(Photo: Joe Skibinski / INDYCAR)
By Aaron Bearden
The Month of May is back in central Indiana.
After an unpredictable year that saw the historic race held in August for the first time without fans, the Indianapolis 500 is returning to its Memorial Day weekend slot in May for 2021. The festivities for the 500 will run from May 18-30. With the COVID-19 situation steadily improving amid vaccinations across the country, fans will also be welcomed to the hallowed grounds of Indianapolis Motor Speedway this year.
Here’s everything you need to know to follow the 105th edition of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
Coverage
NBC Sports will handle American television coverage this year, utilizing a mixture of its Peacock Premium streaming service, NBC and NBCSN to showcase all the action from Indianapolis. The INDYCAR Radio Network will carry audio coverage of the event starting with Practice 2 at 3 p.m. ET on May 18. The radio broadcast schedule can be seen here.
As for International Broadcasters, please reference this page from INDYCAR to locate your provider.
Timing and scoring is available both on IndyCar’s website and livetiming.net.
Attendance
If you’re one of the lucky fans attending the 105th Indy 500, you probably know by now. Tickets have been mailed out over the weeks following the announcement that attendance would be allowed, with ticket buyers not attending offered a credit for 2022. The race will be ran at approximately 40% capacity, with an estimated 135,000 fans present for the event. This will make the 2021 Indy 500 the largest sporting event held since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.
But while fans will be present, a few sacrifices will need to be made. Access will be limited in certain areas of the month, including both the Pagoda Plaza and Tower Terrace sections. The infield spectator mounds will be closed for 2021, and there are no plans for the traditional Snake Pit or Carb Day concerts.
IMS will place ticket groups together in horizontal areas on the same row, separating unrelated groups by 2-3 seats to both the left and right. The most desired grandstands will be filled to the highest capacities possible, leaving others more vacant by comparison.
Fans will be required to wear masks at all times unless eating or drinking. They will be required to undergo a temperature check as they enter the facility.
If you missed out on tickets for the race or want to experience more of the month, you can also attend any other day cars are on-track. Similar protocol will be used for practice and qualifying days.
The Schedule
In typical modern Month of May form, the Indy 500 will be a two-week affair filled with practice, one of the tensest qualifying sessions of the year and 500 miles of action to conclude it all on May 30.
The festivities have already begun with the GMR Grand Prix, held over the prior weekend on the IMS road course. That weekend saw all three legs of the Road to Indy join the NTT IndyCar Series to put on a plethora of races, with Rinus Veekay prevailing in the IndyCar closer on Saturday.
But with that done, the field is now prepared to take to the 2.5-mile IMS oval for practice.
The schedule will begin today (May 18) with a practice day catered primarily toward returning veterans and rookies. Oval veterans will take to the track from 10 a.m. to noon ET, followed by rookies and refreshers from noon through 2 p.m. ET. A full-field session will conclude opening day festivities from 3 through 6 p.m. ET.
For the rest of opening week, a familiar noon-6 p.m. ET all-field practice format will be used. That will lead the field into Saturday’s qualifying day, where a one-hour tune-up practice from 9:30-10:30 a.m. will be followed by nearly six hours of qualifying through 5:50 p.m. ET.
Sunday will see practice for both last-chance qualifiers (11-11:30 a.m.) and the Fast Nine (11:30-noon), followed by Last Chance Indy 500 qualifying (1:15-2:30 p.m.) and Fast Nine Indy 500 pole qualifying (3-3:35 p.m.)
From the conclusion of qualifying, the field will complete one additional practice from 5-7 p.m. before going quiet until the ensuing Friday, where they will contest Carb Day final practice from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.. That will set the field up for Sunday’s race, which will take the green flag at 12:45 p.m. ET.
The exact broadcast schedule is as follows (All times ET):
Tuesday, May 18:
10 a.m.-noon: Oval veterans practice (Peacock Premium)
Noon-2 p.m.: Rookies and refreshers practice (Peacock Premium)
3-6 p.m.: Full field practice (Peacock Premium)
Wednesday, May 19:
Noon-6 p.m.: Practice (Peacock Premium)
Thursday, May 20:
Noon-6 p.m.: Practice (Peacock Premium)
Friday, May 21:
Noon-6 p.m.: Practice (Peacock Premium)
Saturday, May 22:
9:30-10:30 a.m.: Practice (Peacock Premium)
Noon-5:50 p.m.: Qualifying (Peacock Premium, NBC 2-3 p.m., NBCSN 3-6 p.m.)
Sunday, May 23:
11-11:30 a.m.: Last chance qualifier practice (Peacock Premium)
11:30-noon: Fast Nine practice (Peacock Premium)
1:15-2:30 p.m.: Last Chance qualifying (NBCSN / Peacock Premium)
3-3:45 p.m.: Fast Nine pole qualifying (NBC / Peacock Premium)
Friday, May 28:
11 a.m.-1 p.m.: Carb Day final practice (NBCSN / Peacock Premium)
Sunday, May 30:
9 a.m.: Pre-race coverage begins (NBCSN)
11 a.m.: Main race coverage begins (NBC)
12:45 p.m.: 105th Running of the Indianapolis 500 (NBC)
The Field
There are 35 cars on the entry list for the 105th Indy 500, with each vying for one of 33 positions in the traditional 11 rows of three that make up the race’s starting lineup. This is about the number that was expected for the event, albeit one car down from its potential after a rumored second entry for Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing fell through without the right mix of driver and finances.
There are nine previous race winners in the event, one shy of the record 10 seen in 1992. Leading the group is three-time winner Helio Castroneves (2001, 2002, 2009). Two-time winners include Juan Pablo Montoya (2000, 2015) and Takuma Sato (2017, 2020), while one-time winners Scott Dixon (2008), Tony Kanaan (2013), Ryan Hunter-Reay (2014), Alexander Rossi (2016), Will Power (2018) and Simon Pagenaud (2019) are also competing.
Sato returns with Rahal Letterman Lanigan as the defending champion of the race, looking to become the first repeat winner since Castroneves. As for Castroneves himself, he’s back for the 21st time but with a new team in the rising Meyer Shank Racing, which also fields full-time entrant Jack Harvey.
Rookie of the year contenders include RC Enerson, Pietro Fittipaldi and Scott McLaughlin. Enerson is arriving with Top Gun Racing, which looks to make the race as an Indy-only entry. Fittipaldi is back in the IndyCar ranks part-time after missing out on his planned Indy 500 debut in 2018 due to injuries sustained in a World Endurance Championship at Spa-Francorchamps. McLaughlin is a three-time Supercars champion in Australia and one of three major rookies running most of the schedule this year along with Formula 1 transplant Romain Grosjean and seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, both of whom are out for Indy as they’re only running road and street course races.
One to watch will be Simona De Silvestro and Paretta Autosport. The 2010 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year will attempt to make her first start in the event since 2015, running for female team owner Beth Paretta as the lone woman schedule to compete in the event. The team will be ran in technical partnership with Team Penske.
There are 13 Americans at the race and 22 drivers from international descent. Of the group, 18 will pilots Chevrolets and 17 will compete for Honda.
| Car | Driver | Team | OEM |
| 1 | JR Hildebrand | A.J. Foyt Racing | Chevy |
| 2 | Josef Newgarden | Team Penske | Chevy |
| 3 | Scott McLaughlin* | Team Penske | Chevy |
| 4 | Dalton Kellett | A.J. Foyt Racing | Chevy |
| 5 | Pato O’Ward | Arrow McLaren SP | Chevy |
| 06 | Helio Castroneves | Meyer Shank Racing | Honda |
| 7 | Felix Rosenqvist | Arrow McLaren SP | Chevy |
| 8 | Marcus Ericsson | Chip Ganassi Racing | Honda |
| 9 | Scott Dixon | Chip Ganassi Racing | Honda |
| 10 | Alex Palou | Chip Ganassi Racing | Honda |
| 11 | Charlie Kimball | A.J. Foyt Racing | Chevy |
| 12 | Will Power | Team Penske | Chevy |
| 14 | Sebastien Bourdais | A.J. Foyt Racing | Chevy |
| 15 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | Honda |
| 16 | Simona De Silvestro | Paretta Autosport | Chevy |
| 18 | Ed Jones | Dale Coyne Racing | Honda |
| 20 | Ed Carpenter | Ed Carpenter Racing | Chevy |
| 21 | Rinus Veekay | Ed Carpenter Racing | Chevy |
| 22 | Simon Pagenaud | Team Penske | Chevy |
| 24 | Sage Karam | Dreyer & Reinbold Racing | Chevy |
| 25 | Stefan Wilson | Andretti Autosport | Honda |
| 26 | Colton Herta | Andretti Autosport w/ Curb-Agajanian | Honda |
| 27 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti Autosport | Honda |
| 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | Andretti Autosport | Honda |
| 29 | James Hinchcliffe | Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport | Honda |
| 30 | Takuma Sato | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | Honda |
| 45 | Santino Ferrucci | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | Honda |
| 47 | Conor Daly | Ed Carpenter Racing | Chevy |
| 48 | Tony Kanaan | Chip Ganassi Racing | Honda |
| 51 | Pietro Fittipaldi | Dale Coyne Racing with RWR | Honda |
| 59 | Max Chilton | Carlin | Chevy |
| 60 | Jack Harvey | Meyer Shank Racing | Honda |
| 75 | RC Enerson | Top Gun Racing | Chevy |
| 86 | Juan Pablo Montoya | Arrow McLaren SP | Chevy |
| 98 | Marco Andretti | Andretto Herta-Haupert w/Marco & C-A | Honda |
Qualifying Format
All 35 entries for this year’s Indy 500 will have the same opportunity to make the 33-car starting lineup. There are no guaranteed entries, meaning each team must qualify their way into the race.
The Indy 500 qualifying format is a unique one in the motorsports world, which has seen tweaks over the years based on the time and number of entries.
Under the current format, every competitor will be given the opportunity to make one attempt to start Saturday’s qualifying session, which will run from noon through 5:50 p.m. ET. Qualifying runs will consist of a warmup lap and four timed laps, with the average speed and time of those laps serving as the official marks for the run.
Once the full field has been through one round of qualifying, the remainder of Saturday’s qualifications will be open for any team to run. Pit road will consist of two lanes, with the left (inside) lane getting priority over the right (outside).
Choosing the left lane gives a team priority for track time, but they must sacrifice their current qualifying time in the process. Competitors in the right lane must first yield to anyone in the left lane but can run comparatively risk-free and fall back on their previous best time If something goes awry.
Qualifying will continue in this manner until 5:50, when the session will end. The car currently running at that moment will be allowed to finish their run, but all others will be done for the day.
At the end of Saturday, positions 10 through 30 will be set based on time. The quickest nine competitors will return on Sunday for a chance to qualify for the pole, while the bottom five will get one final chance to try to lock in one of the last three positions.
Each competitor qualifying on Sunday will be given just one run. The three quickest qualifiers of last chance qualifying will secure positions 31 through 33, with the two slowest failing to qualify for the race. The Fast Nine will be gridded based on their Sunday speeds, with the quickest driver securing the pole for the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
Championship Storylines
It’s still early in the 2021 NTT IndyCar series season, but the prevailing storyline thus far has been one of parity.
The five series races contested to date have seen five different winners, including first-time victors Alex Palou, Pato O’Ward and Rinus Veekay. Others such as Romain Grosjean and Scott McLaughlin have made their presence felt with podium runs, challenging the perceived status quo in a series that’s traditionally conquered by veterans when it matters most.
That’s made the championship story a bit unpredictable, though IndyCar’s resident ‘Ice Man’ remains the leading figure heading into the Indy 500. Defending champion Scott Dixon currently tops the standings with a win and 176 points, holding a 13-point edge on his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Palou.
Two-time champion Josef Newgarden sits third despite failing to reach victory lane thus far, with Texas Motor Speedway winner O’Ward following in fourth. That trend of young stars mixing with series stalwarts carries through the entirety of the top-10, with veterans Graham Rahal (fifth), Simon Pagenaud (seventh) and Will Power (ninth) flanked by Veekay (sixth) McLaughlin (eighth) and Colton Herta (10th).
Notably missing from the top-10 are past contenders like Alexander Rossi (14th), Sebastien Bourdais (16th) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (17th), all of whom have endured inauspicious starts to the 2021 season.
The Indy 500 won’t be enough for any contender to fully make or break their year, but it does present an opportunity to completely shift the conversation heading to June 12-13 doubleheader in Detroit.
Indianapolis is a double-points race, meaning the risk and reward are both far greater in this event than any of the five prior races. The Indy 500 winner typically hops into the top-five in points if they weren’t already, while someone like Dixon prevailing could give themselves a massive advantage heading into what’s traditionally an unpredictable weekend in Detroit.
Points are rarely on the mind of the Indy 500 champ as the wreath is placed around their neck and the winner’s milk runs down their driver’s suit. But the Greatest Spectacle in Racing often plays a key role in determining who poses next to the Astor Cup as champion at season’s end.
