Five IndyCar title contenders throw first haymakers in season-long fight - MotorSportsTalk

With Ryan Hunter-Reay, Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon and Simon Pagenaud ending in the top five on Sunday behind St. Petersburg winner Will Power, you had five likely title contenders already throwing down their first punch in what should be a wide-open battle for this year’s Verizon IndyCar Series championship.

In 2012, these five were the top five finishers in the championship. In 2013, all bar Hunter-Reay ended in the top five, and that was more due to his poor luck than any drop-off in performance.

Power said after the race it was a mentally exhausting drive. Hunter-Reay said he pushed as hard as he could but just couldn’t catch the Australian and his 2012 title rival.

The 2013 title protagonists had similar opinions. Castroneves said this was the best thing he could do for a championship challenge; Dixon said this was a needed points day considering the No. 9 Target team has struggled traditionally at St. Pete.

Yet perhaps Pagenaud, in fifth in the No. 77 Environmental Rail Solutions Honda for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, described it all best.

“It’s important when you are going for a championship, you realize you can’t compete for the win to get everything out of it. And today we got the best out of the car. We certainly had a top-five car and finished fifth. So it isn’t a bad day when you build championship contention. Power won today, but we’re in really good shape.”

In no race in 2013 did these five all finish in the top five in the same race. The closest they came was at Round 2 at Barber, when Hunter-Reay won with Dixon second, Castroneves third, Power fifth and Pagenaud sixth. Charlie Kimball in fourth was the only “title interloper.”

But in 2012, they came close to repeating this type of result at the St. Pete season opener. Castroneves won with Dixon second, Hunter-Reay third, Pagenaud sixth and Power seventh.

Follow @TonyDiZinno

INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports