INDYCAR: Conor Daly to fill in for Gabby Chaves in Sunday’s race at Toronto

By Jul 10, 2018, 2:59 PM EDT
Photo courtesy INDYCAR
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Harding Racing on Tuesday announced that Conor Daly will drive for the team in Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto.

The second-year team (Harding ran three races in the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series season) will have the 26-year-old Daly in the No. 88 Chevrolet-powered Dallara for the annual race on the streets of Exhibition Place in downtown Toronto.

Daly will be replacing Gabby Chaves in the race in a one-off appearance, but also with an eye toward next season as well.

“At this point in the season, we are focusing all our attention on the 2019 season,” Harding Racing team president Brian Barnhart said in a media release. “If we can expand to a two-car team, all remaining races and testing will offer driver evaluation opportunities to determine who will become Gabby’s teammate in 2019.

“Gabby is still fully employed and still under contract with Harding for the remainder of this year and in 2019.”

Chaves has qualified for all of the first 11 races on the 17-race 2018 IndyCar schedule. His best start has been eighth at St. Petersburg, with his best finish being 14th (at both St. Petersburg and in the Indy 500). In three outings with Harding in 2017, Chaves scored a best finish of fifth at Texas Motor Speedway – Chaves and Harding also finished ninth at the Indianapolis 500 last year.

The Toronto race will be Daly’s second appearance on the IndyCar circuit this season. He started 33rd and finished 21st in the Indianapolis 500 for Dale Coyne Racing.

This will be Daly’s fourth career start at Toronto, with his best finish being 12th in 2015.

Overall, Daly has 40 starts in his IndyCar career with one podium finish.

Sunday’s race will be televised live on NBCSN, with the green flag slated to fall at 3:42 p.m. ET.

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Winner Josef Newgarden earns $3.666 million from a record Indy 500 purse of $17 million

By May 29, 2023, 6:01 PM EDT
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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