Though IndyCar has a new charter system in place for the 2025 season, that charter system only guarantees its 25 chartered entries a spot in the 16 non-Indy 500 races on the 17-race schedule.
For the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing", it remains true that nobody is safe. Nobody is guaranteed a spot in the field of 33 when there are more than 33 cars on the entry list, and now there are officially more than 33 cars on the entry list following the latest confirmation, the first since December.
For the second year in a row, Takuma Sato is set to drive the No. 75 Honda for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, making the No. 75 entry the 34th confirmed car on the entry list for this coming May.
Indy 500 lands 34th car, meaning nobody is safe
Sato, who won the race for the team in 2020 just three years after winning it for the first time with Andretti Autosport, need look no further than his own team to see that nobody is safe.
Team owner Bobby Rahal, the 1986 winner, failed to qualify for the race in 1993, and son Graham Rahal experienced his own heartbreak just two years ago, when he was the only driver who didn't make it. Graham finished in third place when Sato won five years ago.
The confirmation of the 48-year-old Japanese driver means that the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Speedway, Indiana oval is set to see Bump Day for the third year in a row, and there is still a chance that the entry list could grow to 35 cars, which would mark the largest total since 2021.
A full updated entry list can be found here.
No Indy 500 has featured a 36-car entry list since 2019, and no Indy 500 has featured an entry list with more than 36 cars since there were 41 in 2011, which was the final year for the IR-05 chassis.
Indy 500 qualifying is scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 17 and Sunday, May 18, and the 109th running of the race itself is scheduled to take place on Sunday, May 25. Fox is set to provide live coverage beginning at 10:00 a.m. ET on race day, so be sure to sign up for FuboTV, take advantage of their free trial offer, and don't miss it!