Winning First 500 Creates Interesting Blend of Satisfaction, Desire for Drivers
May 25, 2019 | By Phillip B. Wilson, Indianapolis Motor Speedway
A year later, Will Power concedes he’s more relaxed.
The Team Penske driver still wants to win as much as ever before, but he no longer lives with the pressure of needing to win an Indianapolis 500.
He finally swigged the milk last year. And he learned what so many others have before him, that winning “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” changes a driver’s life, specifically the perspective on one’s career.
Six of the seven former winners in the 103rd Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge have won this race once. The lone exception is three-time winner Helio Castroneves of Team Penske.
For those six, some of the perspectives are similar. Power, who succeeded in his 11th attempt, sounds a lot like 2013 winner Tony Kanaan, who finally triumphed in his 12th try.
“It went from the perspective of being very disappointed and thinking that I hadn’t been very successful to I had completed my whole career,” Power said. “One day made me feel like that.
“I was not going to be satisfied finishing my career without a ‘500.’ For sure, I’m more satisfied and relaxed.”
Kanaan thinks back to his victory with KV Racing Technology and doesn’t hesitate when asked how much it changed his racing legacy.
“One hundred percent,” he said. “If I hadn’t won that year, I don’t think I’d still be around. No, it changed my life completely. I went from the guy who almost won the ‘500’ to Tony Kanaan the 2013 Indy 500 winner. As far as knowing how I felt, I had 12 years to dwell on it.”
Power was the fastest qualifier among former winners for Sunday. He’ll start sixth in the Verizon 5G Team Penske Chevrolet. Kanaan will be 16th in the No. 14 ABC Supply AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet.
Five-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon won the 2008 Indy 500 in his sixth attempt with Chip Ganassi Racing.
“Everybody’s story is probably different, but the daunting thing is having the situation of coming with a team that already had great success here and also many championships previous,” Dixon said. “You know you probably have the best opportunity to win, right? If you don’t pull that off, and we’ve seen great drivers who didn’t, I think everybody points to Michael (Andretti), and there are so many reasons why you don’t win. It’s not the speed. It’s not having the best car. There are so many things outside of your control.
“You do definitely get a sense of ease after you get the first one, but the feeling after the first makes you want the second even more. It’s kind of a vicious circle. And for me, it’s been 11 years now.”
This time, Dixon rolls off 18th in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.
“The thing to look at is being on a very short list,” he said. “The single-time winners is less than 70 people. It’s a great achievement for anybody to ever get that opportunity. But then it turns, right? Because double winners is even a shorter list, then three-time winners and then four-time winners.”
Although Dixon is still as motivated as ever to win this race again, he’s not consumed by the pressure to do so.
“I’m not going to be angry or disappointed for not having won more than once,” he said. “I think getting the opportunity to win once is very special. But the competitive side in all of us, you want to the be the first to win five.”
The perspective change was radically different for Alexander Rossi when he won in 2016 for Andretti Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian. Fans didn’t know who he was.
“Well, how could they? It was my fourth race, right?” Rossi said.
They know him now. 2018 NTT IndyCar Series runner-up Rossi qualified ninth in the No. 27 NAPA AUTO PARTS Andretti Autosport Honda.
“I came in with no perspective because I had never attempted an Indy 500 before,” Rossi said. “My change was probably way more dramatic than the guys who had won like Tony (Kanaan) who had been dreaming of this and trying for so many years and even decades to win the race.
“For me at the time, it was just another race on the calendar that I was trying to win. That’s really all that it was, other than there were a lot of people around and there were a lot of commitments you had to do in the weeks leading up to it.
“So now the fact that I kind of got, for lack of better words, the baptism of fire and then having to promote the race and be an ambassador for the race for the 101st Running, my need to understand the significance and appreciate the history and the legacy of this race changed dramatically. Going into it, I had no understanding of that because I was never here or watched it. I was in Europe trying to get F1.”
Rossi now says nothing means more than winning the race again.
“Every year that goes by that you don’t win really sucks,” he said. “It’s a race where nothing else matters. You could have the best drive of your life and finish second, and you’re still going to go home angry.
“Getting a taste of that in ’16 so early on was amazing. It was a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because I got that pressure and weight of trying to get it done out of the way early. But it was a bit of a curse because now, it’s such a hard race to win, who knows how long it’s going to be before I’m able to get another one.”
Ryan Hunter-Reay wondered if he would ever be fortunate enough to drive into Victory Lane after being repeatedly humbled for years at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He finished sixth to win Rookie of the Year honors in 2008, but then was 32nd, 18th, 23rd and 27th.
He almost won in 2013, finishing third, before finally celebrating in 2014.
“Unlike Rossi’s situation where he came from Europe and didn’t really look at this race much, in contrast I grew up wanting to race in this race,” Hunter-Reay said. “In ’13, was leading coming to Turn 1, Tony (Kanaan) passed me, yellow came out, race over. I’ve really had the opportunity to build up a huge respect for this race, and it was not nice to me to start. That made winning that much better, that much sweeter.”
Hunter-Reay had won a series title in 2012 but considered his career resume incomplete without the “500.”
“To be a very successful INDYCAR driver, you need an IndyCar Series championship and an Indy 500 win,” he said. “To have achieved those, I feel extremely fortunate, obviously. Once you win that one ‘500,’ you want to be part of the double winners group and the triple winners group. It just feeds on itself.
“Absolutely it’s been huge for my career and my life in general. It’s opened a lot of doors for me in many ways and definitely puts you into another level and another group of drivers.”
Takuma Sato came close to winning in his third attempt in 2012. He tried to pass for the lead on the final lap coming out of Turn 1 but made contact with leader Dario Franchitti and crashed. Franchitti won, and Sato finished 17th.
But Sato learned something from that experience which would benefit him in 2017, when he held off Castroneves to prevail while driving for Andretti Autosport.
“That was definitely a game-changing day for me in my life,” Sato said of 2012. “I knew then that it was actually possible to challenge for the win.”
Since his win, fans have suggested to his amusement that he should have won in 2012, too. The Tokyo driver appreciates how fans have warmed to him.
“If you’re an up-and-coming American driver, people are excited for you,” Sato said. “I’m an alien here because I’m a foreigner. It’s great for the sport, but from the spectator’s point of view, they’re looking for the young American. But when you get a winner, the fans change. When I come through this gate, not just Indianapolis Motor Speedway but even the airport, people smile and give me a great compliment. I feel at home here.”
Sato will start 14th in the No. 30 Mi-Jack/Panasonic Honda.
“The winning is almost everything,” he said. “It so special winning here, surely it made my career and my perspective, everything changed. It’s the significant highlight.”
As the saying goes, nobody can ever take the accomplishment away from these drivers. Kanaan, at 44, is genuinely grateful to be starting his 18th Indy 500.
“Each ‘500’ I do nowadays, I just feel privileged to be a part of such an amazing thing,” he said. “I appreciate it 100 percent more. After I won, (exhale), ‘OK, now I can try to enjoy it a little more.’
“You still put the pressure on yourself, you want to win, you still do everything you can. But I was telling my wife the other day, the good thing about it is if you don’t win and you wake up with that emptiness on Monday, I wake up and the first thing I do is walk down the stairs and the first thing I see is my (Baby) Borg-Warner (Trophy). ‘All right, it didn’t work this time, but I have one.’”