Newgarden denies O’Ward with last-lap pass to take second Indianapolis 500 win · RaceFans

Josef Newgarden has won the Indianapolis 500 for the second year in a row after beating Pato O’Ward in a thrilling duel to the finish.

The pair traded places repeatedly after bursting past O’Ward’s team mate Alexander Rossi with seven laps to go.

O’Ward seemed to have pace in hand to attack Newgarden. He backed out of a run at the Penske driver on the penultimate lap, then made his move as the final lap began. But Newgarden struck back, diving around the outside of O’Ward as they sprinted into turn three.

It was a dramatic end to an eventful race which was delayed by hours due to heavy rain early in the day.

Newgarden was in the thick of the fight from the start along with team mate Scott McLaughlin, who led the field away from pole position. After his final pit stop he scrapped first with Rossi and then Scott Dixon, swapping places with the Ganassi driver for several laps before he slipped back.

The win will come as an enormous relief to Newgarden, who was stripped of his victory in the season-opening race at St Petersburg when he was found to have used his push-to-pass system outside of permitted times. After the race he paid tribute to team president Tim Cindric and his race engineer Luke Mason who were among those suspended by Penske as a result of the infringement.

Dixon came in third ahead of Rossi and Alex Palou. McLaughlin led much of the early stages before falling back to sixth place. Kyle Kirkwood, Santino Ferrucci, Rinus Veekay and Conor Daly completed the top 10.

Marcus Ericsson, the 2022 race winner who Newgarden passed on the final lap to win last year’s race, didn’t make it as far as lap two this year. Tom Blomqvist spun in front of him at the first corner and Ericsson was unable to avoid being claimed by a crash which also eliminated Pietro Fittipaldi.

Dixon was involved in a hair-raising mid-race incident which eliminated Ryan Hunter-Reay. The two previous winners made contact on the back straight when Dixon moved to the as Hunter-Reay made to pass him there. Hunter-Reay spun through 360 degrees on the grass at top speed and recovered to the pits where he was forced to retire, fuming at his Ganassi rival.

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Race result