Frenchman also proved to be extremely vulnerable on restarts, and was pleased to drag the car home just outside the top 10.
Sato bounced back from his early setback with a feisty drive © LAT |
TAKUMA SATO
#14 AJ Foyt Enterprises (Honda)
Started: 24th
Finished: 13th
Score: 6
Sato loses a couple of points for the move at Turn 1, but regains them for the fact that he was able to come back from being two or three laps down. It wasn't the race he was hoping for, but it became a pretty good exercise in damage limitation.
GRAHAM RAHAL
#15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan (Honda)
Started: 17th
Finished: 5th
Score: 8
The Rahal/RLL combination continues to confound as the only team apparently able to wring anything out of the Honda aero kit, and he suggested after the race he also thought there was a horsepower deficit.
Rahal knew going in he didn't have the equipment to run at the front all day, but he was more than happy to settle for a 'class win' as the highest-placed Honda driver.
Saavedra had a quiet race that ended with a hefty shunt that wasn't his fault © LAT |
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA
#17 Chip Ganassi Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 27th
Finished: DNF
Score: 5
The Colombian spent Sunday afternoon in hospital having his ankle examined after he was taken out by a spinning Jack Hawksworth and then tipped into the path of Stefano Coletti.
He'd been fairly invisible up to that point though, which is a rare thing for a Ganassi car.
TRISTAN VAUTIER
#18 Dale Coyne Racing (Honda)
Started: 32nd
Finished: DNF
Score: 5
Qualified team-mate Davison's car, but only found out he'd be racing in the middle of the week when Carlos Huertas was forced to withdraw on medical grounds.
Vautier struggled for pace early on, but believed the changes made to the car during the stops were waking the car up. He was blameless in the horrific three-Coyne accident in pitlane that left two of his crew members injured and put him out of the race.
Davison was looking decent until his Coyne team's pitlane error sparked chaos © LAT |
JAMES DAVISON
#19 Dale Coyne Racing (Honda)
Started: 33rd
Finished: DNF
Score: 6
Made some good progress from the rear of the grid during the opening stints, but came undone when his crew released him into the path of team-mate Pippa Mann during a pitstop, triggering the crash that injured two Coyne crew members in Tristan Vautier's pit box.
Davison's crew clearly has some lessons to learn, but the driver had no idea Mann was there until they made contact.
ED CARPENTER
#20 CFH Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 12th
Finished: DNF
Score: 5
An uncharacteristically subdued campaign from one of Indy's specialists.
Carpenter's preparations were marred by a huge crash during practice, and on race day he was frustrated to be running in the mid-pack, which might have contributed to the misjudged dive up the inside of Oriol Servia that resulted in both cars crashing out.
Newgarden had a solid run without being spectacular at Indy © LAT |
JOSEF NEWGARDEN
#21 CFH Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 9th
Finished: 9th
Score: 7
Didn't have the speed to match the frontrunners, but did a solid enough job running towards the front of the mid-pack all afternoon.
Newgarden was one of many drivers who struggled to keep his car in sync with the conditions, and he'll consider a top-10 finish to be a satisfactory return for his efforts.
SIMON PAGENAUD
#22 Team Penske (Chevrolet)
Started: 3rd
Finished: 10th
Score: 8
Were it not for one small mistake, there's a very strong chance the Frenchman's likeness would be going onto the Borg Warner trophy as the 2015 winner.
He appeared to have the fastest car in the field during the opening half of the race, and looked completely comfortable dicing with the likes of Dixon and Power at the front.
He was brought undone by a small brush with Dixon on a restart that broke his front wing and forced him to make an additional stop under green. That dropped him to last, and the fact that he was able to climb back to 10th in the final 10 laps says everything about his car speed at the end of the race.
This part-time duo made a good fist of Indy, all things considered © LAT |
TOWNSEND BELL
#24 Dreyer & Reinbold/Kingdom Racing Chevrolet
Started: 23rd
Finished: 14th
Score: 6
For a part-time driver in a part-time team, there were phases where Bell looked fairly racy - no threat to the leaders, but a solid presence in the midfield, especially after he added a click of front wing during his first stop.
He faded towards the end, but should otherwise be reasonably satisfied with his afternoon's work.
JUSTIN WILSON
#25 Andretti Autosport (Honda)
Started: 6th
Finished: 21st
Score: 6
Wilson was quicker than his finishing position suggests: he made up two places at the start to run as high as fourth, and was the lead Honda during the early phase of the race.
He pitted under green slightly early to have a wheel vibration addressed, but then fell off the lead lap when the rest of the field was able to stop under yellow a couple of laps later.
Munoz's attempt to get back into contention was thwarted by a late pitstop © LAT |
CARLOS MUNOZ
#26 Andretti Autosport (Honda)
Started: 11th
Finished: 20th
Score: 6
The Colombian was running pretty well for the first half of the afternoon, but was undone by a drive-through penalty.
The team went off-sequence to try to recover, which briefly got him back towards the front.
But they were unable to stretch his fuel to last the full distance, and he was forced to stop for a top-up with just two laps to go.
MARCO ANDRETTI
#27 Andretti Autosport (Honda)
Started: 8th
Finished: 6th
Score: 7
Andretti was disappointed with his sixth place, but with a manufacturer disadvantage and a field stacked with fast Chevy teams, it's hard to know how much more he could have realistically expected.
That said, he was invisible during the first half of the race as he struggled with balance and a couple of slow-ish stops. He came to life during the final couple of stints, and provided some of the late-race highlights with his intra-Honda battle against Graham Rahal.
Hunter-Reay never looked like making it two wins at Indy in a row © LAT |
RYAN HUNTER-REAY
#28 Andretti Autosport (Honda)
Started: 16th
Finished: 15th
Score: 4
Came into the Month of May as the defending Indy winner, but it quickly became apparent that 2015 was going to be less kind.
Hunter-Reay has struggled badly with the balance of his car all season, and he was unhappy to discover that the problems carried over when he switched from the road course aero kit to the speedway version.
"We definitely have an issue with the car," he said after the race.
And after finishing 15th on merit, it showed.
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO
#29 Andretti Autosport (Honda)
Started: 18th
Finished: 19th
Score: 4
Not the Indy 500 the Swiss driver was hoping for: she drove into the back of Juan Pablo Montoya under yellow, broke her front wing, and buried herself deep in the field with a car that wasn't working in traffic.
A long afternoon ensued.
Servia's race was ended by a mistimed overtaking attempt from Carpenter © LAT |
ORIOL SERVIA
#32 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (Honda)
Started: 13th
Finished: DNF
Score: 6
The Spaniard did not ask for any changes to his car during his early stops, and believed that the track would have come to him as conditions changed during the second half of the race.
Ed Carpenter crashed into him before he had the chance to find out.
JACK HAWKSWORTH
#41 AJ Foyt Enterprises (Honda)
Started: 28th
Finished: DNF
Score: 5
The Brit was fairly quiet during the first part of the race, but believed that he had a car that might have been good enough for a top 10. But he made the mistake that resulted in himself, Sebastian Saaevedra and Stefano Coletti all crashing out.
CONOR DALY
#43 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports (Honda)
Started: 22nd
Finished: DNS
Score: N/A
Suffered a fuel leak that turned into a fire during the installation laps, causing damage that prevented him from taking the start.
A startline issue gave Tagliani an uphill task and he was relieved just to finish © LAT |
ALEX TAGLIANI
#48 AJ Foyt Enterprises (Honda)
Started: 20th
Finished: 17th
Score: 6
Dropped to the back right at the start when he found himself unable to select a gear on the dummy grid.
Once he got going, his limited preparation time became evident in his battle for car speed, but he was satisfied to simply make it to the end of the race.
PIPPA MANN
#63 Dale Coyne Racing
Started: 25th
Finished: 22nd
Score: 5
Struggled all race with a combination of handling problems and accident damage, although some of the latter was a penalty for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She managed to drag the car home, but that was about as good as it got.
CHARLIE KIMBALL
#83 Chip Ganassi Racing (Honda)
Started: 14th
Finished: 3rd
Score: 8
Kimball put in a fine drive to rise from mid-grid to a podium finish © LAT |
Kimball is inconsistent, but this was one of his most convincing drives for some time.
He didn't have the speed to run with the leaders during the first few stints, but nevertheless he did a good job of tuning his car to the conditions as the race wore on and was rarely outside the top seven.
He also handled himself well when he became involved in the battling at the front during the final stint, racing every bit as hard and fair as those around him.
High praise indeed, when you consider that those around him were Dixon, Kanaan, Montoya and Power.
BRYAN CLAUSON
#88 Jonathan Byrd's Racing (Chevrolet)
Started: 30th
Finished: DNF
Score: 4
The short-track star only drives an Indycar once a year. Someone like Townsend Bell has been around long enough to make that work, but Clauson doesn't yet have the same pool of experience to draw upon.
He missed most of the practice days, and spent race day struggling to remain with the pack before catching the marbles while trying to keep out of the way of the leaders and spinning into the wall.
GABBY CHAVES
#98 Bryan Herta Autosport (Honda)
Started: 26th
Finished: 16th
Score: 6
A very eventful afternoon for the Colombian, who was forced to recover from a couple of costly mistakes, as well as a misguided gamble on delaying repairs to a damaged front wing.
But in between he showed a few flashes of encouraging pace that a rookie with a small one-car team could be reasonably proud of.