2013 Indy 500 - The race where nobody could hold the lead

The 2013 Indy 500 featured an all-time record of 68 lead changes, which doubled the previous record that was set just one year earlier.

The 2012 Indianapolis 500 was the first Indy 500 that featured the new DW12 chassis, as the 2012 IndyCar season was the first season during which the DW12 chassis was used.

As expected, this chassis and the huge holes punched in the air by the leaders of the 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in Speedway, Indiana made drafting and passing a lot easier than it had been in years past.

Despite the fact that the 2012 edition of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” was run in near record-breaking heat, the race still featured a total of 34 lead changes, which was a new Indy 500 record.

The previous Indy 500 record of 29 lead changes was set in the 44th running of the race back in 1960, at which point the Indy 500 was still a Formula 1 race. In fact, the official name of the race in 1960 was the “44th International 500-Mile Sweepstakes”.

Jim Rathmann won the race that year, and his margin of victory of 12.67 seconds was the second closest margin of victory at the time.

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But in 2013, with track temperatures roughly 25 degrees cooler than what they were the previous year, the lead change record looked poised to not only be broken for the second consecutive year but shattered. With the DW12 chassis still in use, it was not expected that any driver would be able to hold the race lead for more than a few laps at any point throughout the race.

Those expectations proved to be true, but to a far greater extent than even the most extreme predictions of how the battle at the front of the field would look.

Ed Carpenter Racing’s Ed Carpenter started the race from the pole position, and he led the race’s first eight laps. On only three more occasions throughout the entire race did a driver lead for at least eight laps at a time. Carpenter relinquished the lead to KV Racing Technology’s Tony Kanaan, who started the race all the way back in 12th place, on lap nine.

That’s when the party started, and for the next two and a half-plus hours, it didn’t stop.

On lap 123, Barracuda Racing’s Alex Tagliani became the race’s 10th different leader, and he took the lead via the race’s 35th lead change, breaking the all-time Indy 500 lead change record with still 78 laps remaining in a race that had not been under caution since lap 60.

But 35 lead changes in 123 laps ended up being considered a fairly low rate compared to what happened over the course of the race’s final 77 laps. In fact, over the course of the race’s first 123 laps, all four of the stints during which a driver led for at least eight laps at a time took place.

In addition to leading the race’s first eight laps, Carpenter also led nine consecutive laps from lap 64 through lap 72. Team Penske teammates Will Power and A.J. Allmendinger each led 14 consecutive laps from lap 75 to lap 88 and from lap 98 to lap 111, respectively. From that point forward, only twice did a driver lead the race for more than five consecutive laps.

From the time Tagliani took the lead on lap 123 until the end of the race, 33 more lead changes took place. The race’s 68th and final lead change, which doubled the previous all-time record, took place on the race’s final restart on lap 198 when Kanaan, who was running in second place on the restart, passed Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay going into turn one.

Unfortunately, the only thing that could have possibly been a knock on this race, which ended up being the fastest Indy 500 in history (2:40:03) with an average speed of 187.433 miles per hour, ended up taking place, as the race, which had only featured four caution flag periods in the first 197 laps, ended up ending under caution.

Shortly after Kanaan passed Hunter-Reay for the lead, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Dario Franchitti crashed in turn one. The crash could not get cleaned up in time, and Kanaan ended up winning the race under caution.

Let’s take an even deeper look into just how much passing for the lead took place in this record-breaking race.

With 68 official lead changes, the race lead actually changed hands more than 68 times, as lead changes are only considered official when the leader of one lap is different than the leader on the next lap; that’s the only reason why the IndyCar record of 80 lead changes in a race, which was set in the race at Auto Club Speedway in the 2015 season, isn’t well over 100 lead changes.

But as far as official statistics are concerned, the 2013 Indy 500 featured a total of 69 different stints during which a driver led the race, meaning that the average stint of a driver leading the race lasted for only 2.90 laps. Of these 69 stints, 29 lasted for only one lap while 15 lasted for only two laps. Of the remaining 25 stints, 17 lasted for between three and five laps.

Kanaan, who won the race after leading 34 laps, led fewer laps than only one driver in the field. That driver was Carpenter, whose laps led total of 37 was the lowest in Indy 500 history for a driver who led the most laps in the race.

Kanaan led his 34 laps over the course of 15 different stints, meaning that when he led the race, he only did so for an average of 2.27 laps at time. Of these 15 stints, six lasted for just one lap while five lasted for only two laps.

Of the other four stints, one lasted for three laps, one lasted for four laps, one lasted for five laps and one lasted for six laps. The stint that lasted for three laps was the one that ended the race and resulted in him winning.

Had Franchitti not crashed, the race very well could have featured over 70 lead changes, and Kanaan may very well not have won it. It isn’t too far-fetched to think that he could have finished in fourth place behind Andretti Autosport teammates Carlos Munoz, a rookie, Hunter-Reay and Marco Andretti, who finished in second, third and fourth, respectively.

Next. Top 10 Indianapolis 500 drivers of all-time. dark

The 2013 Indianapolis 500 was certainly a race to savor not only from an Indy 500 perspective but from an overall IndyCar perspective and even an overall motorsports perspective. The only thing that leading the race before the checkered flag really meant was that you probably wouldn’t be leading it in another lap or two.

2013 Indy 500 – The race where nobody could hold the lead

By Asher Fair | May 22, 2019

The 2013 Indy 500 featured an all-time record of 68 lead changes, which doubled the previous record that was set just one year earlier.