It’s the second Indy victory for Montoya and 16th for car owner Roger Penske. It also proves Montoya made the right decision in leaving NASCAR to return to IndyCar racing.
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Juan Pablo Montoya’s winning car (Getty Images)
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Montoya’s winning margin: 0.1046 of a second.
Cars with Chevrolet engines took the top four places on Sunday. Charlie Kimball jumped ahead of Scott Dixon in a fight to finish third.
Helio Castroneves failed in his bid to win a fourth Borg-Warner Trophy, matching the greatest total achieve at Indy. He was seventh.
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Montoya, Power and Dixon swapped the lead over the final 15 laps.
“It was awesome,” Montoya said in Victory Circle. “This is bigger than the other one. This is what Indy car racing is all about, racing down to the wire.”
Montoya was making his second Indy run after shifting to NASCAR. And his day was not without incident. His No. 2 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet was clipped from behind under caution, forcing a pit stop to chance a rear wheel assembly, according to the Indy 500 website. He later overshot his pit box. His crew members pushed him back, and he avoided a penalty.
But midway through the race, Montoya was back to challenge for the lead.
Charlie Kimball was 0.7950 of a second back in the No. 83 Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Dixon was 1.0292 seconds arrears in fourth place in the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet.
Honda, the other engine maker represented on Sunday, got its best finish from Graham Rahal, who was fifth.
Unofficial results
- Juan Pablo Montoya 2. Will Power 3. Charlie Kimball 4. Scott Dixon 5. Graham Rahal 6. Marco Andretti 7. Helio Castroneves 8. JR Hildebrand 9. Josef Newgarden 10. Simon Pagenaud 11. Sebastien Bourdais 12. Ryan Briscoe 13. Takuma Sato 14. Townsend Bell 15. Ryan Hunter-Reay 16. Gabby Chaves 17. Alex Tagliani 18. James Jakes 19. Simona de Silvestro 20. Carlos Munoz 21. Justin Wilson 22. Pippa Mann 23. Sebastian Saavedra 24. Jack Hawksworth 25. Stefano Coletti 26. Tony Kanaan 27. James Davison 28. Tristan Vautier 29. Oriol Servia 30. Ed Carpenter 31. Bryan Clauson 32. Sage Karam 33. Conor Daly
Nothing came easy Montoya on Sunday, but in the end, all that mattered was this: He did exactly what he had to do to win the race. But he patiently worked his way back through the field, and in the final quarter of the race found himself was up front with Power, Dixon and Kimball. Montoya bided his time, and then roared by Power for the lead down the frontstretch on lap 197.
Montoya, who took seven years away from IndyCar Racing to compete in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, now holds an Indianapolis 500 record with 15 years between victories.
The 99th running of the Indianapolis 500 got off to a rocky start. On the first lap, Takuma Sato made an ill-advised move to race three-wide into a turn. Sage Karam did not realize Sato was there and the No. 8 car pinched the No. 14 into the wall.
“I didn’t think he was dumb enough to go on the outside,” Karam said.
The race was also marred by an incident on pit road that injured a crewman. The incident involved all three Dale Coyne Racing drivers. The incident occurred when the No. 63 car driven by Pippa Mann struck the No. 19 car driven by James Davison on pit road, pushing it into the No. 18 pit stall of teammate Tristan Vautier, striking the two right-side tire changers.
Greg Senerius was released after treatment at the infield care center, but Daniel Jang was taken to an Indianapolis hospital for evaluation and treatment.
— Contributing: Arthur Weinstein
