Alex Palou has finally won an IndyCar oval race, and he picked the biggest race of them all to do it in. After a pass on 2022 winner Marcus Ericsson with 14 laps remaining, Palou went on to win the 109th running of the Indy 500.
Palou finished in second place in the 2021 Indy 500 after being passed by four-time winner Helio Castroneves with only a handful of laps remaining. After contending in 2022, 2023, and 2024, he sealed the deal with the 16th and easily the biggest win of his IndyCar career.
But several others walk away from Indianapolis Motor Speedway shaking their heads, and although one's heart can't help but ache for somebody like Marcus Ericsson (again), we don't mean the drivers who came oh-so-close to winning, because at the end of the day, there can only be one.
Here are the five biggest losers from Sunday's race.
5 biggest losers from Sunday's Indy 500
Scott McLaughlin
Where do we even start? Forgive me, but I guess in McLaughlin's case, we don't. What an absolutely devastating end (start?) to the Indy 500 for McLaughlin and the Thirsty 3s. You'd have to imagine he'll be hungrier than ever moving ahead, but this one is going to hurt.
Josef Newgarden
I wanted to include "Team Penske" as one full category, but the storylines for these two drivers were too significant.
Like Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, the three-peat was not meant to be. I'm not so sure Newgarden would have been a major factor anyway, because he sort of stalled out once he got into the top 10 after starting 32nd. Still, his chance at history came up short due to a fuel pressure issue. It was simply not his day, and it really puts the challenge that is this race into perspective.
Colton Herta
An issue in the pits ruined his day before it really got off the ground, which seems like a copy-paste from any other IndyCar race lately. But the big reason he's listed here is because he is now the winningest active non-Indy 500 winner in the series with nine victories. And he's never particularly come close in seven Indy 500 starts.
Kyle Larson
While I must say this year's Indy 500 experience, which included three total crashes for Kyle Larson, had to have been humbling experience for him after he said the cars aren't that hard to drive, you do have to respect someone from the NASCAR world for being willing to be so vulnerable, jump out of what is already an extremely wide comfort zone, and compete in the greatest race in the world.
Shy of a win, he was opening himself up to a boatload of criticism, but his passion for racing clearly trumped that. Still, the 1,100-mile pursuit ended with an early wreck that could have been avoided.
Robert Shwartzman
After the race actually got started following the McLaughlin wreck and the Marco Andretti wreck, polesitter Robert Shwartzman immediately lost the lead and was never a factor. It's sort of what a lot of folks feared, and his day came to an end when he hit the pit wall, plus some crew members.
Not-so-honorable mention: Fox Sports
I love Fox's promotion of IndyCar and specifically the Indy 500. But the coverage was horrendous, through no fault of the announcers, of course. Not showing Palou crossing the finish line is unacceptable, caution or not.
Also, this Indy 500 had 22 lead changes. But based on the fact that the scoring pylon was evidently inspired by a carnival Frog Hopper, you'd have counted close to 100, considering how the names were jumping around on there (when overtakes weren't happening).
The random removals of the pylon (in the closing laps when the lap count was paramount) were also irritating, as was the fact that nobody knew who finished in sixth place (Kyle Kirkwood, by the way) since they decided to take off everybody but the top five.
I never thought anything would be worse than the new Super Bowl scorebug, but my word.
I can understand growing pains, but it's not like Fox is new to TV. Things need to improve, and fast.