Though you have to go back to 2009 to find the last time the outright favorite won the Indy 500, it has been a while since a driver listed not particularly close to the top pulled off the upset.
It most recently happened in 2021, when Helio Castroneves ironically won it for the record-tying fourth time in his first attempt with Meyer Shank Racing. He was listed at +2800 heading into the race. Castroneves, of course, is the most recent outright favorite to win as well, winning his third back in 2009.
The last two years, Team Penske's Josef Newgarden has been one of the top picks to win it, and he has won in both times, making him just the sixth driver to win the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" in back-to-back years. No driver has ever won it three years in a row, and Newgarden is the favorite to do it this year.
But is Indianapolis Motor Speedway due to produce a true upset winner this May?
Here are five possibilities whose odds are probably a little bit longer than they should be ahead of the 2025 IndyCar season.
5 way-too-early longshot picks to win the 2025 Indy 500
All odds provided by FanDuel Sportsbook.
David Malukas, A.J. Foyt Racing: +3000
David Malukas has been one of the series' top oval drivers since he made his series debut with Dale Coyne Racing, recording podium finishes in both of his seasons with the team.
While the Arrow McLaren ride he ultimately lost due to injury would have gone a long way toward solidifying that status last year, he was able to solidify it anyway with Meyer Shank Racing, nearly winning at Gateway toward the end of the 2024 season. Now he is with an A.J. Foyt Racing team that have been nothing shy of resurgent at Indy since forming their technical alliance with Team Penske.
Santino Ferrucci (+1800) was in contention in both 2023 and 2024, and though Sting Ray Robb didn't particularly finish well last year, he led the third most laps of anybody and had the ability to keep his car at the sharp end of the field once he got there on strategy.
I predicted at the end of the 2024 IndyCar season that A.J. Foyt's team would win the Indy 500 in 2025. Now with a legitimate 1-2 driver lineup punch for the first time in who knows how long, this might just be the year.
Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing: +3000
Helio Castroneves has been listed with similar odds to the +2800 with which he won in 2021 every year since, and he really hasn't been a huge factor. But he won the Indy 500 at the age of 46 four years ago. Age wasn't a factor then, and it really shouldn't be a factor now, even if he is due to break into the next decade before race day.
It was one thing for him to win his first Indy 500 immediately after Team Penske decided he was no longer in their future plans. It would be another for him to win in 2025, in what is set to be Meyer Shank Racing's first season with a Chip Ganassi Racing technical alliance.
Nobody knows the "Racing Capital of the World" better than its resident Spider Man, and to imply that he only has a 1-in-31 chance to win a fifth is selling him short; there's no way around that.
Christian Lundgaard, Arrow McLaren: +4400
Christian Lundgaard has had far more success in road and street course races than oval races, but it stands to reason, given how terrible Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing have been on courses with strictly left turns since he joined the team in 2022.
Now he is with a team that have been in the mix to win each of the last four Indy 500s, and more often than not, with more than one driver. In other words, it's not just the Pato O'Ward show, even though he has obviously been the frontrunner and is once again one of the favorites.
Though it was on fuel strategy, Lundgaard got a taste of what leading the Indy 500 is like last year. Now in the No. 7 Chevrolet that Alexander Rossi nearly drove to victory last year, perhaps he'll get an even better taste this year.
Christian Rasmussen, Ed Carpenter Racing: +8500
Real IndyCar fans know that Christian Rasmussen was the 2024 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year. He probably could have won the race, but because his name doesn't start with K and end with yle Larson, he wouldn't have won the popularity conte...sorry, award.
Ed Carpenter Racing have been known for strong qualifying cars more so than strong race cars at Indy over the years. Rinus VeeKay, for instance, never qualified worse than seventh place in five starts for the team, yet he never finished higher than eighth.
But Rasmussen quickly worked his way up from 24th place and was mixing it up in the top 10 for much of the race before settling for 12th in what was his first ever IndyCar oval start. After team owner Ed Carpenter made the executive decision to step back from the oval races toward the end of the 2024 season, Rasmussen got additional oval experience ahead of his first full season in 2025.
Nolan Siegel, Arrow McLaren: +12000
Tony Kanaan basically risked his job to get Nolan Siegel in an Arrow McLaren car during the 2024 season after that car had already been promised to Theo Pourchaire. Though Siegel has not exactly lit the world on fire, Kanaan has since been promoted to team principal.
There is a lot of hype surrounding this young driver, and a lot of it may actually stem from his first true IndyCar failure and how he approached it. Driving a Dale Coyne Racing car that had no pace whatsoever, he put everything on the line in Indy 500 qualifying in an attempt to make the race. Unforutnately he ended up in the wall, but his effort earned him abundant praise throughout the paddock.
Another young Arrow McLaren driver also crashed and failed to qualify for the race in his first attempt with a weaker team before having immediate success with Arrow McLaren the following year and beyond. His name is Pato O'Ward.
Gateway isn't Indy, but Siegel's seventh place finish at the former toward the end of the 2024 season showed that he is capable of running up front on ovals, and the fact that he finished there after both an intense battle with Scott Dixon and a pit road penalty show that he could indeed be the real deal.
The 109th running of the Indy 500 is set to be broadcast live on Fox from Indianapolis Motor Speedway beginning at 10:00 a.m. ET on Sunday, May 25. Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing"!