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SPEEDWAY, Ind. — All week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it just felt a little off. Not awful. Not wrong. Not even all that rainy. Just, off. Like dancing slightly out of step. That was the chatter on Sunday’s prerace grid, that everyone’s axis felt a bit askew.
The week started with a scary crosswind practice crash that cracked the wrist and ankle of Alexander Rossi. NASCAR legend Kyle Busch’s unexpected death Thursday certainly cast darkness over the racetrack where he won a pair of Brickyard 400s. The looming, constant threat-of-rain clouds cast actual darkness and did so all weekend.
“In my experience, weeks like this one, where something maybe feels just, yeah, off, those Mays, that’s when something happens, something good, something epic, and right at the end,” Graham Rahal stated on the eve of the 2026 Indianapolis 500, the 110th and his 19th. “The questions are, who will make it happen and what will it be?”
The answers? A driver who had never won an oval race — ever — hitting the reset button on a wonky race week via the closest clock-fracturing dogfight of an Indy 500 finish — ever.
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“I still can’t believe it. Can you? Can they?” exclaimed Felix Rosenqvist, the winner’s circle wreath still draped around his neck and his fire suit still soaked in milk as a crowd of fans behind him chanted his name. “If you know where I was, then you can’t. I can’t.”
With only one trip down the front straightaway remaining, the final 1,650 feet of the 500-mile race, where he was, was in second, desperately trying to find a place to pass as leader David Malukas wove his machine left and right to try to break the aerodynamic draft of the pack of cars chasing him. Earlier, where he was, was in the lead, feathering the throttle of his Honda just enough to save enough fuel to drop the hammer and keep that lead … only to have a late caution cost him that lead … and stick him into a precarious one-lap shootout to the finish that cost him that lead … but then mounted a charge against the man — the kid, really, in 24-year-old Malukas — who held the lead … and flashed by that kid as they crossed the storied yard of bricks beneath the checkered flag.
The final margin of victory: 0.0233 seconds. The closest in 110 editions of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” The literal speed of an eye blink.
Scientists say it takes 0.02 seconds for our brain to react to visual stimuli. Like, oh, let’s say the stimuli of seeing a 750-horsepower missile with a man in it eye-blinking its way past another in front of a grandstand filled with a couple of hundred thousand people.
“This was my eighth start in this race and there had been something different about this month versus the others,” Rosenqvist acknowledged after working his way through that “Felix! Felix!” cheering crowd. “And it’s what you just saw. So many people have approached me this month to say, ‘This is your year.’ I think it’s because they know I have had a chance before (he finished fourth in 2022 and one year ago), but I think they also know my story. They can relate to it.”
That’s another tale about where he was. Where he was less than three years ago. Left believing that his once-promising IndyCar career was up on blocks.
Felix Rosenqvist won the closest Indy 500 in history on Sunday, beating David Malukas to the finish line by just 0.0233 seconds. Penske Entertainment: Doug MathewsHe broke into IndyCar with superpower Chip Ganassi Racing in 2019 and won Rookie of the Year. The following season he earned a win on the twists and turns of Road America. He moved to another front-runner in Arrow McLaren, but after three winless seasons, he was adrift. He landed at Meyer Shank Racing, a respected but decidedly second-tier team which, like Rosenqvist, held only one IndyCar win. But that lone victory had also come in the biggest race, with Helio Castroneves behind the wheel for his record-tying fourth Indy 500 win.
“They gave me a second chance,” Rosenqvist stated Sunday evening, sitting next to team owner Michael Shank. “They were fast at Indy, and I was figuring out how to be fast at Indy.”
And so it was that there was a whole lot of metaphor to be found during that mad dash off Turn 4 on Sunday afternoon. In the visual stimuli of that once-scrappy-but-now-surging team’s car, driven by a 34-year-old who’d seemingly failed to fulfill his potential, chasing down the car of Team Penske, the undisputed king of this place with 20 wins (and owned by the man who owns the Speedway itself), wheeled by Malukas, who is viewed by many as a future pillar of IndyCar racing — the same kind of buzz that swirled around Rosenqvist after his rookie year.
“This place can be downright damn mean, and it doesn’t care who you are. Just look at our day today,” stated Shank, referring to the fact that his cars were running 1-2 when the late caution shuffled the deck and their chances. “I mean, look at poor [Malukas]. He’s such a great kid.”
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A kid left weeping on live television, sitting on the pit wall moments after losing immortality by that eye blink. He was embraced by Marco Andretti, who in 2006 lost in a nearly identical fashion, beaten by Sam Hornish Jr. by 0.063 seconds, the fourth-closest Indy 500 finish.
“I gave 150%. I damn near crashed it every lap … and I get P2. I can’t believe it,” Malukas stated. As the crowd heard his interview over the loudspeakers, they roared their support down around him like a hug. Those cheers spiked after he stated: “I’m going to give 160% next time.”
Perhaps that will be enough. Perhaps it won’t. But if Malukas is seeking any proof that it could, he needs only to look over to the racecar and driver that flashed by on his right.
“But you know what?” Shank continued. “This place also doesn’t care who you are when it comes to the good stuff, too. As much as Indy can make you hurt, it will also reward you with the greatest feeling of your life. This feeling right here.”
Rosenqvist overhead the boss, smiled, and interjected.
“But only if you earn it.”
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