Indy 500: Pippa Mann likely won’t compete in 2020
By Asher Fair
Pippa Mann has confirmed that she will likely not compete in the 2020 Indy 500 after making seven consecutive attempts at the race.
Pippa Mann has attempted to compete in eight of the last nine, including each of the seven, Indianapolis 500 races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, successfully doing so seven times, as she was one of two drivers to be bumped from the field back in 2018.
On four occasions, most recently in 2019, she was the lone female in the field for this 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in Speedway, Indiana.
In 2020, that doesn’t look like it will be the case, and not because of an additional female driver. It appears as though she will not be attempting to compete for the first time since 2012, which was just one year removed from her IndyCar and Indy 500 debut.
She confirmed on Twitter that the prospects of an entry in 2020 are highly unlikely at this point, due to nothing more than a lack of funding.
https://twitter.com/PippaMann/status/1214374239119269889
It’s on me. I have not been able to pull together the funding required, even though it’s not from a lack of work.
— Pippa Mann (@PippaMann) January 7, 2020
But this is bigger than me.
I’m gutted 2020 will likely be the first #Indy500 without a female athlete in 20 years. #RepresentationMatters
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Mann’s best finish in this race is her 16th place effort last year when she drove for new team Clauson-Marshall Racing and qualified for the race as one of the underdogs coming off of the disappointment of 2018, her sixth consecutive year entering the event with Dale Coyne Racing.
Aside of her failure to qualify for the race two years ago, her results have gotten progressively better since 2013 when she failed to finish after a wreck and was scored in 30th place.
In 2014, she placed 24th before running 22nd in 2015. In 2016, she beat her previous career-high of 20th, set in her debut in 2011 driving for Conquest Racing, with an 18th place finish, and she bettered that by one position with a 17th place result in 2017.
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NBC is set to broadcast the 104th running of the Indianapolis 500 live from Indianapolis Motor Speedway beginning at 11:00 a.m. ET on Sunday, May 24, and the race itself, which is the sixth of 17 races on the 2020 IndyCar schedule, is scheduled to get underway at roughly 12:15 p.m. ET.