2009 Indianapolis 500


The 93rd Indianapolis 500 was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana on Sunday May 24, 2009. It was the 14th Indy 500 sanctioned by the Indy Racing League, and the premier event of the 2009 IndyCar Series season.
Hélio Castroneves, a native of Brazil, won the race from the pole position, his third of four Indy 500 victories. He became the first foreign-born three-time winner of the race, and tied a record by winning the race three times in the same decade. The win was car owner Roger Penske's 15th Indy 500 triumph, extending his team's own record. Former winner Dan Wheldon of England came second, with Danica Patrick third, the best finish ever by a female driver. There were eight crashes, with Vítor Meira and Tony Kanaan both suffering non-permanent injuries.
The race began the three-year-long Centennial era, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the opening of the track and the 100th anniversary of the inaugural race in 1911.
The victory by Castroneves marked the milestone 60th Indianapolis 500 victory for Firestone. It came less than two months after Castroneves was acquitted of federal charges of tax evasion and conspiracy. The IRS filed the charges against Castroneves in the fall of 2008, and the trial was held in March 2009 at the U.S. District Court in Miami. A guilty verdict in the trial would have likely sent Castroneves to prison, and ended his driving career.

Schedule

Other selected events

See Team and Driver Chart for more information
The official entry list was released April 20. The initial list includes 77 cars for 40 entries. 32 driver–car combinations have already been announced, as of Monday, May 4. Among the participants include five former winners, and six rookies.
Paul Tracy, the runner-up of the controversial 2002 race, returned for the first time since that race, and Scott Sharp also returns. However, this would mark the final IndyCar Series race for the 1996 Indy Racing League co-champion.

Race and event news

Tuesday May 5 – Rookie Orientation

  • Weather: Partly cloudy,
  • Practice summary: Nine drivers took to the track for the first day of rookie orientation. Six rookies participated and three veterans took refresher tests. Robert Doornbos, Raphael Matos, Alex Tagliani, and Mike Conway completed all four phases of the rookie test. Nelson Philippe completed three phases, while Stanton Barrett finished two. No incidents were reported.

    Wednesday May 6 – Rookie Orientation & IndyCar Series practice

  • Weather: Rain,
  • Practice summary: The second session of rookie orientation began at 9 a.m. Three cars took to the track for 45 minutes before rain interrupted the session. Nelson Philippe completed the final phase of his rookie test. All veteran practice was washed out for the day.

    Thursday May 7 – IndyCar Series practice

  • Weather:, foggy in the morning
  • Practice summary: Practice opened early to make up for lost time on Wednesday. Veterans took to the track for the first time just before 11 a.m. At 2:19 p.m., Ryan Hunter-Reay spun exiting turn two and hit the outside wall down the backstretch. He was not injured. A busy day of practice saw 2,199 practice laps completed.

    Friday May 8 – IndyCar Series Fast Friday practice

  • Weather:, cloudy, light rain in the afternoon
  • Practice summary: The final full day of practice was held before pole qualifying. Two significant crashes occurred. At 12:30 p.m., rookie Robert Doornbos went high and crashed into the wall in turn two. The car continued to slide down the backstretch. About two hours later, Scott Sharp lost the back end in the southchute, and crashed hard in turn two. Both drivers climbed from their cars. Largely aided by a tow, both Penske cars broke the 225 mph barrier. Midway through the afternoon, a light shower delayed practice for one hour.

    Time trials – Weekend 1

Saturday May 9 – Pole day

  • Weather:, sunny and windy
  • Television: Versus
  • Rating: 0.35
  • Practice summary
  • '''Time trials summary'''

    Sunday May 10 – Second day

  • Weather:, partly cloudy
  • Practice summary
  • '''Time trials summary'''

    Practice – Week 2

Thursday May 14 – IndyCar Series practice

  • Weather: Cloudy,
  • Practice summary: Practice resumed after three off-days, and track activity was busy. Oriol Servià was named to the Rahal Letterman entry, and took his first laps of the month. At 221.353 mph, Servia was the fastest among non-qualified cars. Veteran Buddy Lazier took his first laps of the month as well. No incidents were reported.

    Friday May 15 – IndyCar Series practice

  • Weather: Partly cloudy,
  • Practice summary: The final full day of practice saw heavy activity amongst qualified and non-qualified entries. Early in the afternoon, Tomas Scheckter took his first laps of the month. In addition, Mike Conway returned after his crash earlier in the week. The teams spent most of the day running in race trim. The cars took turns running in drafting packs. Of the non-qualified entries, Townsend Bell was fastest, with Oriol Servià next. No incidents on the track were reported. However, practice had to be halted at 5:33 p.m. when a number of the bricks from the famous start/finish line came loose in the mortar, and one chunk flew out.

    Time trials – Weekend 2

Saturday May 16 – Third day

  • Weather: TBA
  • Television: Versus
  • Practice summary
  • '''Time trials summary'''

    Sunday May 17 – Bump day

  • Weather: Sunny,
  • Television: Versus
  • Practice summary
  • Time trials summary
Shortly before midnight on May 17, Conquest Racing announced that Alex Tagliani, who had failed to qualify, would replace Bruno Junqueira in the No. 36 car. Because of the replacement, the car was moved to the last spot in the starting grid.

Carb Day

IndyCar Series final practice

The final hour-long practice was held.

Pit Stop Contest

won the 32nd annual Pit Stop Challenge, their record tenth overall victory in the event. The teams of Hélio Castroneves and Marco Andretti met in the finals with Castroneves and his chief mechanic Rick Rinaman winning the $40,000 first prize after a 7.962-second pit stop.

Qualification round

Note: Positions 5–8 are eliminated from the competition. Positions 3–4 advance to the quarterfinals. Positions 1–2 received a bye for the quarterfinals, and advanced directly to the semi-finals. Ryan Briscoe and Graham Rahal were randomly selected to bypass the qualifying round and advance directly to the quarterfinals.

Elimination bracket

Starting grid

  1. Alex Tagliani failed to qualify the #34 Conquest Racing entry, but replaced Bruno Junqueira in the team's #36 entry. Tagliani started from the 33rd position as a result of the driver change.
Failed to qualify
DriverTeamReason
34Color box|orange|R|border=silver

Race

The green flag was waved off on the first attempt after Hélio Castroneves hit the accelerator in the middle of turn four and the field did not maintain its traditional three-row lineup. The second attempt, although similar in formation, was given the green flag.
During the first lap entering the first short chute, Mario Moraes squeezed Marco Andretti into the wall, crashing both drivers out. Both drivers were out, but Andretti returned briefly later in the race. Moraes held the view that Andretti ran into him, and both drivers expressed their frustration to the TV crews. Andretti said that Moraes is "clueless", while Moraes believed that Andretti checked down on him.
Ryan Hunter-Reay also had a crash on lap 20 which saw his car slide into the pit lane. This capped a brutal month of May for the Vision Racing driver, in which his car never seemed to get up to speed, and he barely even made the 500 field.
Graham Rahal and Davey Hamilton had similar crashes on laps 56 and 83 respectively. Both slowed their cars between turns 3 and 4, drifted up the track, and hit the wall on the front straightaway. Rahal had a similar crash in the 2008 race.
On lap 98, while running third Tony Kanaan suffered a driveshaft failure while at speed in the back stretch, pitching his car into the wall. Kanaan's steering was largely incapacitated and the Brazilian bounced off the backstretch wall and then hit the turn 3 wall. In television interviews, Kanaan appeared visibly shaken. The next day, Tony stated the hit was recorded at 175 G's.
During the first half of the 200-lap event, Scott Dixon, Castroneves and Dario Franchitti swapped the lead with the Dixon–Franchitti Target Chip Ganassi team leading much of the laps. Dixon led laps 91 through 141, with Franchitti close behind to protect him.
Drivers Robert Doornbos, Nelson Philippe, and Justin Wilson, all former Champ Car World Series race winners, had incidents in the middle-to-late stages of the race that ended their respective days. Under the caution for the Philippe incident, Franchitti's fueler got stuck in his car, causing him to lose track position. With nobody to block for him, Dixon was powerless on the restart to stop Castroneves from passing him. The Penske Dallara-Honda cleared Dixon before the cars even entered turn 1. It turned out to be the winning pass.
File:HCastronevesIndy.jpg|thumb|right|Hélio Castroneves won his third Indianapolis 500, following victories in 2001 and 2002.
The scariest incident of the day occurred on lap 173, when Vítor Meira and Raphael Matos collided in turn 1. Both had heavy contact with the wall. Meira's car also flipped on its side and slid along the wall for hundreds of feet before falling back to all four wheels on the track. Meira was taken to Methodist hospital after the incident. Meira broke two vertebrae in his back and spent the next two days in the hospital being fitted for a back brace. Matos suffered a bruised right knee in the crash.
Ryan Briscoe had fallen back to the middle of the pack with a bad set of tires, but short-fueled in a late round of pit stops to claim second place, behind teammate Castroneves. Eventually Briscoe attempted to take the lead, with the intention of pulling Castroneves along, in order to help the Brazilian save fuel by using the draft. However, he had to pit during the Meira–Matos caution and was never a factor to win.
In the final 15 laps, Castroneves maintained a gap over Dan Wheldon, Danica Patrick and Townsend Bell. Castroneves and Wheldon kept similar lap speeds of 218 mph through the last 15 laps, but with a gap of roughly eight car lengths and Patrick on his tail, Wheldon could not catch the pole-sitter.
Castroneves won the event as his sister, Kati, and mother celebrated. The driver and his crew engaged in his traditional victory celebration, climbing the frontstretch catch fence, to the delight of the crowd. It was his third career Indianapolis 500 victory, with the others coming in 2001 and 2002. He is the sixth driver to win three 500s and the first foreign-born driver to do so.