INDIANAPOLIS — Felix Rosenqvist had 2.5 miles to get from third to first to win the Indianapolis 500, and the only thing that mattered was instinct.
Rosenqvist put no thought into how dangerous it was to spend the final lap on the high side at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He was going to keep his line.
No matter what.
“I’ve never had that feeling before where I just want to win this so bad that I literally don’t care about crashing,” Rosenqvist told IndyStar on Monday. “It’s cool that you can get to that point where you kind of lose your sense of thinking in a way.”
Throughout Rosenqvist’s IndyCar career, closing races and race weekends hasn’t been a skill of his. He called himself a “Saturday man” because of his tendency to qualify well but not follow through on race day. Rosenqvist entered Sunday with seven career poles, yet just one win. Going back to 2022, he had five straight years qualifying on the front three rows of the Indy 500, but he never had a podium finish in the race (or on any oval).
But that changed when Rosenqvist outdueled Marcus Armstrong in Turn 4 and barely snuck by David Malukas — crossing the finish line 0.0233 seconds before Malukas, the closest margin the Indy 500 has ever seen. Rosenqvist claims he blacked out on the final lap, which is potentially the best in the history of IMS, and relied on muscle memory to take the checkered flag.
“Adrenaline takes over and you’re also willing to risk a lot at that point,” he said. “I think Indy is the only place that can get that out of you in that sense, where you just don’t care about the aftermath of your actions. So it was pretty easy for me. I just kind of let the adrenaline do its thing and yeah, it was a really cool moment.”
Rosenqvist, who said he didn’t think he listened to his spotter at all in the final lap, knew that the high line was his only option to get his No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda to the bricks first.
Outside of the obvious magnitude of winning the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, Rosenqvist needed to get his first win since 2020 for validation. The win proves that, although Rosenqvist’s IndyCar career has been unstable — including having just two top-10 finishes in the first seven races of this year — he and this MSR team are capable of competing for wins on their strongest days.
“I kind of needed just to prove to myself that I can win on an oval, I can win a race again after being very close many times,” Rosenqvist said. “I don’t think we — either the team or me — stopped believing, but we were really sure that we can get this done, at any track, really. And it was just a matter of time. It took long, it was definitely overdue, but we’ve just been in such a good rhythm after Long Beach, and we feel like we unlocked something new on the 60 car.”
Over the last five weeks, Rosenqvist — who’s now in seventh in the IndyCar standings — has had the most impressive showing.
It began with a pole and second-place finish at the Grand Prix of Long Beach that could’ve been a win if not for an “unfortunate” caution. He then parlayed that into starting on the second row in the Sonsio Grand Prix at the IMS road course, but he caused a multiple-car crash on the first turn of the race and placed 23rd after eventually crashing again later in the race. Last weekend, Rosenqvist qualified on the inside of Row 2 of the Indy 500, which set up his triumph.
For much of the race’s final 50 laps, it appeared that Rosenqvist’s victory was going to come largely uncontested. He and his crew, led by strategist Adam Rovazzini, perfected their fuel-saving approach, which got him comfortably in the lead with another fuel to take it home. But the strategy, which Rosenqvist said was “like playing chess,” got thrown out the window when rookie driver Caio Collet crashed and caused a caution with eight laps to go.
In a situation similar to what lost Rosenqvist the race in Long Beach, Rosenqvist no longer had the upper hand.
“At first, you’re annoyed,” he said. “You’re controlling the race, biggest race in the world, and everything just kind of falls on its face.”
Rosenqvist felt that, by being in first, he was in a disadvantageous position because those behind him could work off his car’s draft and find space to pass. The race’s leader was passed within two laps of the sixth of Sunday’s seven restarts in a race that set the Indy 500 record with 70 total lead changes. Rosenqvist gave up the lead on the penultimate restart, with Armstrong and Malukas passing while Rosenqvist went down to third.
But another rookie mistake (this one much less severe) by Mick Schumacher opened a window for Rosenqvist to strike again. Schumacher grazed the outside wall in Turn 1 on Lap 197, which led to race control deploying another caution, despite Schumacher remaining in the race. This time, Rosenqvist didn’t allow the pattern of previous mishaps, at IMS and elsewhere, to continue.
“I tried to not really let the negative thoughts take over,” Rosenqvist said. “And I tried to convince myself third might actually be exactly where you want to be, because it normally allows you to get a really good run when the two leading cars go side by side and basically have to punch a hole in the air, both of them. And the third guy always gets a good slingshot.”
Rosenqvist received that slingshot and took advantage of it to win the Lap 200 shootout over Malukas and Armstrong. Originally believing it’d be a two-lap shootout, Rosenqvist made it stick on the outside, staying two-wide with Armstrong on all four turns of the final lap after Malukas took the lead from Armstrong heading into Turn 1.
“I was like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna have to make some quick work here if this is gonna be ours,’” Rosenqvist said. “And I felt like we ran out of time, but the last run was just perfect enough to get it.”
Rosenqvist drove in his eighth Indy 500 start with more confidence than he did in any of his first seven. His refusal to second-guess himself and instead rely on instincts for the entirety of the shootout has immortalized Rosenqvist in Indy 500 lore.
Zion Brown is IndyStar’s motorsports reporter. Follow him at @z10nbr0wn. Get IndyStar’s motor sports coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Motor Sports newsletter. Subscribe to the YouTube channel IndyStar TV: IndyCar for a behind-the-scenes look at IndyCar and expert analysis.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Felix Rosenqvist, the ‘Saturday man,’ was a different driver on Indy 500’s last lap