In Driver’s Eye with James Hinchcliffe, the six-time INDYCAR winner will bring you inside the mind of a racer while breaking down the nuts and bolts of the sport for fans.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Speedway, Ind.) — The long wait is finally over. And that wait started minutes after the checkered flag fell on Alex Palou’s victory in the 2025 Indianapolis 500.
Thirty-two drivers eagerly waiting for another chance to add their name to the list of those immortalized by winning The Great Spectacle in Racing. One driver looking to defend his title as the 500 champ.
The Indy 500 is held in the largest sports area on Earth, Sunday is the 110th race since 1911, and it’s the most important race to any driver who has the privilege of even attempting to compete in it. When you stack all those things on top of each other, it isn’t surprising that the Indy 500 intensifies every emotion that a driver feels.
As a driver, you know winning this race changes everything. Your life will never be the same, and you feel that in every lap you do here at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. You also know that the team has put countless hours into preparing and running the car.
Leading any INDYCAR race always feels good, but there’s nothing comparable to the thrill of leading the Indy 500.
Me, leading the field to start the 2016 Indianapolis 500. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images)
When you take the lead at Indy for the first time, you can’t help but smile in your helmet. You can almost hear the cheers of the crowd through the noise of the engine. Your heart rate spikes, and the adrenaline pumps harder.
I remember leading the 2016 race into Turn 1 at the start, and you could see the grandstands come alive.
After two weeks of staring at them while driving down the frontstraight, largely empty and gray, they are suddenly this vibrant, colorful living thing. The view takes your breath away… for one second! Then you have to focus back on the corner coming at you at 220 miles an hour.
Qualifying on pole, leading laps and, of course, winning the race, just mean so much more here at IMS. This place truly makes drivers experience the highest of highs.
But… that comes with the obvious caveat.
For every heightened positive emotion, the negative ones hit and leave you breathless in an entirely different, soul-crushing way. A bad Indy 500 sits with you so much longer and weighs much more heavily on your mind. It’s one of the hardest things to get over.
My rookie year, I crashed in the Indy 500 right at the halfway marker. As I lost control and hit the wall, my heart sank lower than it ever had in my career.
I was desperate, in that moment, to invent a way to turn back time with my mind. Just a few seconds, nothing crazy. There was almost a refusal to accept what had just happened. But when it finally set in, the feeling of devastation is unparalleled for a driver.
Whether you crash out mid-race like me, or with a handful of laps to go like Pato O’Ward in 2023, or before the green flag even fell like Scott McLaughlin last year, the feeling is the worst thing you can emotionally experience as an INDYCAR driver.
Dejected Scott McLaughlin after wrecking on the pace lap before the 2025 Indy 500. (Photo by Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The highest of highs can only happen at the same place that deals you the lowest of lows.
Second place at any other track is a decent day. Second place at Indy is a fiery dagger to the heart.
You only need to look at footage of the drivers who have finished second in recent years to understand. A picture is worth a thousand words, and those clips are novels of pain and disappointment.
All that said, as painful as the results can be, as low as those lows are, every driver will gladly stare that pain in the face for a chance to feel the glory.
SOUND LIKE AN INDYCAR EXPERT
Drivers and their teams during a pit stop at the 2025 Indianapolis 500. (Photo by Phillip G. Abbott/Lumen via Getty Images)
We all know that racing is a team sport — from the fabricators back at the shop, to the truck drivers, commercial staff, PR, mechanics, engineers and on and on — and nowhere is that more on display than at Indy. We’ve already talked about all the hard work that goes in back at the shop in the build-up to the Month of May, and then, if you’re lucky enough to qualify for the race, the real high-pressure stuff starts.
In a typical INDYCAR race, we are usually talking about the debate between two and three stops. At the Indy 500, there could be six, seven or maybe eight stops. That means that performing exceptionally on pit lane is a must for a team to win.
Teams will put in extra hours practicing pit stop perfection for the Indy 500.
On Carb Day, there is even the official Pit Stop Competition, which is a huge point of pride for the squads going over the wall. These crews will work with physical trainers and sometimes mental coaches to try and maximize their performance on race day.
Marcus Armstrong and his Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb-Agajanian during a stop in the 2025 Indy 500. (Photo by Brett Farmer/Lumen via Getty Images)
[INDY 500: What Makes The Indy 500 So Hard?]
And discuss a high-pressure setting. Hanging tires, refilling gasoline and dealing the air jack are all tense duties on their very own. However these pit crews aren’t working in a quiet room and even on a large open discipline. They’re in a concrete alley with race vehicles flying by at 60 miles per hour, all making an attempt to beat each other off pit lane.
The truth that these crew members are all uncovered to 30 or extra vehicles going freeway speeds simply inches from their largely unprotected our bodies — they’re sporting hearth fits and helmets — positively raises the temperature within the stress cooker.
And identical to the drivers, pit crews know that any small mistake or hiccup can price them the possibility at glory.
So simply know that if you see a driver drinking their celebratory choice of milk in Victory Lane, all of the crew members celebrating with them performed simply as massive a component.
MY VIEWS AT THE INDY 500
I’ve been so fortunate to expertise the Indy 500 from three distinctly completely different seats.
First, as a fan. After I was a child, I watched this race and cheered on my heroes. And it was not solely a enjoyable and entertaining option to spend a Sunday in Might, however I additionally felt, even again then, that it was a good way to bond with family and friends. It was at all times an important alternative to get along with individuals you care about and cheer on the identical driver (or not!) and have the ability to say, “I used to be watching when that driver’s life modified.”
Me, high-fiving followers at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2018. (Picture by Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire through Getty Photos)
Then, after all, my 11 years as an INDYCAR driver gave me a totally completely different appreciation for this occasion. To have performed a small half within the storied historical past of this nice race is an immense level of pleasure. The historical past of this occasion is unmatched within the racing world, and there’s no doubt that is why it means a lot to any driver fortunate sufficient to compete.
And now, I get to be part of the occasion in a totally completely different means as a broadcaster. Serving to inform the story to the tens of millions of individuals watching at house of what’s occurring on monitor, and finally what it means, is an actual privilege.
There are numerous elements of the race that I really like. Many traditions that I feel are unbelievable. As a fan, a driver or a broadcaster, the perfect a part of it for me modified and developed, however I’ll at all times maintain this race very close to and expensive to my coronary heart.
1 FOR THE ROAD
Alexander Rossi earlier than qualifying for the 2026 Indy 500. (Picture by Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Photos/LightRocket through Getty Photos)
For those who wanted any extra proof that INDYCAR drivers are modern-day gladiators, look no additional than Alexander Rossi.
After a stunning performance in qualifying and placing himself and his crew P2, he suffered accidents in a Monday observe crash. He required surgical procedure on his left hand and his proper foot. And regardless of crashing at 200-plus miles an hour, and having scars and steel in him that he didn’t every week in the past, he plans to go well with up and nonetheless compete within the a hundred and tenth working of the Indy 500 from the center of the entrance row.
No concern. No hesitation. Only a single-minded need to return to victory lane, the place he stood 10 years in the past after successful as a rookie.
Everybody likes a comeback story, and this is able to be one worthy of a Hollywood script.
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