The Closest Indy 500 in History Was Just Decided by 0.02 Seconds

Next to watching paint dry, this is a real nail biter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG2OcW_Hwkg

The Closest Indy 500 in History Was Just Decided by 0.02 Seconds

The dramatic victory by Sweden’s Felix Rosenqvist marked the tightest finish in 110 runnings of one of the most famous races in motor sport.

By Joshua Robinson, WSJ

Updated May 25, 2026 4:58 pm ET

Felix Rosenqvist won the Indy 500 by 0.02 seconds, the smallest winning margin in 110 editions of the race.

Three hours of racing and 800 left turns hadn’t been enough to decide the Indy 500. Average speeds above 160 mph couldn’t separate the pack. And the first 199 laps, it turned out on Sunday, were merely prologue.

It took until the final 50 yards of 500 miles for Felix Rosenqvist to produce one of the most memorable finishes in the history of motor sport. The 34-year-old from Sweden went from third to first over the 200th lap after throwing a last-ditch pass around David Malukas with the finish line in sight.

With his foot to the floor, Rosenqvist edged his car in front and took the checkered flag by just 0.02 seconds, barely the blink of an eye. It was the smallest winning margin in 110 editions of the race.

“I still can’t believe it. Can you? Can they?” said Rosenqvist, of the Meyer Shank Racing team. “If you know where I was, then you can’t. I can’t.”

Until this year, the tightest margin of victory belonged to Al Unser, Jr., who pipped Scott Goodyear to the line by 0.043 seconds in 1992. But that seemed like a week compared to the microbeat that decided Sunday’s chaotic race. And while Rosenqvist ended the day drenched in milk, the celebratory beverage of choice at Indy, Malukas could hardly comprehend what he had just experienced.

One moment he was about to become an Indy 500 winner. The next he was someone else’s footnote.

“I don’t know what else we could have done,” Malukas said through tears. “We were the fastest car that whole race. I gave it 150%. I almost crashed this damn car every lap.”

Few could have seen it coming—even Rosenqvist understood that he was an outsider. Although he was elected IndyCar’s Rookie of the Year in 2019, his progress in the sport had been slow. His lone race victory before Sunday had come six years ago. His best finish at the Indy 500 was fourth. Now, only three weeks removed from the birth of a baby girl, bookmakers gave him odds of just 14-1.

But as a wet and chaotic afternoon unfolded, Rosenqvist’s chance slowly came into focus.

He had been in the lead when the race entered its final 10 laps, more than half a second ahead of Pato O’Ward—his rival on track, and the best man at his wedding. But the situation was flipped on its head, as things so often are at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, by the terrifying sight of a car engulfed in flames.

Brazilian rookie Caio Collet had smashed the right side of his machine into the wall, ripping off two wheels and causing it to catch fire. Collet walked away from the wreck, but the race came to a halt with a 10-minute delay and eight laps remaining. Rosenqvist’s advantage had just gone up in smoke.

After racing resumed under a green flag, there were only four laps left and Rosenqvist had sunk to third. Any chance he had of hauling himself back to the front seemed to expire with the appearance of yet another yellow caution flag when Mick Schumacher, the son of Formula One legend Michael Schumacher, grazed the wall.

So once again, the field lined up behind the pace car, unable to do any passing. Rosenqvist knew that by the time it returned to the pits, there would hardly be any racing left. The Indy 500 was about to be decided by a single lap.

At the restart, Rosenqvist still sat in third, behind Armstrong and Malukas. But in a strange way, Rosenqvist sensed that any pressure had lifted from his cockpit.

“I felt like I was hunting instead of being hunted,” Rosenqvist said.

Two corners later, Malukas was willing his car to victory. But Rosenqvist wasn’t quite out of it yet. He found the optimal line through the final bend and positioned himself directly in Malukas’s slipstream. What had been a gap of 0.2 seconds suddenly evaporated to a fraction of that. And in the home straight, with nothing left to lose, Rosenqvist seized his moment.

He nudged his wheel right to slingshot his car around Malukas and nose ahead at some 230 mph. They finished side by side in a straight drag race to the line.

Only when they crossed it, Rosenqvist was in front.

“This place also doesn’t care who you are when it comes to the good stuff, too,” said Meyer Shank Racing owner Michael Shank. “As much as Indy can make you hurt, it will also reward you with the greatest feeling of your life.”

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