An Indy 500 marked by an abundance of caution
In empty speedway, Sato wins race under yellow flag after late crash mars the finish.
INDIANAPOLIS — Takuma Sato snatched his second Indianapolis 500 victory on Sunday as the Japanese racer held off Scott Dixon and ultimately won under caution at an Indianapolis Motor Speedway left empty because of the pandemic.
IndyCar officials declined to throw a red flag after a violent crash by Spencer Pigot with just a handful of laps remaining. Pigot needed medical attention on the track, the crash scene was a debris field and there was no way the race could resume without a stoppage.
Dixon, the five-time IndyCar champion who had dominated the race, asked on his radio if IndyCar was going to give the drivers a final shootout to the checkered flag, NASCAR style.
“Are they going red?”
Dixon asked. “They’ve got to go red. There’s no way they can clean that up.”
IndyCar never threw the flag and Sato led Dixon across the finish line under yellow. Dixon, who led 111 of the 200 laps in pursuit of his own second Indy win, was visibly disappointed.
“Definitely a hard one to swallow for sure. We had such a great day,” Dixon said. “First time I’ve seen them let it run out like that. I thought they’d throw a red.”
Unlike NASCAR, which typically sets up two-lap shootouts to the finish when a caution interrupts the ending, IndyCar rarely follows the same procedure. The series did throw a late red in the 2014 Indy 500 and it infuriated purists.
This time, with just four laps remaining after Pigot crashed, there really wasn’t enough time to allow for a proper shootout. Dixon had figured he ultimately would run down Sato as Sato worked through lapped traffic, and he believed Sato’s team was cutting it close on fuel.
None of it mattered in the end as Sato was able to coast around the speedway, then ride the lift new track owner Roger Penske installed to take the winner to an elevated victory circle. Along for the ride were team owners Bobby Rahal, the 1986 Indy 500 winner, and David Letterman, his mask buried in an unruly gray beard as he greeted Sato.
Sato became the first Japanese winner of the Indy 500 in 2017. Graham Rahal, Sato’s teammate at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, was third behind Dixon.
Sato knew Dixon was going to be tough to beat under green.
“I know Scott was coming right through, out of Turn 4, he was screaming coming,” Sato said. “I had to hold him off.”
The celebration was somewhat muted as the RLL team had a socially distanced winner’s circle. Penske was forced to host his first 500 as owner of the iconic speedway without fans and it made the largest venue in the world eerily quiet. The speedway typically draws more than 300,000 spectators on race day; Penske said there would be only 2,500 in attendance Sunday.