Indy 500: The decision that won Josef Newgarden the race

Josef Newgarden’s decision not to go for the lead in turn one on the final restart won him the 107th running of the Indy 500.

The 107th running of the Indy 500 ended in a way that no Indy 500 had ever ended before. Following a red flag with two laps remaining, the green flag came back out just one lap later, setting up a last-lap shootout.

Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden became just the third driver to win the race with a last-lap pass for the lead, driving past reigning Indy 500 champion Marcus Ericsson of Chip Ganassi Racing on the back straightaway of the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval.

Some have incorrectly insinuated that the finish was “rigged” or “fixed” by race control and that it should have ended under yellow, since both of the race’s previous two red flags — and all previous Indy 500 red flags — had preceded at least one pace lap before the green flag came back out. Had it ended under yellow, Ericsson would have won it for the second straight year.

But it was a decision by Josef Newgarden himself which ultimately won him the Indy 500.

Ericsson got a great restart before the white flag, to the point where he even said that he caught Newgarden off guard. He opened up a rather sizable gap coming down the front straightaway. Newgarden even admitted that the gap was a bit bigger than he expected it to be.

So as he was coming down the front straightaway, he decided not to go for the lead in turn one and instead focus on having a strong turn two so that he could make a move going down the back straightaway into turn three.

“Yeah, about halfway down the front straightaway, I made the decision to focus on T2,” Newgarden admitted to Beyond the Flag. “I purposely left a little bit of space to him to try to protect where my position was, but I probably had more gap than I had planned on, just a little bit larger than I was anticipating.”

Had he gone for the lead going into turn one, he probably would not have gotten it. That would have left him trying to collect himself going into turn two, and with far less momentum as he reached the back straightaway.

Making the move coming out of turn two would also effectively give Ericsson far less time to respond.

“I made a decision, sort of consciously, halfway down the front straight that that was a good thing that had happened that way, and that coming off turn two, if I could make the pass into three, that’s probably going to be preferred,” Newgarden continued. “And it ended up working, that ended up being the right thing, and something that I could lean on.”

Newgarden took the lead before turn three and hung on to win by 0.0974 seconds, marking the fourth closest finish in Indy 500 history.

“So yeah, it’s hard to plan it out and to see it come together perfectly, but I think you just got to be really ready to react in that moment.”