Sato Wins as Honda Dominates the Indianapolis 500 | News - WFMZ Allentown

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SPEEDWAY, Ind., Aug. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Takuma Sato passed a previously dominant Scott Dixon with just 15 laps remaining in today's Indianapolis 500, and went on to score his second win at the famed "Brickyard" in a race dominated by Honda teams and drivers.

Although he led only twice for a total of 27 laps, Sato's Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda was fast when it counted, in the run from the last round of pit stops to the checkered flag.  Exiting the pits in second to Dixon, Sato swept into the lead on lap 185, then held off several attempts by Dixon to repass as the pair worked their way through lapped traffic.  The race was decided on Lap 196 of the scheduled 200, when Spencer Pigot crashed hard exiting Turn 4, leading the race to end under the caution flag.  The win is the second at Indy for Sato, following his initial "500" triumph in 2017.

Prior to the final pit stops, Dixon had dominated the day in his Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, leading a race-high 111 laps as the championship leader sought his own second Indy victory.  Starting in the middle of the front row in the 33-car field, Dixon took the lead at the Green Flag and went on to control much of the 200-lap contest, especially after Alexander Rossi, in a strong running Andretti Autosport Honda, crashed out of the race on Lap 143.  Prior to his contact with the wall, Rossi led four times for a total of 17 laps as he and Dixon edged away from the field in the middle portion of the race.

But both Rahal Letterman Lanigan Hondas came on strong in the closing laps, with Sato's teammate Graham Rahal closing the gap to the lead pair in the final laps to finish third.  After a disappointing qualifying effort, Santino Ferrucci conducted an exciting late-race effort of his own, finishing fourth to complete a Honda 1-2-3-4 sweep at the finish.

Honda drivers claimed eight of the top-10 finishing positions, with James Hinchcliffe recovering from a clutch problem encountered in his second pit stop to finish seventh, with his Andretti Autosport teammate Colton Herta eighth.  Jack Harvey had his best Indy finish to date with a ninth-place result for Meyer Shank Racing; while Ryan Hunter-Reay rounded out the top 10 in his Andretti Autosport Honda.

Next
The string of five consecutive NTT INDYCAR SERIES oval races continues next weekend as drivers and teams head 150 miles southwest to WorldWide Technolgy Raceway near St. Louis, Missouri for a pair of 200-lap races Saturday, August 29 and Sunday, August 30.

Honda Racing social media content and videos from this weekend's pair of races 104^th running of the Indianapolis 500 will be available on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/HondaRacingHPD) and on Twitter at  (https://twitter.com/HondaRacing_HPD).  Produced by the CoForce Digital Media, YouTube video packages can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/HondaRacingHPDTV.  

Quotes
Takuma Sato (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda) Started 3^rd, finished 1^st; second Indy 500 win; 13^th victory for Honda at Indianapolis: "I think we had the best car. Only we were a lap short from Dixie [Scott Dixon] in terms of the fuel strategy, and [making fuel mileage to the finish] was a little tight. I couldn't use max power to switch back and forth. And Dixon kept coming through Turn 4 [on the final green flag lap] and I was just able to hold him off. This is unbelievable. Everyone did a hell of a job. HPD and Honda gave us a lot of power and a lot of fuel mileage."

Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) Started 2^nd, finished 2^nd; led race-high 111 laps; increased his mid-season championship points lead to 84 over Josef Newgarden [335-251]: "This is a hard one to swallow. On fuel mileage, I really can't see how [Takuma] Sato was going to make it [prior to the caution that ended the race]. We pitted a lap later, and the [fuel mileage] numbers they had to get, it was going to be very difficult. I thought they were going to throw a red flag [following a late-race crash by Spencer Pigot], which would have been interesting for the last four or five laps. Huge congrats to Takuma. He drove his pants off today. Rahal Letterman Lanigan, they were super fast, obviously finishing first and third. It was good day for Honda. I want to give a massive thank you to them. We're very proud to be powered by HPD and Honda, and it's nice to get some [championship] points. But it's hard when the win slips away like that."

Santino Ferrucci (Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan Honda) Started 19^th, finished 4^th: "It was just an incredible race. The SealMaster Honda was insane today. The guys worked really hard on pit lane, on the timing stand and the strategy was perfect.  I'm just really happy, after two incredibly long weeks of focusing on the car, we ended really good. During the first pit stop I got caught in neutral, and it was like a blessing in disguise. It set us way back, but the momentum we had just carried us. On the next restart [after a caution flag] we went from 25^th right back into the top-10. It was where we needed to be and we just fought our way from there into the top-four."       

Ted Klaus (President, Honda Performance Development) on today's Indianapolis 500: "This was a very satisfying win.  On behalf of every HPD team member and everyone back at HPD in Santa Clarita – who have all been pushing hard since last year's race – thank you!  Congratulations to Takuma Sato, Graham Rahal and the entire Rahal Letterman Lanigan team for their one-three finish today; to Scott Dixon and Chip Ganassi Racing for his dominant run to lead 111 laps and second-place result; and to all of our partner teams and their great drivers.  Together we led all but 22 laps of today's race, and scored an incredible 13^th '500' win for Honda."

Indianapolis 500
Circuit:	Indianapolis Motor Speedway (2.5-mile oval) Indianapolis, IN
2018 Winner:	Simon Pagenaud (Team Penske) 175.794 mph average
Weather:	Mostly sunny, hot, 85 degrees F
Results:
Fn.	St.	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Notes
1.	3.	Takuma Sato-W	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	Honda	200	157.824 mph average speed
2.	2.	Scott Dixon-W	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	200	+0.0577 seconds (under caution)
3.	8.	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	Honda	200
4.	19.	Santino Ferrucci	DCR with Vasser-Sullivan	Honda	200
5.	13.	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	Chevrolet	200
6.	15.	Pato O'Ward-R	Arrow McLaren SP	Chevrolet	200
7.	6.	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	Honda	200
8.	10.	Colton Herta	Andretti Harding Autosport	Honda	200
9.	20.	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	Honda	200
10.	5.	Ryan Hunter-Reay-W	Andretti Autosport	Honda	200
11.	28.	Helio Castroneves-W	Team Penske	Chevrolet	200
12.	14.	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	200
13.	1.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta Autosport	Honda	200
14.	22.	Will Power-W	Team Penske	Chevrolet	200
15.	17.	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	Honda	200
16.	32.	JR Hildebrand	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	Chevrolet	200
17.	30.	Max Chilton	Carlin Racing	Chevrolet	200
18.	29.	Charlie Kimball	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	Chevrolet	200
19.	23.	Tony Kanaan-W	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	Chevrolet	199	Running
20.	4.	Rinus VeeKay-R	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevrolet	199	Running
21.	26.	Fernando Alonso	Arrow McLaren SP	Chevrolet	199	Running
22.	25.	Simon Pagenaud-W	Team Penske	Chevrolet	198	Running
23.	33.	Ben Hanley	DragonSpeed Racing	Chevrolet	198	Running
24.	31.	Sage Karam	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	Chevrolet	198	Running
25.	12.	Spencer Pigot	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	Honda	194	Did not finish – crash
26.	16.	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevrolet	187	Running
27.	9.	Alexander Rossi-W	Andretti Autosport	Honda	143	Did not finish - crash
28.	7.	Alex Palou-R	DCR with Team Goh	Honda	121	Did not finish – crash
29.	18.	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevrolet	91	Did not finish – crash
30.	21.	Oliver Askew-R	Arrow McLaren SP	Chevrolet	91	Did not finish – crash
31.	24.	Dalton Kellett-R	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	Chevrolet	82	Did not finish – crash
32.	11.	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	24	Did not finish – crash
33.	27.	James Davison	Dale Coyne Racing	Honda	4	Did not finish – brakes

W – Previous Indianapolis 500 winner

R – Indianapolis 500 Rookie

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August 24, 2020 at 09:53AM
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Sato Wins as Honda Dominates the Indianapolis 500 | News - WFMZ Allentown

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