There’s nothing like the Month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway — and rarely has the Indianapolis 500 been more eventful than the iconic event’s 2025 edition.

Ran on a cool Indiana day amid overcast skies and occasional spurts of rain, the race’s 109th running was briefly delayed and then immediately chaotic, hit with attrition before the green flag could even fly. 

That set the stage for a race that saw numerous plot twists, comers and goers as attrition, strategy and the usual luck of the Indy 500 played out for 200 painstaking laps. 

Here’s a look at the winners and losers from the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. 

Winner: A new Indy 500 champion is crowned: Alex Palou

Yep. He did it, again. 

For the past few years, Alex Palou has been a beast on road-and-street circuits. But ovals were a weakness, offering intermittent chances for the field to close ground in the championship fight. 

If Sunday’s result is any indication, that’s no longer the case. Palou exorcised his oval demons with his first win and did it at the biggest race of them all, sweeping the Month of May with his first triumph in the Indianapolis 500. 

He now leaves the Month of May an Indy 500 champion, with a provisional 118-point advantage in the championship standings. Short of an injury or historic collapse, it’s unlikely that anyone will chase down Palou for the Astor Cup this season. 

Loser: Marcus Ericsson (and everyone else)

He was right there — in an ending where passing proved challenging, Marcus Ericsson held the lead into the closing stretch. But he wound up losing the top spot to Palou and couldn’t get it back. 

So Ericsson – like the 31 competitors that finished behind him – was left wondering what could have been at day’s end, even if the runner-up result was his best since the 2024 Detroit Grand Prix. 

Winner: Lead changes aplenty at Indianapolis

Blame it on Alex Palou’s dominance. Point the finger at the hybrid unit. Choose whatever reason you’d like. But by any measure, it had been a procedural affair up front for the IndyCar field in the season to date. There had been only two on-track passes for the lead beyond the opening corner in the eight road-and-street circuit races since the Hybrid unit was introduced in 2024 – including the opening five races of the 2025 season. 

The Indy 500 matched that total just 12 laps into the race and proceeded to blow it out of the water. It wasn’t a spectacular race for the lead by Indy 500 standards, but a nice shakeup from the status quo beforehand.

Loser: Rossi, Veekay and Shwartzman end their days on pit road

Pit road is often treacherous at the Brickyard, but rarely does it claim victims in succession like it did in the middle portions of Sunday’s race. 

Alexander Rossi came to pit road at the end of lap 73 after his car began smoking just to see a top-five run end in flames. Rinus Veekay was coming to pit minutes later on lap 81 when he lost control and slammed into the pit wall. Just six laps after that, pole-sitter Robert Shwartzman did the same while sliding into his box — and crew members — while the race was under caution. 

Winner: A good day for David Malukas, AJ Foyt Racing

Prior to Sunday, it had been a quiet year for David Malukas. The Chicagoan had finished four of five races, but come home no better than 13th in a spring spent in the midpack. But on the day where the most eyes are drawn to IndyCar, Malukas made his presence known. 

Piloting the No. 4, Malukas led two laps and found himself third in the race’s closing stages. The quirky ending behind lapped traffic meant that the top contenders stayed locked in place for the final 10 laps, keeping Malukas out of real contention for the win. But the third-place result was the 23-year-old’s best outside of World Wide Technology Raceway. 

Teammate Santino Ferrucci didn’t supply many of the bold, exciting moves he’s managed in the past at Indianapolis. But the Connecticut native quietly marched up to seventh to give AJ Foyt Racing a pair of top-10s on the day. 

Loser: Josef Newgarden’s three-peat attempt stalls 

Josef Newgarden was ready to live up to the pressure of making potential history in Indianapolis. Unfortunately for the Tennessean, his car wasn’t as prepared. 

The Team Penske ace was trying to set two historic firsts on Sunday — winning from the last row

And scoring a third-straight victory. And for a time, it seemed possible. Aided by the race’s heavy attrition and sporting a fast No. 2 Chevrolet, Newgarden rose up into the top-10 and had time to chase down the frontrunners for a chance at racing immortality. 

But in the end, it wasn’t meant to be. Newgarden’s car lost fuel pressure and a trip to the pits on lap 135 ended with an early exit due to a fuel pump issue. Lady luck wasn’t on his side this year. 

Winner: Solid days for title hopefuls

Look, the odds of anyone catching Palou at this point are slim. And no one is happy about any finish other than first at the Indy 500. But for those drivers hoping to catch him, or at least compete for second, bringing home a good result in an unpredictable race like Indianapolis is key. 

So while top-10 runs for Pato O’Ward, Kyle Kirkwood, Christian Lundgaard and Felix Rosenqvist are nothing to write home about, they did help the group leave Indiana with the four spots behind Palou in the standings.

Loser: Mother Nature’s at it again

It’s been a cool, overcast week in Indiana. So, there was no surprise when cloudy skies and a light threat of rain popped up on the race day forecast.

Thankfully, there was little rain to contend with on the day. But the little bit that did drop came down just as pre-race festivities were kicking into gear. 

What ensued was a brief, but painful, wait as the weather moved through and the track dried – especially for Kyle Larson, who saw the little wiggle room he had for his planned IndyCar-NASCAR double evaporate as moisture hit his aeroscreen. Later, Larson’s race would end after an uncharacteristically botched restart.

That margin for error only got thinner from there, because rain forced a brief caution minutes later and before that…  

Loser: Everyone loses their minds before the green

It was shades of 1992 early on at Indianapolis. 

By the time engines were fired and pace laps got underway, the capacity crowd at Indianapolis Motor Speedway had reached a fevered pitch. Emotions were high and drivers were ready to race.

In fact, they may have been a bit too ready. 

The lone Team Penske driver that didn’t have to start from the rear, Scott McLaughlin, made a colossal mistake heading into turn 1 on the final lap before the scheduled green flag. The Kiwi was warming his tires when he lost control of his No. 3 Chevrolet and clobbered the inside wall at the end of the front stretch, bringing his race to an end before it could begin. 

That led the race to start under caution. But the field still took the first green flag in the traditional three-wide formation, which led to another crash in turn 1 as Marco Andretti got the worst of a four-wide move.

The veteran’s 20th Indy 500 run was already hampered by a difficult qualifying weekend that saw him roll off 29th. But it ended even deeper in 32nd, having only seen one straightaway of green flag racing. 

Scott Dixon wasn’t involved in an accident, but suffered a setback of his own. His car briefly went ablaze during the pace laps. The 2008 race winner eventually required a brake change as a result of the mechanical issue, trapping him three laps down and out of contention early in his 23rd Indy 500.