Indy 500: On this date in 2016 - Alexander Rossi pulls major fuel-saving upset

Three years ago today on Sunday, May 29, 2016, Alexander Rossi pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Indy 500 history in his first Indy 500 attempt.

Andretti Herta Autosport rookie Alexander Rossi gave the words “clutch and coast” a whole new meaning in the first Indy 500 start of his IndyCar career three years ago today.

Rossi started the 100th running of the 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in Speedway, Indiana in 11th place in his #98 Honda after barely missing out on the Fast Nine Shootout.

While he had spent a considerable amount of time toward the back of the field in the early and middle stages of the race, the Nevada City, California native was no stranger to the front of the field by the time he took the lead on lap 197 when teammate Carlos Munoz made his final pit stop.

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Rossi had led 10 of the race’s 196 laps due to the fact that he had gone on an alternate pit strategy. But this pit strategy also helped A.J. Foyt Enterprises’ Alex Tagliani, who started the race in dead last (33rd place), lead 11 laps, making the 2016 Indy 500 the sixth consecutive Indy 500 that he led, so not much thought was given to it resulting in anything other than maybe a top 10 or top 15 finish.

But that “not much thought” became one serious question when Rossi took the lead with four laps remaining: does he have enough fuel to become the first rookie winner of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” since Helio Castroneves won it in 2001?

The easy answer to that question was an obvious “no”. Rossi came into the pits with the majority of the rest of the field on lap 165, meaning he needed to stretch his final fuel stint for a whopping 36 laps.

Typical maximum fuel stints were between 28 and 30 laps long, and many times they ended up lasting shorter than that depending on when the caution flags flew.

But Rossi continued to lead the race with three laps to go, and then with two laps to go, although he was clearly going a lot slower than everybody else around him, of whom nobody was on the lead lap.

Once again, coming to the white flag, he failed to come into the pits. He took the white flag with a lead of slightly more than 15 seconds (slightly under half a lap) over Munoz in second place.

At this point, Rossi was basically crawling. It looked as though he was out of fuel throughout the whole lap. But he had just enough to cross the finish line, and he had enough to do it as the race winner.

Munoz, who had to hold back tears after he learned that he didn’t win the race, finished in second place after taking a huge chunk out of Rossi’s lead on the final lap, as he finished just 4.4975 seconds behind him.

Rossi ended up running out of fuel on his victory lap, and his car had to be towed to victory lane. He won the race after leading only 14 of its laps. The race featured a total of 54 lead changes, a lead change total that ranks second on the all-time Indy 500 lead changes list, among 13 drivers.

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

Fuel strategy comes into play quite frequently in the Indianapolis 500, but the finish of this race was truly one of a kind from an Indy 500 perspective and even from an overall IndyCar perspective.

Indy 500: On this date in 2016 – Alexander Rossi pulls major fuel-saving upset

By Asher Fair | May 29, 2019

Three years ago today on Sunday, May 29, 2016, Alexander Rossi pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Indy 500 history in his first Indy 500 attempt.