“Indiana will hear me when I win.”
Welcome to a rare feat here on M101 – A Triple Header of Dre’s Race Reviews to close out what could very well be the final “Day of Classics” in modern Motorsport. Formula 1’s Monaco Grand Prix, MotoGP’s British Grand Prix from Silverstone and the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500, all on the same day. It’s a true treat as a Motorsport fan, and it’s only fair I embrace it here.
And for the first time in a while, I’m going IndyCar FIRST on a Triple Review, after another epic Indy 500 where everything in the end just fell into place. Let’s talk about it.
Alexander The Great
I’m very fortunate to have the platform I have. We’re getting close to 11 years now of Motorsport101 in its current guise. I’m blessed to be able to share it with some truly amazing people.
Once upon a time, I had my two most frequent M101 co-hosts, RJ O’Connell and Cameron Buckley, tell me that there was a rookie in Super Formula that was heading to IndyCar and that he’d be worth a watch. He was a polesitter in Japan’s GT300 class in Super GT, a race winner in GP3 and Euroformula, and he absolutely dominated in Fuji in just his 4th Super Formula start, winning in the pouring rain by 13 seconds.
His name was Alex Palou Montalbo.
I don’t even in their wildest dreams they could have ever imagined that he’d become this. This generational, ridiculous behemoth of a racing driver, ticking the biggest final box of his career.
They say that Indy chooses its winner, with the ways it can break you, take away your glory or come so close to victory, only for it to slip away. I can’t say for sure if that’s true. But what I will say is, if the Racing Gods are truly up there – for once I can say, they chose the best man.
This didn’t feel like a shock in the usual 500 way. Palou and his Chip Ganassi Racing 10 crew has been arguably the best, most consistent crew for the last fortnight. A 233mph run on Day 1 of the time trials. Consistently up there in outright speed, no tow speed, etc. He played it safe in the Fast 6 round, but he knew he had a quick car, and it delivered when it mattered most.
He was hanging around in that lead fight for most of the race. One of his secret signature skills, his incredible awareness to avoid disaster, came up multiple times, when he was four wide off a restart and still made gains hanging it around the outside of Turn 1. Fuel-saving? Won him the race down the stretch given the short fill kept him in range of his two main contenders – Marcus Ericsson and David Malukas.
Yes, you can be cynical that the RLL rolling roadblock of Devlin DeFrancesco and Louis Foster helped Palou hit that fuel number. But he still got around Ericsson with a stunning move with 12 to go to take control at the front. A few laps earlier, he did the same with David Malukas as that RLL block got real close down the back stretch.
It was a master drive by the master magician of IndyCar. No-one in the field on sheer quality of driving, has deserved it more. He has taken this field and stuffed them in a woodchipper since 2022 and he’s taken himself to an even higher level. The oval race was the one discipline that had eluded him. He’s always been a strong oval driver, but never in the elite category. He’s now right there.
And that celebration? The gloves being tossed as he runs down the front stretch on his own, just like the class he walks in, was yet another iconic 500 celebration. Like Helio Castroneves climbing the fence like Spiderman, to Josef Newgarden jumping into the crowd, it will be forever immortalised in the history of the race.
Alex Palou said that his career would never feel complete without the 500. He was mocked by FOX in their promos for the series when it started by saying “being a grown man, who’s haunted by milk.”, poking fun at the fact he didn’t yet have a 500 win. He now has one. He’s now without question, one of the greatest this series has ever produced, and for me, is the best racing driver on the planet, bar none. He’s now won 5 of 6, has a 115 point lead in the standings and essentially has one hand on his 4th Astor Cup and we’re still in May. It’s over. It’s done. We have our Dario successor, and he was one of the first to congratulate him.
To paraphrase from the great Darts broadcaster Sid Waddell: “When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer… Palou’s only 28.” Like the Alex before him, he has few worlds left to conquer. Palou might be the best shot for a driver to win the Triple Crown for the next 20 years. But will Motorsport let him try?
Yes, we’re doing this again.
I’m not going to beat around the bush here – FOX’s coverage of the 500 this year was bad. Just straight bad. I’ve tried to be as patient with them as I can be, but there was a moment that summed up just how the “floor” of their coverage was awful.
On that final lap of the race, Nolan Siegel ended up in the wall, bringing out a Caution to end the race on the final straight. It was a cutaway that was less than five seconds long. To a degree, I get it, you want full focus on the winning driver. But to not even mention “Hey, Nolan was okay by the way” or showing the context of what actually happened, before going off the air, was poor and unprofessional, especially when we all know how dangerous this race is. It built genuine anxiety and fear in our Discord server because he was shown on TV just enough to worry about his condition and then now having to check for McLaren on social media to see if Siegel was okay, and I shouldn’t have to do that if I’m focusing on a broadcast.
But this was an Indy 500 that had less than half an hour of post-race coverage, and main interviews with the big hitters beyond the podium were posted on Instagram. In a race that had four hours of pre-show. Credit to FOX, it borrowed a lot of its famous friends to help promote this event – Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Al Michaels, Erin Andrews, Chris Myers, Michael Strahan, Nick Wright, Maurice Jones-Drew, Michael Irvin, Danica Patrick and more… and it still felt hollow as an overall product once it got going.
It’s hard to get excited when your booth is 66% of the same tools you had with NBC. James Hinchcliffe has been superb as a broadcaster, Townsend Bell was serviceable on this one, but Will Buxton, while better here than he’s been in previous weeks, struggled over time. It was co-host Ryan King who reminded me that Buxton cut his teeth in GP2 as a commentator, and their races are somewhere between 25-50% of the length of what an IndyCar race is, and when you’ve now got to be on the lead mic for 90-120 minutes, and nearly 4 hours for an Indy 500, it’s easy to drop into more cliched speech and lazy dialogue. And at that point, you’re not really adding to the broadcast.
It’s not helped (And this isn’t totally on FOX), that the timing from IMS Productions has been dreadful all season long. It never used to be this bad, and now every race we’re seeing significant time where the tower comes off the screen, or glitches with the transponders and they flicker in an incorrect fashion constantly. It’s actually jarring on the broadcast and hurts the overall broadcast. What the hell happened there and how has it not been fixed yet, it’s been nearly three months since your first broadcast!
This was the big reason why people were excited for FOX to have the IndyCar rights, the reason why we were all here. Elevation of what came before, an antidote to the staleness that plagued the series in the past. And on the key elements of making the 500 as grand a spectacle as it could have been, it failed. To borrow a gag from Top Gear when they were in America: “The Challenger’s like a bodybuilder. He’s all muscles but when you pull his pants down, it’s hello Mr Squirrel Dic-”
Editor’s Note: Me again. 7.05 million viewers, the most for an Indy 500 since reunification in 2008 and more viewers than the Daytona 500. Fair play, they nailed it. Hope they can keep that going.
The Near-Misses
Instead of having a Lightning Round that’s 2,000 words long, I wanted to dedicate some time to those around Palou who came so close to winning but didn’t, because their stories are what so often makes this race just as great as the winner itself.
Marcus Ericsson – 2nd: Two things are for sure when it comes to Ericsson and the world’s greatest race. 1) He’s definitely not an outlier as some of his F1 cynics want to cling onto, and 2) It won’t be boring. Strategically, Ericsson drove a perfect race, fuel-saving brilliantly in the pack to come out in his final stint with less than 30 laps to go and able to push hard to the flag while Palou had to save fuel. The fact he couldn’t pass either RLL cars fighting to stay on the lead lap was likely more down to the fact that Andretti just didn’t have as strong a package as it had in year’s past and I think these hybrids have generated more dirty air than in recent years.
But with 2025 in the books, Ericsson now has a win and two runner-up finishes at the 500. He’s genuinely become a superb driver here and a real shot in the arm for an Andretti team who never really looked like contending. Honorable mention to Kyle Kirkwood finishing sixth despite being nowhere all race!
PS: Pato O’Ward called Ericsson a “choker” for not being able to pass the RLL’s down the stretch. A reminder that Pato still hasn’t won this race yet, as well as backing out of a final lap pass attempt on Ericsson when the latter won the race in 2022, and wrecked himself in 2023 trying to divebomb from a mile back on… Marcus Ericsson. Funny that.
Josef Newgarden – 25th: This may have been the best attempt anyone has ever made to break the fact that no-one’s ever won the race from Row 11 since Scott Goodyear in 1992. Newgarden drove the nuts off of that Penske. He had a very fast race car, and he picked off the backmarkers one by one, easily. He was running in the Top 6 when a fuel pressure fault with his pump failed and ended his day. A real shame given his speed, and it makes Josef’s season a total disaster so far.
David Malukas – 3rd: Man did Lil ’Dave need this. He’ll be gutted he came so close to winning, but it’s yet more proof that IndyCar’s loveable memelord is an outstanding oval racer. And given he entered the 500 fortnight 18th in points, it puts him right back into the midfield where he should have been this year. For a guy labelled as the Penske protege, a great result. Santino Ferrucci’s Top 10 streak continues in 7th too, good day of work.
Ryan Hunter-Reay – 24th: RHR went off-sequence early, led 48-laps in the middle of the race and he hit the jackpot to get back on the winning strategy late on and was likely in contention in a car the leaders were struggling to pass… until a fueling issue of his own ended his day. Brutal for Dreyer and Reinebold Racing, who had a genuine shot here.
Takuma Sato – 11th: The man who led more laps tonight than anyone else, 51 to be precise. You forget that the Honda executive is 48-years old and he still drove an RLL into genuine contention. A pitstop disaster where Sato overshot his box and then was slow off the jacks dropped him down the field a tad. But who cares, Sato is just great fun. That’s why we love him. Wonder if this one was his last…
The Super Lightning Round
Getting Alex Palou in a Tyrese Haliburton jersey at Game 3 of the Packers/Knicks Eastern Conference Finals in the NBA was a genius bit of marketing from the man’s team. Talk about striking while the iron was hot.
I think if you ever wanted to sum up Penske’s Indy 500 for 2025, Scott McLaughlin losing control in the warm-up laps by spinning and hitting the wall was quite the visual metaphor. Embarrassing and a total season derailing moment from the Kiwi. Penske’s best car was David Malukas. Behind that, it was Will Power’s 19th, a lap down on the field. Yikes.
Fascinating to hear genuine booing for series poster boy, Josef Newgarden. At this point, he’s becoming the “Homelander” of IndyCar, someone with the squeaky clean public image and who does all the right things to promote the series and himself, but is now sat with two cheating scandals hanging over his head. FOX centered almost all of its promotions around him this season, which I think was the wise move… but would they still have been so keen if it wasn’t for Attenuator-Gate?
While I think it’s been cute seeing him try, I don’t think we’re getting Kyle Larson attempting the “Hendrick 1100” again next year. His McLaren never looked like a car that could win, and his inexperience showed when a downshift in an early restart caused him to lose control, taking him out, as well as Kyffin Simpson and Sting Ray Robb.
He was never going to even finish the race because he had to be in the jet by 4:30pm his time or else he’d miss the Coke 600 in Charlotte and lose his playoff eligibility. If he ran a clean race, his car would have been parked with around 40 laps left, and Tony Kaanan would be unable to take the reserve role because once the race is green, driver changes aren’t allowed. Inexperience, timing crunch and NASCAR clamping down on waivers says to be this has run its course.
Speaking of – How annoying is that out of desperation for IndyCar cramming its schedule so tightly to avoid competing with the NFL, it made it so Gateway and Le Mans clash and Palou has no chance of doing the Indy 500/Le Mans double in the same year? Thanks a bunch guys.
Christian Rasmussen genuinely tried to wreck himself at least three times over the course of this fortnight and he ended up eighth, a career high finish. A mixed bag day from ECR given Alex Rossi’s car had to be pulled after catching fire on pit road, but at one point, ECR ran one, two and three. Had to be cool for Ed Carpenter.
The best part of the Month of May was without doubt, the Oscar Meyer Weinie 500. An incredible drama with the 6 HUGE regional hotdog cars, and the scripted drama was brilliantly done. A smoking dog on the backstretch and a dramatic finish with Slaw Dog replicating the famous Al Unser Jr finish from 92’. The commentary was just the right level of unhinged too. A lot of fun and easily the second best Motorsport brand activation this month. (Needs more LEGO.)
Marco Andretti was in the Last Chance Qualifier and his race lasted one corner of green flag running as he got put in the wall. He insists he’ll be back, but you can’t help but wonder with Andretti not being all that much Andretti anymore, are they going to keep giving him an extra car? And if not, was that the last time we see an Andretti take the field for a good few years?
As much as I’ve not been kind to FOX, I’ll give one extra person some flowers – Jamie Little was superb, all fortnight long. Great questions to the drivers at the heat of the moment, a great interview with Roger Penske off the back of Blend-Ghazi as well. FOX needs to remember that instead of trying to make her something she’s not with NASCAR’s coverage.
All that fuss from Robert Shwartzman and he fell down the order early and never really looked in contention, and the whole thing went to shit when his brakes failed and he hit the side of his crew, injuring one crew member’s foot. Rough. I do wonder if Prema intentionally set Shwartzman’s car just to qualify on pole and take some free headlines, especially given Callum Illot had a far better car in race trim, ran Top 5 for a while, and ended up 12th, Prema’s best finish in the series to date. Hmm…
Across the board, not a great race for the rookie class this year. Shwartzman’s car failed and it wasn’t great in the first place, Nolan Siegel crashing and Louis Foster an unspectacular 15th.
The Verdict: 7.5/10 (Very Good) – The beautiful thing about the Indy 500 is you are almost guaranteed a thrilling finish, and we got one here with Palou, the backmarker juggling, and Ericsson, Hunter-Reay and Malukas all in the mix. But this 500 took a long time to truly get going. Some of that was the circumstance of rain sprinkles early on and understandably tentative driving, but six cautions in the first 106 laps did drag down the enjoyment for yours truly a bit. A 9/10 finish and as I said earlier, the general vibe of “The best man won”, was a genuinely awesome thing and it did elevate what was initially a good, but not great 500. See you in… *sighs*… Detroit.
