Indy 500: Did IndyCar make the right call to end under caution?

While we all hated to see it, IndyCar’s decision to end the 104th running of the Indy 500 under caution made sense in more ways than it didn’t.

The 104th running of the Indy 500 did not end in the way that most of the recent editions of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” did, as a crash with five laps remaining led to the race ending under caution for the first time since the 97th running back in May of 2013.

After Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing with Citrone/Buhl Autosport’s Spencer Pigot crashed his #45 Honda hard into the pit lane attenuator, the race was effectively over.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Takuma Sato led Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon and teammate Graham Rahal across the finish line to take the checkered flag behind the pace car.

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After six Indy 500s in a row had ended under green flag conditions dating back to 2014, the longest streak since the seven-year streak from 1995 to 2001, there was unfortunately no competitive action on lap 200, an unfortunately reality of the sport.

There were calls for IndyCar to throw a red flag so that the race could end with a shootout, as was the case in both 2014 and 2019. Should they have done so again this year, or did they make the right move?

In 2013, Tony Kanaan took lead away from Ryan Hunter-Reay on the final restart with three laps remaining and Carlos Munoz followed him through to second place before Dario Franchitti wrecked in turn one.

Would we have seen a different outcome if not for the wreck? Even if Kanaan had still won, the answer is most likely, given the fact that the race doubled the previous lead change record of 34 with 68. Plus, IndyCar could have thrown a red flag for the wreck that led to that restart and restarted with more than three laps remaining.

The wreck that set up that restart took place with seven laps remaining. The wreck that led to a red flag in 2014 took place with 10 laps remaining. The wreck that led to a red flag in 2019 took place with 23 laps remaining.

But in the 2020 edition of the race, with five laps remaining, IndyCar was not left with enough time to clear the track, especially given how much debris was on the track due to Pigot’s contact with the pit lane attenuator. It would have taken quite a bit of time to repair the attenuator to make it safe for racing to resume.

Even with a red flag, the race may not have been able to emerge from the caution flag period. Last year, it took more than five laps last year just to get the field in the right order prior to the final restart following the red flag.

But most importantly, this year, the right driver still undoubtedly won.

While Dixon did lead 111 of the race’s 200 laps around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Brickyard oval in Speedway, Indiana and Sato led only 27, Sato was the deserving winner, and the lack of a red flag and subsequent shootout did not take that away like you can argue it may have done a number of times in the past.

Given his lead at the time of the wreck, it may have even made any other result seem artificial.

Sato led the race prior to making his final pit stop on lap 168. He and Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden came into the pits on the same lap, with Newgarden pitting from third place.

Sato came out of the pits only just ahead of Newgarden, indicating that second place (now leader) Dixon would have a great shot to make his pit stop and come out ahead of both of them.

Indeed, that is what happened just one lap later.

But Sato was able to run Dixon down from around one second behind him and pass him for the effective race lead (Andretti Autosport’s Zach Veach was the leader at the time, due to the fact that he still needed to pit), and he did not relinquish that spot for the rest of the race. He officially inherited the lead for the final time on lap 185 when Veach came into the pits.

The only time it appeared as though he may have not been able to hang on to win the race was when he caught lapped traffic. But he was able to maneuver his way around that traffic and maintain a solid gap back to Dixon and Rahal.

The right driver won.

Red flag debate aside, the real battle for the win was arguably robbed from fans when Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi was penalized for an unsafe release in the pits, one which led to contact between his #27 Honda and Sato’s #30 Honda. He was sent to the rear of the field for the ensuing restart.

Rossi had been the only driver to challenge Dixon up to that point. These two drivers swapped the lead back and forth 11 times over a 23-lap span, including eight laps in a row at one point, but after the penalty, Rossi was mired in the back of the pack in a car which was not dialed in to run well in a ton of traffic.

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While he made some impressive moves following the controversial call, including passing four cars at once on the outside of turn three, his race ended with a crash in turn two.