Sunday's 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 (12:00 p.m. ET, FOX) promises to be an exciting race with the field more wide open than I can ever remember.
Part of the reason for that is due to the incredible circumstances that have developed in the "Month of May." Several dramatic crashes in practice have fans on edge about the race. A rookie team with a rookie driver who is making his oval debut won the pole position.
In the biggest development of them all, two-time defending race winner Josef Newgarden, along with Team Penske teammate and 2018 Indy 500 winner Will Power, have been sent to the back of the starting grid after their rear attenuators were found to be illegally modified.
Those illegal modifications proved to be Team Penske's second rules violation in the last 14 months and have resulted in the firings of their top three IndyCar executives, Tim Cindric, Ron Ruzewski, and Kyle Moyer, who were also the race strategists for their three cars.
With all the drama and excitement, and such a wide open field, a full 33-car breakdown is in order. This is meant to be your Indy 500 betting guide to help you form your own betting card. For my picks, my race day betting card will be out on Sunday morning, and the Indianapolis 500 episode of Running Hot, Action Network's motorsports betting podcast, dropped on Thursday where I gave out four early-week bets that I like.
So here's your 2025 Indy 500 preview and betting guide, as we go driver-by-driver in the order that they'll start.
1. Robert Shwartzman (No. 83)
As I mentioned up top, the polesitter this year is a rookie driver on a rookie team. Not only that, but polesitter Robert Shwartzman is making his first-ever start on an oval of any kind, in any racing series, anywhere.
Shwartzman amazingly opened at 750-1 odds at Caesars Sportsbook to win this race during the offseason, and could be found as long as +20000 the morning of Sunday qualifying. Safe to say those odds are long gone after he won pole position and will lead the field to the green flag.
With that said, do I believe Shwartzman can win this race? Absolutely.
Should he be 25-1, or even shorter in some spots? I don't think so. I believe he should be more like 40 or 50-1.
In Monday's post-qualifying practice session, Shwartzman looked very good when leading a line of cars, which bodes well for his prospects early in the race. However, he didn't appear to be quite as good in traffic, and at some point in the race, he's likely to be in traffic, whether from different strategies as we see every year at Indy, or potentially from a bad pit stop.
I'm very worried about his pit stops, as the No. 83 Prema Racing pit crew had a few bobbles during pit stop practice on Monday. It makes sense, too, for a new team still building up its speed and consistency in the pit box.
During Carb Day (final practice), Shwartzman was terrible in traffic, and his Prema Racing team decided to make a static cross-weight change, which is a pretty major change for a final practice session. Even after those changes, Shwartzman complained of not being able to catch cars in front of him, while others had no problem catching him. That's not good.
On the bright side, Shwartzman comes over from the Formula 1 ladder, where he was formerly a Ferrari test driver and had plenty of wins and success in Formula 2, the level below F1. Drivers from F1 and the F1 ladder have had quite a bit of success in the Indy 500, with Juan Pablo Montoya (2000, 2015), Alexander Rossi (2016), Takuma Sato (2017, 2020), and Marcus Ericsson (2022) all grabbing race wins this century.
In addition, two-time F1 world champion Fernando Alonso led 27 laps in his Indy 500 debut before his engine expired while running near the front.
IndyCar veteran Santino Ferrucci came from F2, which is the top level Shwartzman raced in, and has placed inside the top 10 in all six of his Indy 500 starts despite running for smaller budget teams in each of those races.
That's more likely Shwartzman's best result, hoping for a top-10 finish, which would be an incredible achievement for the 25-year-old rookie.
However, it's more likely he ends up in the second half of the field, given the challenges he and his small team face as rookies.
I wouldn't be surprised if Shwartzman rewards early bettors with an incredible long-shot victory. I'm just not banking on it and don't expect a win. The opportunity to bet him has likely sailed unless you want to take a flier on him at 25-1.
2. Takuma Sato (No. 75)
Sato is a two-time winner of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing with victories in 2017 and 2020. He has also nearly won multiple other times, most famously crashing in Turn 1 of the last lap while going for the lead in an epic battle with Dario Franchitti, who prevailed as the 2012 winner.
Sato also has a third-place finish in this race in 2019 with his current team, Rahal Letterman Lanigan (RLL) Racing, which is also the outfit he won his second 500 race with.
Both times Sato has qualified inside the top five, he left victorious, which may be a good omen given that he has his best starting spot ever in second place.
Notably, Sato experienced a yet-to-be-determined mechanical failure on his car in final practice.
Sato is a full-on balls-to-the-wall driver. He will occasionally take it too far and make a mistake, resulting in a crash, which gives him a huge range of outcomes. That was evident back in April during the Indy 500 open test, when Sato smashed his car. Had that happened in the Month of May, he'd likely be in a backup, less competitive car.
Instead, he's put his car in the front row and should be considered a primary threat to win, as well as to DNF (did not finish).
3. Pato O'Ward (No. 5)
My pick to win this race is the driver of the No. 5 Arrow McLaren car, Pato O'Ward.
Currently, he's going off as the race favorite at most sportsbooks, except at Bet365, where he's +600 to Alex Palou's +550. That 6-1 number is the best outright line on O'Ward, and I don't mind if you want to add that to your betting card.
The seventh-year Mexican driver has been a contender for the win in all five of his Indy 500 starts with his current team, Arrow McLaren. That includes two runner-up finishes and a crash in 2023 while going for second place on Marcus Ericsson into Turn 3 with just eight laps remaining in a wreck very reminiscent of Sato's 2012 final-lap crash.
Thanks to a third-place qualifying effort, O'Ward currently sits second in the IndyCar point standings with two runner-up finishes in five races this year.
Arrow McLaren started off the month a bit slow to find speed, and Pato wasn't the most comfortable with the car, but as the practice sessions have progressed, so too has his speed and happiness with the car.
Look for him to be in contention for the win late in the race if he and his team avoid any mishaps on the track, in the pits, or on strategy.
4. Scott Dixon (No. 9)
The six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon is looking to add a second Borg-Warner trophy to his collection, given to the winner of the Indianapolis 500. Dixon's lone 500 win came all the way back in 2008, but he also has three runner-up and two third-place finishes in this race, including in last year's Indy 500.
The Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) cars always have tons of speed, and that showed in qualifying as Dixon and teammate Alex Palou both put their cars on the second row of the 33-car field.
While single lap times can be a bit misleading thanks to the tow effect of the draft at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), Dixon has consistently been at or near the top of the speed charts in all the practice sessions, including quite frequently in the no-tow lap times which may be a better barometer of speed.
The wily veteran is unlikely to make many, if any, mistakes at all, and is a solid bet for a top-five finish or better. His 9-1 odds to win at FanDuel are quite enticing given he's going off at 6.5 to 7.5-to-one odds at most books.
5. Felix Rosenqvist (No. 60)
Felix Rosenqvist, affectionately known as FRO by IndyCar fans, has one lone win in his 6.5-year IndyCar career, and that came back in 2020 on the natural terrain road course Road America while driving for CGR.
Half a decade later and FRO is now driving the No. 60 car for Meyer Shank Racing (MSR), which has a technical alliance with Ganassi.
That technical alliance seems to be paying off, as Rosenqvist has four top-10 finishes in five races this year and achieved his second-best starting position ever at the Indy 500 with his fifth-place qualifying effort.
Rosenqvist always seems to find himself in the mix, at least in the early portions of the race, given he's had three top-eight starting results the last three years, but his consistency has lacked in getting to the finish, with two 27th-place finishes in three starts. Add in another 27th, the year before that, and 27 seems to be his unlucky number at IMS.
Despite those results, Felix has the upside to win, leading 6% of all the laps he's run at the Indy 500.
That's right about what I'd price him to win, so shop around and try to find at least 16-1 odds on Rosenqvist's outright chances. Alternatively, BetMGM has him at a generous +425 for a top-three finish, while Caesars and MGM are hanging a +200 number for him to finish inside the top five.
Those are reasonable bets if you believe Felix's speed will translate to that finishing position, but there's always the worry about his downside.
6. Alex Palou (No. 10)
Palou is the two-time reigning series champion and a three-time champion overall. However, the sixth-year Spaniard has never had a win on an oval track.
The closest he's come to winning on an oval was in this very race in 2021 when then three-time winner Helio Castroneves made a late move on Palou to grab his record-tying fourth Indy 500 victory.
Palou ended up runner-up on that day and has since added one more runner-up finish on an oval with last year's second-place finish in the second leg of the Iowa double header, where he led the most laps before eventually finishing behind Will Power.
Like Dixon, Palou should have tremendous pace and is rightly among the race favorites. The question is, can he break through on an oval?
I think the answer is yes, but in such a tough, wide-open field, he may have to wait another year.
I can't quite get there at 6-1 odds (FanDuel, BetMGM), but certainly understand if you fancy his chances more than I do.
7. David Malukas (No. 4)
I'm excited to watch Malukas, a fourth-year driver for small-budget A.J. Foyt Racing, get his shot at this year's 500.
Out injured last year with torn ligaments in his hand, the 23-year-old pilot of the No. 4 car has had his best career results on ovals. In his rookie year of 2022 with the low-budget Dale Coyne Racing (DCR), Malukas claimed a second-place finish on the World Wide Technology Raceway (AKA Gateway) oval. One year later, he backed up that result with a third-place finish in the same race once again with DCR.
That year, he also grabbed his only other top-five finish on the high-speed oval at Texas Motor Speedway with a fourth-place result.
A key factor for Malukas is the emergence over the past two years of his current team, A.J. Foyt Racing, on the IMS oval. In 2023, Michael Cannon joined Foyt to be the team's lead engineer and technical director, and found what I dub the "magic sauce" at the Indy oval.
Whatever setup he led development on, it worked. Santino Ferrucci took the No. 14 A.J. Foyt Racing entry to a third-place finish that year and led 11 laps, while rookie teammate Benjamin Pedersen qualified 11th fastest.
A year later, Ferrucci and new teammate Sting Ray Robb had strong runs with Ferrucci scoring an eighth-place finish while Robb led a career-high 23 laps.
Now Malukas, who is easily the most talented oval driver of the trio of teammates Ferrucci has had at Foyt, is poised to show what he can do in that car. Yes, Cannon departed Foyt in the offseason, but the team still has all the setup details from the Cannon years, as well as a technical alliance that was forged in 2024 with Team Penske.
On Monday, practice after qualifying, Malukas remarked about how happy he was with the car, and he made multiple long runs and showed speed deep into the life of the tires, even pulling away from Team Penske's Scott McLaughlin while both were on old tires.
I'm quite high on the young gun. I believe he has a shot to win, and certainly a top-five finish is well within his ability, and the car's ability.
8. Christian Lundgaard (No. 7)
One of two Danish drivers in this year's field, Lundgaard has had a breakout year so far in 2025 after signing with Arrow McLaren — a definite upgrade from his three years at RLL Racing.
That said, the ovals are not Lundgaard's forte, with just two top-10 finishes in 17 career oval starts, with a best finish of ninth in last year's first Milwaukee race. That pales in comparison to his win and two other podiums for RLL, as well as seven total top-five finishes in 36 road and street course starts with his former team.
There's no question the fourth-year driver is poised to break out on an oval at some point, but I'm not sure it's going to be in his very first oval race with McLaren. That may also be why his odds are in the +1800 to +2500 range, so there is some merit to getting in early in case he does break out. After all, he fits the mold of drivers that theoretically should have success here as a former F2 driver.
Lundgaard also mentioned that he's done very little to his car in terms of changes, indicating that he's happy with the car. The only real changes have been to test things out and some minor tweaks to keep up with changing weather and track conditions.
That is, until Carb Day practice on Friday, when he said he felt uncomfortable in traffic and came in for some changes to his car.
If you're betting on Lundgaard, you're betting on a happy driver with a good car early in the month, but maybe less so as we get closer to the race. You're also betting on a driver who's yet to prove himself when there are only left turns to make. I think he has a wide range of outcomes; anywhere from hovering around the top three or five with a good car and no mistakes, to having a mediocre day, having yet to perfect his oval craft.
9. Marcus Ericsson (No. 28)
The 2022 winner of the Indy 500, Marcus Ericsson, makes his second 500 start with Andretti Global.
His first Indy 500 with the team was a disaster, crashing his car in practice and never getting speed out of the backup car in qualifying. Ultimately, that led him to start near the back of the field and getting caught up in a first-lap incident after Tom Blomqvist lost his car in the first corner, collecting Ericsson.
This year, the savvy Swede looks to turn things around after qualifying best of the Andretti quartet of drivers.
Hopes are high as Ericsson indicated to IndyCar Radio after Monday practice that he has a car that can win.
After seeing Andretti Global teammate Colton Herta dash through the field last year and fellow teammate Kyle Kirkwood indicating on the Speed Street Podcast after his win at Long Beach that "we know why that is" about Herta's "amazing race car," you have to think Ericsson is benefitting from whatever it is Andretti found last year with Herta.
Ericsson has the upside to win this Indy 500.
10. Scott McLaughlin (No. 3)
Coming into the Month of May, McLaughlin was priced among the race favorites, but after a topsy-turvy week and a half, his prices are now all over the place. Scotty Mac is priced as low as +650 at DraftKings and Caesars, and as long as +1200 at ESPN Bet, with every price in between at various other shops as well.
The driver of the "Thirsty 3's" qualified with the second-fastest four-lap average on Saturday, making himself eligible for the Top-12 qualification on Sunday. Unfortunately, in Sunday morning practice, McLaughlin crashed his primary car in a spectacular flipping incident and was unable to make a qualifying run that would have left him 12th in the starting order.
That is, until later that day, Team Penske teammates Josef Newgarden and Will Power were disqualified for the aforementioned illegally modified attenuators, relegating them to the 11th and 12th place starting positions at the time, until IndyCar ultimately moved the pair to the back of the field as further punishment for the infraction.
The crash misfortune for McLaughlin turned into a bit of fortune as he didn't have to go through qualifying tech, and his wrecked practice car did not have an illegally modified part. That pushed him up to 10th place in the starting order and within striking distance of the front of the field.
The big question for the New Zealander is how his backup car will perform. It is a speedway designed backup, so that is a positive whereas some other teams and drivers going to backups have gone to their road course car.
We know the primary had speed, and in Monday practice, he indicated the car felt good, but personally watching his onboard camera in practice, he seemed to struggle a bit with the handling as the tires aged. I mentioned in Malukas' section how he pulled away from him on a similar tire age. To me, that's a warning sign, but there is some saving grace with Carb Day practice.
In that final practice, Scotty Mac looked much improved, passing cars quite frequently, but I'm still not sold that he has a race-winning car and I'd caution anyone on biting on McLaughlin without at least +900 odds for the win.
I do think I'm lower on McLaughlin than IndyCar Twitter, the media, and the public perceive him, so certainly take my opinion and blend it in with your own — and others — feelings on him.
Personally, I'm going to stay away from the driver who's yet to score a top-five finish in this race after four tries. It could certainly bite me if he and his team can recapture the speed the primary car had.
11. Conor Daly (No. 76)
Indiana native Conor Daly will be making his 12th career Indy 500 start and his 11th-place starting spot ties his best ever when he started 11th and finished 10th with what was then Andretti Autosport in 2019.
Daly is looking to extend his top-10 streak in the 500 to four after finishes of sixth, eighth, and tenth the last three years. In those three races, Daly has led a total of 29 laps using an alternate strategy last year to pace for 22 laps out front. In 2021, Daly led a race-high 40 laps, so there is potential for him to push toward the front of the field.
To do so, he'll have to earn Juncos Hollinger Racing's (JHR) sixth-ever top-10 finish on an oval, two of which Daly achieved last year for JHR in a part-time gig to close out the 2024 season.
Until Carb Day, Daly believed he had a fast race car, but in that final practice Daly said the car "doesn't feel at all l ike it did on Monday [practice]."
If JHR can get the car back to where it was, another top-10 finish is certainly something Daly is capable of. The question for him is, how far forward can he push that JHR car?
12. Alexander Rossi (No. 20)
Rossi is the 2016 winner of the Indy 500, coasting across the finish line on a fuel-saving strategy to claim his maiden IndyCar victory. In total, Rossi has racked up eight career IndyCar wins in 147 starts, but just two of those wins have come on ovals, with the other being a 2018 win at Pocono, another 2.5-mile flat track like Indy.
The 33-year-old American is quite happy with his Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR) car and will start the closest to the front of the ECR trio of drivers.
ECR has had a decent level of success at Indy, with 12 top-10 efforts in 30 total starts for a 40% top-10 rate among its entries. That includes a third-place finish from Josef Newgarden in 2016 as well as a runner-up finish from the team owner himself, Ed Carpenter, in 2018.
Rossi, along with Josef Newgarden, are arguably the two most talented drivers to drive for ECR in its history, which should give the team its best chance to win the 500 in quite some time.
One notable drawback is that Rossi only ran five laps in final practice after his car suffered a blown water pump. The team is having a replacement part driven in from Detroit, and Rossi was definitely bummed to lose some valuable track time especially in weather conditions that could decently approximate race day, except for a slight shift in wind direction.
In nine career Indy 500 starts, Rossi has six top-five finishes. So while ECR is technically a bit of a downgrade from Arrow McLaren and Andretti, the two teams Rossi has raced for in his career prior to ECR, he should still be a top-five threat if the car doesn't suffer any balance changes, given slightly different conditions from Monday's practice.
And if you're in that top five late, you have a shot at the win.
13. Kyffin Simpson (No. 8)
In an impressive qualifying effort, Kyffin Simpson of the Cayman Islands put the car 15th, before being promoted to 13th after the penalties to the two Penske cars. That comes despite Simpson destroying his car in a Friday practice before Saturday qualifying, so all credit to his CGR crew for getting him a solid car for qualifying.
However, with just one top-10 finish in his career, that being a 10th-place result earlier this year on the streets of Long Beach, it's tough to consider the 20-year-old, second-year driver a threat here at Indy.
Last year in the same CGR equipment, Simpson started 18th and faded to a 21st-place finish. While there should be some improvement, a top-10 would be an incredible result for the youngster, and one that might be out of reach early in his career.
14. Ed Carpenter (No. 33)
The head and namesake of ECR, Carpenter hasn't run full time in the IndyCar series since 2013, just running the oval events over the last decade-plus. He also hasn't quite found the form of his younger years, with no finishes better than 13th over the last three years, totaling 14 races all on ovals.
But there may be a ray of hope for the 44-year-old who grew up in Indianapolis and would surely be a popular home-grown winner. Carpenter indicated in multiple post-qualifying interviews that he's happy with his race car and the speed it has.
That would be a welcome change, and hopefully help him recapture his glory days at Indy when he had six top-10 finishes in a 14-start stretch from 2008 to 2021, including a runner-up and two other fifth-place finishes.
I don't think he quite pushes that high in the order, and a successful day for the ECR owner would be in the back half of the top 10.
15. Santino Ferrucci (No. 14)
It's kind of wild to think that Ferrucci is just 26 years old and already has one of the best average finishes in Indy 500 history despite never running for a top-tier team. In his six starts, Ferrucci has finished inside the top 10 all six times, with a best finish of third in 2023 with A.J. Foyt Racing.
Ferrucci was extremely unhappy with his car early in the Month of May, and they swapped cars and have made wholesale changes to get the car back into a window where he's happy with it.
I don't think he'll quite have the speed he's had in some previous years relative to the field, but that's also part of a factor of such a deep field this year. But with his racecraft on ovals, I'm certainly not ruling out a push toward the top five if things shake out his way.
16. Devlin DeFrancesco (No. 30)
DeFrancesco returns to IMS after a one-year hiatus when he didn't have an IndyCar ride. For 2025, the Canadian driver has landed with RLL Racing and has looked a bit spry on the lap time charts during the Month of May.
Unfortunately, his race results haven't matched the occasional one-lap speed, as DeFrancesco has never had a finish better than 12th in his 39-race career.
With bigger-name teams and drivers coming from the back, it's going to be difficult to see the third-year driver push his way forward. I'd consider 12th place his likely ceiling, with a median result probably closer to the high teens or low 20s.
17. Sting Ray Robb (No. 77)
It's been a quiet week for the driver with one of the coolest names in the paddock.
Robb has just two career top-10 finishes, with a pair of ninth-place results at Long Beach this year and on the oval at World Wide Technology Raceway (Gateway) last year.
Unfortunately, he just hasn't shown that he's a driver that can punch up with the big guns of the series, ultimately finishing 16th despite leading 23 laps using an alternate strategy in last year's 500 while then-teammate Ferrucci finished eighth.
His JHR teammate Conor Daly should outpace him here, and I'd expect a finish in the back half of the field for Sting Ray.
18. Christian Rasmussen (No. 21)
Rasmussen is a bit of an enigma, who could finish anywhere from near the top 10 to dead last.
That's because he's got an aggressive style that helped push him forward last year in spectacular fashion. However, it's also bitten him this year during the Month of May, with two crashes in race trim as his car has given him fits with its handling.
I was on Rasmussen at 80-1 last year, but I don't think I can touch him at that price this year, given the struggles with the car in his second go around at Indy.
19. Kyle Larson (No. 17)
There's no doubt Kyle Larson is one of the best race car drivers on the planet. And the Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 double is not going to present him with any troubles from a logistics and stamina standpoint, as Larson flies around the country all the time, going from race to race.
The question is, how will he fare in his second go-around at Indy?
I think it'll be a solid showing from Larson, and he'll have learned from his 2024 Indy debut, but this is still somewhat new territory for Larson, especially with the extra 100 pounds of weight in the rear of the car from the hybrid system that's been implemented since the second half of last year, several races after last year's 500.
That means a different feel of the car, a new tool to use in the hybrid system, and Larson starts farther back in the field than he did in 2024 when he put the car fifth on the grid.
Arrow McLaren didn't start the month with as much speed as they did last year, but teammates Pato O'Ward and Christian Lundgaard got the most out of the car in qualifying, and O'Ward looks to have a great race car.
Larson, I don't believe has quite as good a car on balance and feel, but he's Kyle freakin' Larson. A clean race and a shot at the win isn't out of the question. But he needs to avoid the mistakes of last year, and any potential new mistakes as well, in just his second IndyCar start ever.
20. Louis Foster (No. 45)
I'm excited to watch Louis Foster in his first IndyCar oval start, because last year in Indy NXT — which is the last rung on the ladder prior to the big leagues in American open-wheel racing — Foster won all four oval races driving then for Andretti Global en route to running away with the Indy NXT championship.
However, I think we may be a year or two away from a Foster surprise, given he's not been quite as good as RLL Racing teammates Takuma Sato and Devlin DeFrancesco on the time charts all month.
A top-20 finish for Foster isn't out of the cards, but I'm not quite sure he pushes his way into the top half of the field this year.
21. Callum Ilott (No. 90)
Teammate to polesitter Shwartzman, Callum Ilott clearly didn't have the same qualifying speed as his rookie teammate.
Ilott is also not exactly a renowned oval driver, with just one top-10 finish on an oval in his three-year career. His experience should help, but I don't think that's enough to overcome relatively poor track position to start with, and a pit crew that likely isn't going to help him gain spots on pit road.
Ilott and Prema would be punching well above their weight to have a top-half finish.
22. Helio Castroneves (No. 06)
One of the big storylines of the race is whether four-time winner Helio Castroneves can grab the elusive fifth Indy 500 win, which would make him the only driver in history to do so.
To do that, Castroneves will have to overcome the 24th fastest qualifying time and 22nd starting spot. All four of Castroneves' prior victories here have come with a starting position of 13th or better, so it's going to take an extra effort to get to the front.
Early in the month, Castroneves looked fast and comfortable, but it seems in the two post-qualifying practice sessions that he hasn't quite had the same speed and I saw him getting passed on track more than I saw him making passes.
There's no doubt his two-plus decades of experience will help, but I think he's going to need a better car, and the 50-year-old is also certainly past his prime.
A top-10 would be a great feat for Castroneves.
23. Kyle Kirkwood (No. 27)
In a turn of events for the driver of the No. 27, Kirkwood went from many thinking he was a prime contender for the win early in the month, to a bit of an afterthought as far as media coverage as a contender for the win after his qualifying attempts didn't go quite as he hoped.
Kirkwood's qualifying was in the heat of the day in some of the worst track conditions, and while he did make a second qualifying run, it wasn't in the final two hours when the track really started to cool off. That leaves him starting 23rd on Sunday with work to do to get to the front.
Can he get there? I believe so if his race car is as good as it was before qualifying.
Kirkwood has had cars capable of top-five finishes, even a win, in both of his Indy 500 starts with Andretti Global. In 2023, he arguably had the car to win, but ended up on his lid in a spectacular crash after Felix Rosenqvist spun out in front of him with just 15 laps to go and the Floridian had nowhere to go.
Then, in 2024, an early mishap on the first pit stop put Kirkwood to the back of the field, where his Andretti Global team used a fast race car and some great strategy to charge back into the top five, before ultimately finishing seventh.
Thankfully for Kirkwood, he starts 23rd and will have more laps to make his way forward than last year after the pit mishap.
The last time the IndyCar Series raced on an oval was the season finale at Nashville in 2024. Kirkwood led the most laps and arguably had another winning car if not for getting caught out with an unlucky yellow just after pitting. Instead, Andretti Global teammate Colton Herta took his maiden oval win.
A top-five running position in the late going is possible without any mistakes and a good race car, and again, from there, anything can happen.
24. Nolan Siegel (No. 6)
Young Nolan Siegel makes his first Indy 500 start after being the only driver to be bumped from last year's 33-car field despite an heroic effort to bump his way in with a slow Dale Coyne Racing entry.
This year, Siegel gets a massive step up in equipment, running for Arrow McLaren in equipment that's capable of the win.
While the equipment is capable of victory, Siegel has work to do with just two top-10 finishes in his 15 races in a McLaren car. One of those was on the oval at Gateway last year, finishing a career-best seventh.
That's probably around his ceiling if everything goes perfectly, but I'd expect a finish more toward the midpack without any mishaps.
25. Ryan Hunter-Reay (No. 23)
The 2014 winner and 2012 IndyCar champion had the back of his car catch on fire in final practice, which, at this time, is still being diagnosed for a cause.
Hunter-Reay said there didn't appear to be too much damage from the fire, but he did lose the ability to downshift and to turn the car off, indicating at least some damage and repairs will be needed to that car before race day.
It's a bit of a bummer because RHR and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing (DRR) were showing solid race pace.
DRR is a team capable of punching above its weight, because the Indy 500 is their only race of the year, so they give this event their 100% attention. That showed last year with Conor Daly's top 10, and Santino Ferrucci and Sage Karam have each turned in top-10 performances in the last four years for DRR as well.
Unfortunately, this fire incident will leave some questions with no chance to shake down the car ahead of the race, so I do have to bump down Hunter-Reay just a touch mentally from where I believed his speed and finishing prospects were initially. I think he had close to top-10 upside, and still does if all is repaired well, but his median expected finish and floor do take a hit.
Update: It's been announced that due to his fire, Ryan Hunter-Reay will go to a backup car that was supposed to be used for pit stop practice and is a three-year old tub. This is a definite downgrade for RHR and I'll be dropping him in my updated finishing order.
26. Jack Harvey (No. 24)
RHR's teammate is Jack Harvey, and thankfully, there's better news for the Brit who's making a one-off start here at Indy after racing the last five years as a full-time driver.
Like Hunter-Reay, Harvey has shown surprising pace in race trim in multiple practice sessions, and is happy with his car even through Carb Day.
If you're looking through Harvey's recent Indy 500 starts, I think you'll be a bit misled, as he ran for an underperforming RLL Racing on the ovals. Instead, look toward his 2020 ninth-place finish as an idea of what his ceiling might look like in the DRR No. 24 car, especially with the speed they've shown in race trim.
27. Colton Herta (No. 26)
Last year's best car was the No. 26 driven by Colton Herta, but he unfortunately found the wall after slicing through the field like a hot knife through butter.
This year, Herta was looking to recapture that 2024 pace and had a very strong race car, but in qualifying, he hit the wall hard and flipped in a scary crash that he ultimately walked away from unharmed. That rendered Herta a backup car, and full credit to the Andretti Global crew for getting him back out on Saturday to make a qualifying attempt and get the car in the field with an average over 230 MPH.
From there, the shift to race setup is what matters most for the Gainbridge-sponsored driver, and on Monday, he was surprised at how good the backup car was right out of the gate in race trim.
I'm not fully sold that his backup is where the primary was, but there's no doubt Andretti found some good things last year for Colton and if the backup is as good as the primary, he has race-winning upside despite starting deep in the field.
But that's the big, big if.
28. Graham Rahal (No. 15)
It's been a tough Month of May for the second-generation driver whose father won the 1986 Indy 500. Driving for his father's team, Rahal is making his 18th career start at the speedway. He's come close before, with two third-place finishes in his Indy 500 career, and another devastating crash from a loose wheel when he probably had the race-winning car in 2021.
Unfortunately, since that race, it's been all downhill for Graham at the 500 as his RLL Racing team hasn't given him a car capable of even running inside the top 10.
Ultimately, that seems to be the case again this year as Rahal has expressed constant frustration at the lack of speed and troublesome handling of the car, and to make matters worse, he ended Carb Day with an expired engine.
29. Marco Andretti (No. 98)
Starting alongside the famed Rahal name is the famed Andretti name, as third-generation driver Marco fires off right next to his long-time competitor in Graham Rahal.
Once considered a constant threat to win this race, Andretti has struggled at the 500 since he transitioned to a one-off driver at Indy only since 2021, with no starts better than 19th and no finishes better than 17th.
Despite being in the highly competitive Andretti Global equipment, Marco hasn't been the happiest with his car this month, and another run toward the back half of the field looks in order unless the team and driver have found some late magic.
30. Marcus Armstrong (No. 66)
In his second year running a full schedule, Marcus Armstrong has shown flashes of upside both last year with CGR and this year with MSR, who has that alliance with CGR that I talked about with his teammate, Felix Rosenqvist.
That said, Armstrong had to qualify through the bump-day process after crashing his primary car on Saturday morning's qualifying trim session just before qualifying itself. The No. 66 backup car didn't squeeze into the top half of the time charts on either of the two post-qualifying practice sessions, but again, best single-lap times can be misleading with the tow.
Through the CGR technical alliance, it's certainly possible Armstrong's team could give him a car capable of running inside the top 10, but they have a long road ahead of them, and Armstrong is a road and street course specialist who's never finished better than seventh on an oval.
31. Rinus VeeKay (No. 18)
This year's last-place qualifier on speed moves up two spots thanks to the Penske penalties, but that still puts him on the last row in a car that barely made the field. The only other car that didn't make the field was his DCR teammate and friend, Jacob Abel.
VeeKay had been one of the kings of qualifying here at Indy, starting second, third, third, fourth, and seventh in his five previous starts, all with the Carpenter team. That shows you how far back these DCR cars are for the second year in a row after Siegel failed to qualify for this race in 2024.
VeeKay is great here, but he's drifted back from his starting spot in every single 500 he's run so far. That's unlikely here, because as long as he avoids an incident, he should move forward through attrition.
I'm just doubtful he's going to push deep into the field, considering he hasn't loved the balance of his car and didn't crack the top 20 on the speed charts in either of the two post-qualifying practice sessions, and did so just once in the three pre-qualifying race trim sessions.
That said, his race craft can probably carry him a handful of spots ahead of where the car realistically should run.
32. Josef Newgarden (No. 2)
Two-time defending Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden fires off from the last row after the penalties to his No. 2 team. The stat I see everyone giving is that there's just been one winner coming from outside the top 20 starting positions since 1937, and that was from the 25th spot in 1976 for Johnny Rutherford's second of three 500 wins.
But I find that stat wholly misleading, given we're in unprecedented territory with one of the absolute fastest cars of the month starting from the back. Typically, the slow cars start back here, so those previous stats are rendered somewhat unreliable, at least in terms of the expected frequency of a win from this far back.
It won't be easy for Newgarden, who not only has to come through the field but also has to contend with the second-worst pit stall selection and the loss of his race strategist, Tim Cindric. Newgarden overcame the same strategist loss last year, as Cindric was suspended for the 500 thanks to the push-to-pass scandal from the season-opening St. Petersburg race in 2024, but that didn't stop the Nashville driver from winning his second consecutive Borg-Warner trophy.
Newgarden looks to have one of the best cars, and I thought he looked solid slicing through traffic on both Monday and Friday practices, but there was a bit of a struggle late on Carb Day for him to get past one car that the FOX commentators noticed.
I think that was a bit misleading, and to me, Newgarden has a fantastic car and is a threat to win any oval race.
As of Friday afternoon, Caesars, ESPN BET, and FanDuel are each hanging 10 spots on Newgarden's odds to win if you're inclined to back his three-peat, while his odds are as low as +600 at BetMGM.
33. Will Power (No. 12)
The No. 12 Verizon car driven by Will Power should have plenty of speed like his teammates McLaughlin and Newgarden, and it appears Power is taking a very methodical and mindful approach to this race, given his last-place starting spot after the penalty.
Power did some high line practice on the outside of the turns for a lap or two in Carb Day practice, and is very focused on the second half of the race, where it's make or break.
Unfortunately, in recent years, he's made a few mistakes and also lost control of his race car in 2023, sending him careening down the order. He can't afford that again, and if he can push mistakes out, he absolutely could get his face on the Borg-Warner trophy for a second time, but is rightfully a longshot given all the challenges he must overcome with the penalty and his recent form here at Indy.
Giffen's Predicted Finishing Order
Here's my ranking of drivers based on a combination of projected speed, projected incident rate, and race craft. As an example, a driver like Takuma Sato arguably has top-five speed, but drops a bit thanks to a higher projected incident rate. In another case, Graham Rahal and Rinus Veekay may be some of the worst cars, but their experience and/or race craft here at Indy push them up.
Drivers in a given tier, I'd have no argument with you about placing them anywhere in the tier, and even pushing halfway into a tier above or dropping halfway into a tier below. After all, it's the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, the Indianapolis 500, where truly anything can happen!
Tier 1
(1) Pato O'Ward
(2) Alex Palou
(3) Josef Newgarden
(4) Scott Dixon
Tier 2
(5) David Malukas
(6) Marcus Ericsson
(7) Scott McLaughlin
(8) Alexander Rossi
(9) Kyle Kirkwood
(10) Felix Rosenqvist
(11) Will Power
(12) Takuma Sato
(13) Colton Herta
(14) Kyle Larson
(15) Santino Ferrucci
Tier 3
(16) Conor Daly
(17) Helio Castroneves
(18) Jack Harvey
(19) Christian Lundgaard
(20) Ed Carpenter
(21) Nolan Siegel
Tier 4
(22) Robert Shwartzman
(23) Marcus Armstrong
(24) Rinus VeeKay
(25) Graham Rahal
(26) Ryan Hunter-Reay*
Tier 5
(27) Christian Rasmussen
(28) Kyffin Simpson
(29) Louis Foster
(30) Marco Andretti
(31) Devlin DeFrancesco
(32) Sting Ray Robb
(33) Callum Ilott
*Note: Ryan Hunter-Reay was moved from 21st to 26th in my rankings after news came out that he'd go to a backup car. All subsequent drivers in between those positions were moved up one spot.
