Although Marcus Ericsson took home his first Indianapolis 500 win in the 106th (2022) running of the event, eight former 500 winners also took the green flag to challenge for another day in the limelight. On the whole, how did they stack up?
Start: 6
Finish: 3
Laps led: 6
Kanaan’s day played out quietly and consistently. The 2013 500 winner rarely left the top five throughout the day and kept his nose clean to the checkered flag. Kanaan took the final restart in third place and looked to challenge Pato O’Ward for second with two laps to go, but was caught having to defend from Felix Rosenqvist instead. This third place finish is Kanaan’s best 500 performance since his 2013 win.
Start: 20
Finish: 5
Laps led: 0
If any of the former 500 winners needed a good run, it was Rossi. Since winning the Borg-Warner in 2016, Rossi enjoyed a second place finish in 2019, but followed that up with 27th and 29th place runs in 2020 and 2021 owing to driver error and running out of fuel under caution, respectively. After their misfortune over the past two years, a fifth place run at Indianapolis is nothing for the No. 27 team to be ashamed of.
Start: 27
Finish: 7
Laps led: 0
The drive for five came up a bit short in 2022, but that shouldn’t take away from the credit Castroneves earned with this run. The poor qualifying result shown by the four-time 500 winner shocked the grid, and his name wasn’t brought up in surplus throughout the race. Nonetheless, cooler heads prevailed and Castroneves navigated the day’s chaos with grace to earn a respectable seventh place. It would seem 47 years old is just a number.
Start: 16
Finish: 8
Laps led: 0
Pagenaud has been rather quiet since his 2019 sweep of the month of May. After outrunning Rossi to the checkered flag in 2019, Pagenaud also scored a third place finish in the 2021 Indy 500, possibly having caught and challenged Castroneves had the race been ten laps longer….
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