IndyCar: The other Indy 500 record fans got to witness

By Asher Fair | May 31, 2021

Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing, Indy 500, IndyCar (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /

In addition to Helio Castroneves becoming a four-time Indy 500 winner, IndyCar fans got to witness another all-time record in the 105th running of the race.

Helio Castroneves’s move from Team Penske, where he won the Indy 500 on three occasions in the 2000s, to Meyer Shank Racing and subsequent fourth career Indy 500 victory in his first attempt behind the wheel of the #06 Honda was justifiably the top headline at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and in the entire IndyCar and motorsport world on Sunday afternoon.

With two laps remaining in the 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) oval in Speedway, Indiana, Castroneves, who started the race in eighth place and had led 18 laps by that point, passed Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou on the outside going into turn one.

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He held on to win the race by 0.4928 seconds ahead of Palou’s #10 Honda in second place, with former Team Penske teammate and 2019 race winner Simon Pagenaud finishing in third place behind the wheel of his #22 Chevrolet.

By doing so, he became just the fourth driver to win the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” on four occasions.

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A.J. Foyt won it for a fourth time in 1977 after winning it in 1961, 1964 and 1967. Al Unser won it for a fourth time in 1987 after winning it in 1970, 1971 and 1978. Prior to today, Rick Mears pulled it off most recently in 1991 after winning in 1979, 1984 and 1988.

Castroneves won the race as a rookie in 2001 before winning it again in controversial fashion in 2002 and adding a third win in 2009. After 11 unsuccessful attempts to join the four-time winner club, attempt number 12 was a success on Sunday, May 30, 2021.

But Castroneves’s fourth Indy 500 win wasn’t the only record that fans, including the 135,000+ who were on hand at the Brickyard in the most attended live sporting event in well over a year, got to witness on Sunday afternoon.

The 105th running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” saw just two caution flag periods, one for a pit road crash involving Andretti Autosport’s Stefan Wilson and another one for a turn two crash involving Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal due to a loose tire from his pit stop. Only three of the 33 drivers in the field failed to finish the race, with the other one being Paretta Autosport’s Simona de Silvestro.

A total of 182 of the race’s 200 laps were run under green flag conditions, and that led to the race being completed in just two hours, 37 minutes and 19 seconds, making the average speed of the race a record 190.690 miles per hour.

That beat the previous all-time record by more than three full miles per hour.

The record had been 187.433 miles per hour (two hours, 40 miles and three seconds), which was set back in 2013. That race, which was won by Tony Kanaan, saw five caution flag periods, but for only 21 laps. It featured a 133-lap green flag stint ahead of the final seven laps. Unfortunately, the final seven laps saw two caution flags, and the race finished under yellow.

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The 106th running of the Indy 500 is scheduled to take place on Sunday, May 29, 2022. Broadcast information will be released at a later date.