2009 Indianapolis 500 Results and Recap – Helio Wins!

2009 Indianapolis 500 Results and Recap

Well, it was actually a bit of an exciting race this year. That was incresed for me because I am a Helio Castroneves fan, and my prediction turned out to be right.

Helio stared strong from the pole, but led just seven laps before being passed by Dario Franchitti. His car was not goo throughout the middle of the race, but he hung in there. His team made the changes when they needed to, and let him adjust at points rather than adjust the car to get it all right.

There was a caution flag on the first lap of the race for the first time since 2006. It came out when Mario Moraes and Marco Andretti made contact.

Tony Kanaan had a streak continue, and also saw the end to another streak of his. His bad luck at Indy continued when on lap 98 something on his car snapped sending him crashing into the wall. Till now he had a streak of leading a lap in seven consecutive Indy 500s. that came to an end with the crash on lap 98.

On the restart at lap 141, after Nelson Philippe crashed in turn 4 on lap 132, Castroneves regained the lead as he shot around Scott Dixon. Castroneves pass for the lead marked the 1,000th lead change in Indy 500 history.

On lap 173 Vitor Meira and Raphael Matos made contact. Meira’s car got turned on its side and was against the wall as it continued going around the track fro a bit. It returned to an upright position and rolled to a stop. Meira was taken from the car on a stretcher. Later reports said he was complaining of major back pain, but had use of all of his extremities.

With about 15-20 laps to go Castroneves lost his safety blanket, teammate Ryan Briscoe who was running in second for quite some time. Briscoe had short-pitted earlier and needed to hit pit road for some fuel.

Dan Wheldon and Danica Patrick had Helio within their sites now. However after a restart Helio just pulled away to a near 2 second lead. While they were battling for 2nd place they dropped back, so instead tried working together. The closest they could get was 1.73 seconds back, in the end they were over 2 seconds back again.

Castroneves would take his third checkered flag at Indy. A Cinderella like finish after the past few months for him. He and his sister Kati who is his business manager were on trial for tax evasion. He was acquitted just a couple weeks ago, and wasn’t even sure if he’d be at Indy this year. This made his tear filled victory even sweeter. It was team owner Roger Penske’s 15 Indy 500 win, the most by any owner in history.

Pos.	Driver/Car	Car No.		Start Pos.	Qual Speed	Laps Com- pleted	Times Led	Laps Led	Status at Finish	Pts
1	Helio Castroneves Team Penske	3		1	224.864	200	2	65	Running	51
2	Dan Wheldon National Guard Panther Racing	4		18	222.777	200	0	0	Running	40
3	Danica Patrick Boost Mobile/Motorola	7		10	222.882	200	0	0	Running	35
4	Townsend Bell Herbalife-KV Racing Technology	8		24	221.195	200	0	0	Running	32
5	Will Power Team Verizon Wireless	12		9	223.028	200	0	0	Running	30
6	Scott Dixon Target Chip Ganassi Racing	9		5	223.867	200	2	73	Running	30
7	Dario Franchitti Target Chip Ganassi Racing	10		3	224.010	200	2	45	Running	26
8	Ed Carpenter Menards/Vision Racing	20		17	222.780	200	0	0	Running	24
9	Paul Tracy GEICO/KV Racing Technology	15		13	223.111	200	0	0	Running	22
10	Hideki Mutoh Formula Dream	27		16	222.805	200	0	0	Running	20
11	Alex Tagliani Conquest Racing	36		33	221.115	200	0	0	Running	19
12	Tomas Scheckter MONA-VIE	19		26	221.496	200	0	0	Running	18
13	Alex Lloyd HER CGR/SSM Racing	99		11	222.622	200	0	0	Running	17
14	Scott Sharp Tequila Patrón Panther Racing	16		20	222.162	200	0	0	Running	16
15	Ryan Briscoe Team Penske	6		2	224.083	200	1	11	Running	15
16	A.J. Foyt IV ABC Supply/Foyt- Greer Racing	41		19	222.586	200	0	0	Running	14
17	Sarah Fisher Dollar General/Sarah Fisher Racing	67		21	222.082	200	0	0	Running	13
18	Mike Conway Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	24		27	221.417	200	0	0	Running	12
19	John Andretti Window World	43		28	221.316	200	0	0	Running	12
20	Milka Duno CITGO/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	23		30	221.106	199	0	0	Running	12
21	Vitor Meira ABC Supply Co. AJ Foyt Racing	14		14	223.054	173	0	0	Contact	12
22	Raphael Matos US Air Force Luczo Dragon	2		12	223.429	173	0	0	Contact	12
23	Justin Wilson Z-Line Designs	18		15	222.903	160	0	0	Contact	12
24	E.J. Viso PDVSA HVM Racing	13		29	221.164	139	0	0	Mechanical	12
25	Nelson Philippe i drive green HVM Racing	00		31	220.754	130	0	0	Contact	10
26	Oriol Servia The Rahal Letterman DAFCA Special	17		25	220.984	98	0	0	Mechanical	10
27	Tony Kanaan Team 7-Eleven	11		6	223.612	97	0	0	Contact	10
28	Robert Doornbos Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing	06		23	221.692	85	0	0	Contact	10
29	Davey Hamilton Hewlett Packard	44		22	221.956	79	0	0	Contact	10
30	Marco Andretti Team Venom Energy	26		8	223.114	56	0	0	Handling	10
31	Graham Rahal McDonald’s Racing Team	02		4	223.954	55	0	0	Contact	10
32	Ryan Hunter-Reay IZOD/WilliamRast/ Vision Racing	21		32	220.597	19	0	0	Contact	10
33	Mario Moraes Azul Tequila-Votorantim- KV Racing	5		7	223.331	0	0	0	Contact	10

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