Indy 500: Ranking all 34 drivers, from No. 34 to No. 1

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Devlin DeFrancesco, Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport, Indy 500, IndyCar (Photo Credit: The Indianapolis Star) /

Indy 500 rankings: No. 33 – Devlin DeFrancesco

Driving an Andretti Autosport Honda, Devlin DeFrancesco should safely make the field, but beyond that, don’t expect much. He has just one career finish in the top half of the field in his IndyCar career, and that was only a 12th place finish at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. He finished in 20th in last year’s Indy 500, which was actually one of his better results.

Indy 500 rankings: No. 32 – R.C. Enerson

R.C. Enerson is one of the early favorites to be bumped from the Indy 500 field. Indy NXT (Lights) team Abel Motorsports have never competed in an IndyCar race before, and when Enerson attempted to qualify for the race with a new team in Top Gun Racing in 2021, he really didn’t come anywhere close, finishing 35th of 35 qualifiers.

But we’ve seen single-car teams pull off heroic qualifying efforts in recent history, including DragonSpeed and, most notably, Juncos Racing sending Fernando Alonso, McLaren and their multi-million-dollar hospitality chalet packing in 2019. Enerson wouldn’t be here if he thought 2021 would repeat itself.

Indy 500 rankings: No. 31 – Benjamin Pedersen

Benjamin Pedersen’s best finish so far in his IndyCar career came at Texas Motor Speedway, which is a plus heading into the series’ only other superspeedway race on the schedule. But it was only a 15th place effort, and it’s hard to see the rookie being much of a factor with an A.J. Foyt Enterprises that haven’t been nearly as strong at Indianapolis Motor Speedway as they once were.