Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Race date:Sunday, May 26th
Round:5/17
Total laps:200
Total race distance:500.0 mi/804.7 km
Length:2.5 mi/4.0 km
Number of turns:4
Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet
Starting position:P8
Finishing position:P2
Championship position:4th, 134 points
“We had so many near misses, but we kept the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet clean for 200 laps. It is very hard to time your moves, especially on the last lap. In hindsight, I could have gone for it.I’m sure one day it will happen, but I’m really having to work for it. So much work and emotion go into this.
“I’ve really dreamed about winning the Indianapolis 500, and I want to give it up to my team for giving me a good chance to try to accomplish that today. I feel like I drove the wheels off that car today, and in places I never thought I would come out the other side, especially when we were in third and fourth in line just trying to get to the top two somehow,and we managed to do it. I trust Josef a lot and I think he’s a great competitor. I can race him very cleanly, and that’s what it was, good, hard racing. Congratulations to him, two in a row is incredible. I am so happy to see people here to support us, and I would have loved to have a reason to celebrate with everyone.”
Alexander Rossi, No. 7 VELO Arrow McLaren Chevrolet
Starting position:P4
Finishing position:P4
Championship position:8th, 120
“It was a great effort by the whole team at Arrow McLaren throughout this month. It’s just really hard when you come away from this event thinking you wouldn’t have changed anything, and the result still isn’t there. Looking back, there’s nothing in this month that I would have done differently. The No. 7 VELO Arrow McLaren Chevrolet car was great, and when you can’t win with that, it’s tough.”
Callum Ilott, No. 6 NTT DATA Arrow McLaren Chevrolet
Starting position:P15
Finishing position:P11
“What a tough afternoon. We suffered an early issue with the weight jacker, which set us back at the start. I then had to change the steering wheel in the pitstop before the race and do a reset of the car. We got going and worked our way into a good position, but unfortunately in the next yellow, I had to do an on-and-off reset, which lost me all the places I gained.
“We kept working hard and added front wing to the car to get the balance back. I came into the pits with a good strategy and got hit from behind, but I luckily managed to avoid other cars in pit lane. It got challenging at the end and there wasn’t much stacking up, but it’s not a bad effort for the No. 6 NTT DATA Arrow McLaren Chevrolet considering all the things we had to deal with today. I want to say thank you for all the support from the fans, partners and team this May. It’s been a pleasure to drive for Arrow McLaren.”
Kyle Larson, No. 17 HendrickCars.com Arrow McLaren Chevrolet
Starting position:P5
Finishing position:P18
“Man, the restarts were a lot of fun. I had an issue on one and lost some spots, but I was able to learn a lot and work my way back forward. I hate that I got that speeding penalty. I think it would have been a lot of fun to battle there at the end.”
Gavin Ward, Team Principal
“This is the greatest race in the world, and we were incredibly lucky to get to fight for the win in it. This was a dream for me as a kid, and I think a lot of people feel similarly. Of course this hurts, but the team should be really proud. It was an exceptional effort; we had three cars that could have won today. We let Callum down with an issue on that car, and he got punted in the pit lane, which didn’t help. Kyle’s car had a brake issue, which is a shame considering the potential he had in the car. I hope we get another chance with him because he can win this race, and I’m excited to see him get another chance to compete. Overall, I’m just really proud of the team. The name of the game of the Indy 500 is put your cars in the top five and hope it all works out in the end. We did that, but it just didn’t work out for us.”
