Rookie Robert Shwartzman Steals The Show

INDIANAPOLIS – Unheralded Robert Shwartzman of Tel Aviv, Israel, stunned everyone at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, becoming the first rookie driver to win the Indianapolis 500 Pole since Italian Teo Fabi in 1983.

Ironically, Shwartzman drives Car No. 83, a Chevrolet for first-year IndyCar team Prema Racing. He won the pole in Sunday’s Fast Six with a four-lap average of 232.790 mph around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato was second with a four-lap average of 232.478 mph in the No. 75 Honda for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

Pato O’Ward qualified third, the outside of Row 1, in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet at 232.098 mph.

The beauty of Shwartzman’s Indy 500 Pole is nobody saw it coming before he made the Fast 12 in Saturday’s first round of qualifications.

“Honestly it’s unbelievable,” the 25-year-old Shwartzman said. “I was just processing it, and I still can’t believe it.

“It’s just a dream.”

In Shwartzman’s case, his dream came true.

“I was just thinking in my dreams fantasizing, ‘How will it feel to take pole position in Indy 500? How is the vibe?’” he continued. “Then I was, like, ‘Yeah, Robert, get back to reality. You have a new car, new team, you are a rookie. How can you expect to be in this position? It’s just in your dreams.’

“But still I was keeping that tiny dream deep inside like maybe, maybe.”

Shwartzman’s week began as the 33rd fastest driver out of 34 in Tuesday’s opening day of practice. By “Fast Friday,” the Chevy driver had advance far up the grid and his confidence continued to grow.

By Saturday, he was the sixth fastest in the Fast 12 and was becoming a fan favorite when Sunday’s session began.

He easily advanced into the Fast Six and when the final six-car session began, he was the class of the field in qualifying.

“Coming here, honestly, we missed the first testing day,” Shwartzman said. “Even so, I think the thing that made me sit here now in this position I think is just the right team mentality.

“You don’t need to be a genius. You don’t need to have incredible experience. You just need to have a good people around you as a team, which are conscious of what they’re doing.

“You know, as a whole team, you just know that ‘OK, we’ll go step by step, small steps without rushing because even though I don’t have experience, I’ve heard a lot of people saying that Indy doesn’t forgive. One slight mistake can cost you a lot.

“We’ve seen Colton Herta, Marcus Armstrong, Scotty McLaughlin, they were really fast, but I think they could have definitely challenged, but with that mistake, they didn’t manage to do it. So that was the thing that I didn’t really want to do.

“That’s why we didn’t come up with the warmup yesterday and in practice today. It was just like, you know, No, let’s keep it safe, just stable. We know that the car is quite quick. Just need to be consistent, do the four laps, and the last run I just give it all. I give maximum what I could.

“I tried to stay as long as possible flat, and yeah, here we are. We managed to survive it. I managed to hold it on. Honestly it was the best feeling ever. The car was just amazing.”

Scott Dixon was fourth fastest at 232.052 mph for four laps in the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda, Felix Rosenqvist’s speed was 231.987 mph and NTT IndyCar Series points leader Alex Palou rounded out the Fast Six with a four-lap run at 231.378 mph.

Sunday’s activity also included the Last Chance Qualifying with four drivers battling for the three final positions in Row 11.

Marco Andretti and Marcus Armstrong easily made positions 31 and 32 respectively, leaving Dale Coyne Racing teammates Rinus VeeKay in the No. 18 Honda and rookie Jacob Abel in the No. 51 Honda to fight it out for the final position.

VeeKay endured and starts last in the field with a four-lap average of 226.913 mph.

Abel’s 226.394 mph was too slow to bump VeeKay, and he will be watching the 109th Indianapolis 500 from the sidelines.

“I’m sure you don’t want to be talking to me,” Abel said. “I want to be talking to him. That was pretty insane, Shwartzman getting pole. Tale of two different rookie years, I suppose.

“It’s a bummer because the whole week kind of felt like it was going really well. We had pace. I was happy with the car. We were good in traffic. We were pretty good on the no tows. We had consistent, conservative runs on Friday with way more downforce than we had on today. They ended up being 3 miles an hour faster than we ran today. So, they have an anomaly.

“We kind of thought we found something last night that should have been pretty clear to help us. It was the issue we thought, but yeah, so that ended up not being it. It’s weird.

“It’s both the Dale Coyne cars too. It’s not just me. Rinus isn’t happy either. We got slower and slower each run. I actually got excitement and then was a bit down in the dumps all day today, and then Rinus goes out and does a 226 something. I’m, like, ‘Oh, we actually have a chance at this now.’

“Yeah, went out and fought all four laps, stayed on top of the tools to maintain the balance, but just didn’t have any speed at all. It’s weird. It’s weird. It’s just the car doesn’t accelerate up to the same speeds that all the other cars do.

“So, I hope they find something. Otherwise, Rinus is probably going to have a pretty tough Sunday next week. Yeah, I guess I will be watching on the sidelines.”

One of the favorites for the pole, Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin, had a hard crash in Turn 2 in the Fast 12 practice session, destroying his ride. Team Penske prepared Josef Newgarden’s backup Speedway car for McLaughlin but chose not to compete in the Fast 12. He will start 12th.

The team will have the car ready in time for Monday’s full-field practice session.

The other two Team Penske entries driven by two-time and back-to-back Indianapolis 500 winning driver Josef Newgarden and 2018 Indy 500 winner Will Power, were pulled out of the qualifying line by IndyCar for modifications to the rear attenuator after going through technical inspection.

That is not allowed per the IndyCar rulebook.