2010 Indianapolis 500 Race Summary
After the traditional starting command by Mari Hulman George, the pace car, driven by Robin Roberts, led the cars through the pace laps, followed by a special two-seater car driven by Michael Andretti and carrying Mark Wahlberg. Once the pace car came off the field, the two-seater sped around to join the back of the field, and honorary starter Jack Nicholson waved the green flag to start the race. (Nicholson refused to leave the flagstand and waved the green flag on the first two restarts, on laps 5 and 12.)
On the first lap, Davey Hamilton spun on turn two, bringing out the yellow flag. Hamilton blamed Tomas Scheckter, who had narrowly passed Hamilton on the outside, forcing Hamilton to correct. “Tomas Scheckter’s an idiot… You know, he does it every year. I mean, it’s not a surprise with him, and he gets away with it,” said Hamilton.In just the half-lap of green-flag racing, however, Dario Franchitti had taken the lead, while Tony Kanaan had moved from the 33rd, final starting position to 25th.
The race returned to green-flag racing on lap 5, but a spin by Bruno Junqueira brought out another caution for laps 8–11. By this time, Kanaan had moved up to 17th.
Franchitti held the lead for a long period of green-flag racing, until Will Power passed him for the lead on lap 31. However, on a pit stop, Power left before the fuel hose had been completely detached, leaving a coil dangling from his car. This would lead to a pit drive-through penalty for Power, dropping Power to 25th, as well as a caution period for debris as part of the coil fell onto the track. While Power would repeatedly work his way towards the front of the field, additional pit problems later in the race would lead to only an 8th-place finish.
Franchitti would maintain his lead beyond the halfway point of the race. Meanwhile, John Andretti spun into the wall on lap 65, and on the ensuing round of yellow-flag pit stops, both Scott Dixon and Raphael Matos lost wheels while pulling out and had to return to their pits. Kanaan improved eight spots, from 12th to 4th, on the same round of pit stops. Matos’s race did not last much longer, as he spun into the wall on lap 73.
Vitor Meira hit the turn two wall in lap 106, bringing out the race’s next caution. Ed Carpenter, who had been running well, had to come into the pits before they were officially open to avoid running out of fuel, but the rules then required him to come in again once the pits were open, costing him several spots. While most drivers came into the pits on the yellow, Tomas Scheckter stayed out, briefly taking the lead, but Franchitti quickly took it back after the race returned to green-flag status.
A long stretch of green-flag racing followed. Kanaan passed Hélio Castroneves and Scheckter to take the second spot, but Franchitti pulled away and had a lead of 9.7 seconds over Kanaan by lap 142. A series of green-flag pits on laps 143–147 resulted in Marco Andretti and Ryan Briscoe briefly taking the lead, in turn, before they had to pit and Franchitti re-emerged as the leader, with Andretti Autosport teammates Andretti and Kanaan in second and third, respectively. On the same round of pits, Castroneves stalled his car leaving the pits, dropping him from third to sixteenth. Continuing Penske Racing’s problems, Briscoe crashed into the turn four wall on lap 148. Most drivers stayed out during this caution, but Castroneves pitted, hoping that there would be enough additional laps under caution to extend his fuel mileage and allow him to finish the race without pitting again. Kanaan passed Andretti under the following green flag to retake the second position.
A spin by rookie Sebastian Saavedra on lap 161 brought out another caution, and most drivers came into the pits, but Mike Conway, Justin Wilson, Castroneves, and Graham Rahal all stayed out, taking the top four spots, respectively. In the end, none of the four had enough fuel to complete the race and all had to pit before the end of the race under a green flag, giving Franchitti the lead again on lap 192, with Kanaan again in second. Kanaan’s hopes for a “worst-to-first” race came to an end on lap 196 when he had to come in for additional fuel.
Franchitti slowed in the final laps to conserve fuel, but he was still able to stay ahead of second-place Dan Wheldon, who was also trying to save fuel. A dramatic crash occurred in the final lap as Ryan Hunter-Reay ran out of fuel and slowed, and Mike Conway hit Hunter-Reay’s car, flipping Conway’s car and sending it airborne and into the protective fence, shattering the car. Conway’s teammate Ana Beatriz spun into the inside wall while avoiding the crash ahead of her. This brought out a final caution, and Franchitti led the field to the checkered flag, winning his second Indianapolis 500.
Conway was airlifted to nearby Methodist Hospital with a broken lower left leg. Of the crash, Hunter-Reay said, “I’m sorry Mike is hurt… It was totally uncalled for. We weren’t going to make it anyway. When you run out of fuel in these cars, it’s like hitting the brakes. In hindsight, we should have stopped for fuel.” It was the only multi-car crash of the race. Two spectators were treated for minor injuries from the crash. ESPN Sportscenter and ESPN’S Nascar Now program reported on May 31, 2010 Conway also suffered compression to his lower back and suffered a bad fracture to one of his vertebrae in his neck.
After skulling the traditional bottle of milk for the winner, Franchitti stated “this tastes just as good the second time”, referring to his victory in the 2007 race. Franchitti led for 155 of the race’s 200 laps. He survived the final 36 laps without taking a pit stop.
Franchitti’s win meant that his team’s owner, Chip Ganassi, became the first car owner to win the Indianapolis 500 and the NASCAR Daytona 500 in the same season. The Harley J. Earl Trophy had been brought to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway—the first time it had ever been away from Daytona—and it stood side by side with the Borg-Warner Trophy.
Dan Wheldon finished second. In a post-race interview, he suggested that it was a mistake to be as conservative as he was on fuel: “I could see [Franchitti] at the end… unfortunately, I should have kept going ’cause I had fuel in the car when it came into the pits.” However, Franchitti also had additional fuel, with 1.6 gallons remaining in his tank at the end of the race, even after taking a cool-down lap. It was the second consecutive second-place finish for Wheldon at the Indianapolis 500, and, along with Vitor Meira’s finish in 2008, the third for Panther Racing.
Marco Andretti was initially reported to have finished sixth, but a post-race review revealed that three drivers had passed him during the final caution period, and he was restored to third place in the official race results, giving him his third top-three finish in five starts at the Indianapolis 500. The same review also revealed that Simona de Silvestro passed Mario Romancini after the caution came out, making Romancini, not de Silvestro, the highest finishing rookie, at 13th. Marco Andretti was one of the three Andretti Autosport drivers (out of the team’s five entries) to finish in the top eleven, even though none of the Andretti drivers had qualified higher than sixteenth. As late as lap 191, four of the Andretti drivers had been in the top nine. Also among the Andretti drivers was Danica Patrick; starting twenty-third and finishing sixth, she scored the highest placement of the four female drivers in the race.
Hélio Castroneves, who started from the pole and was considered a pre-race favorite, finished ninth after his problematic pit stop, and his late-race fuel strategy failed to pan out. Castroneves praised Franchitti and took responsibility for his own finish, saying “I have to say, Dario was dominant. But this was the first time I feel like I let my guys down. We didn’t have the best car, but we were better than ninth, certainly.”
Tony Kanaan, who had started in last place and had run as high as second, finished eleventh after he had to pit for a final splash of fuel, but still garnered much applause from nearby fans as he exited his car after the race. Kanaan praised former teammate Franchitti: “The best car and the best driver today won the race.”
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