2018 Indianapolis 500 Scorecard

Hey there, Internet!! It's Guido here with another Scoring Indy update. We're gonna sneak this Indianapolis 500 update and scorecard in just under the wire of this weekend's pair of races in Belle Isle. Let's get to it!


2018 Indianapolis 500 Scorecard

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	ARP	Rees Score	Index
1	Power	3	59	200	3.69	75.81	9.14
2	Carpenter	1	65	200	3.58	72.88	8.23
3	Dixon	9	0	200	9.46	62.17	-0.46
4	Rossi	32	1	200	14.33	78.62	18.02
5	Hunter-Reay	14	1	200	8.17	64.64	6.06
6	Pagenaud	2	1	200	5.16	53.54	-3.03
7	Munoz	21	4	200	14.63	61.65	7.10
8	Newgarden	4	3	200	9.79	47.18	-5.34
9	Wickens	18	2	200	14.05	54.83	4.33
10	Rahal	30	12	200	14.35	66.29	17.81
11	Hildebrand	27	0	200	19.97	53.57	7.10
12	Andretti	12	0	200	10.56	45.90	1.46
13	Leist	11	0	200	14.00	39.40	-3.03
14	Chaves	22	0	200	19.87	42.56	2.15
15	Wilson	23	3	200	17.37	44.57	6.19
16	Harvey	31	0	200	18.28	49.21	12.85
17	Servia	26	16	200	15.36	47.76	13.41
18	Kimbal	15	0	200	14.69	32.64	0.31
19	Claman de Melo	13	7	199	13.85	30.53	0.23
20	Pigot	6	3	199	15.76	18.90	-9.39
21	Daly	33	0	199	25.67	33.57	7.30
22	Chilton	20	0	198	25.15	18.97	-5.27
23	Veach	25	0	198	25.25	21.86	-0.36
24	Howard	28	0	193	26.65	21.16	0.96
25	Kanaan	10	19	187	11.30	19.32	1.14
26	Karam	24	0	154	17.65	19.24	3.08
27	Castroneves	8	0	145	7.23	12.76	-1.38
28	Bourdais	5	4	137	9.47	7.58	-4.54
29	Kaiser	17	0	110	26.22	2.71	-7.39
30	Patrick	7	0	67	14.12	2.98	-5.10
31	Jones	29	0	57	28.67	3.99	-2.07
32	Sato	16	0	46	16.65	2.33	-1.71
33	Davison	19	0	45	23.38	0.24	-1.78

Quick Hits

- #Overlordsmanship -- As I told you all last time that I sold my soul to Will Power some years ago. Well, it paid off! We got there! Seriously though, let me talk for a moment about my history with Power. When I got back into IndyCar racing in 2009 one season after reunification, I immediately attached myself to Dario Franchitti. He was Scottish. He had an Italian name. He was a dominant driver. He was perfect. Thus, I immediately hated Will Power. He was Franchitti's rival after all. I watched those championship battles in 2010 and 2011. I knew who my enemy was. But, then Franchitti got injured. He retired. I was adrift. So, I did a little contest on my blog. And, Power won. I was devastated, but I decided to lean into it. Power would be my "favorite." I would play WWE-style heel. Well, over the years, he's grown on me. I won't say Power's actually my favorite driver. (That's probably Ryan Hunter-Reay.) But, he's in the top tier. I'm glad for him. and I enjoyed his win.

- A Tale of Two 70+ Drives -- Yes, there were three 70+ drives in the Indy 500, but I'll get to Rossi in a minute. I want to look at Will Power and Ed Carpenter. Both of these drivers were utterly dominant at various points in the race. Carpenter owned the early stages, and Power ran away with it late. Power would have been even more dominant on both the track and the scorecard if variant fuel strategies hadn't made themselves available, but they did (and a good thing, too. It made the latter stages of the World's Greatest Race truly enjoyable). I've often said that a winner in the 70s means a competitive race, and (despite what some might say) I think that's what we had. Seriously, I often go back and watch Indy 500s from my youth. They finish with like 5 cars on the lead lap. We had 18. We had various strategies. We had different cars look utterly dominant at various times. This was a good race.

- Drive of the Day -- Alexander Rossi. End of story. Mark my words, this guy is not done winning Indy 500s. And, he's a future champion. I feel certain that if qualifying hadn't gone so terribly terrible for him, he would have been right there in the mix for this one. Normally, when I do "Drive of the Day" type comments I base it on drivers' Index total. And, to be sure, Rossi's Index was the best number on the board (18.02), but Rossi's Rees Score was also the highest number on the board (78.62). It truly is impressive, in a race when it was difficult to move through the back of the field, to make it all the way up to P4, and it is even more impressive to make it all the way through the biggest field of the season. Cheers, Alexander Rossi. Cheers.


Stay Tuned

That's the 500 for you. Now, off to a double header in Detroit! Enjoy the races!

-- Guido