These Indy 500 records will put you in fifth gear

Twenty-nineteen is the 103rd run of The Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Thirty-six cars will line up to start at Indianapolis' iconic Brickyard in America's most famous and prestigious auto race. All riders will be vying for victory and a chance to drink milk in the winners' circle, but only one will win. Throughout its history, the Indy 500 has seen some of the best drivers and teams in the world compete for the Borg-Warner Trophy for over 200 hard-fought laps. Here are the best records to help you prepare for this year's race.

You won't believe how old the youngest winner was!

Fastest average win rate

We are going to start with a record that sums up the speed of the Indy 500…. In 2013, Tony Kanaan, racing with the KV Racing Technologies team, won the race with the highest average speed ever recorded.

En route to the checkered flag ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay, Kanaan averaged 187.433 mph over 199 laps. It's pretty fast. Imagine the excitement you would experience if you were allowed to drive on the freeway three times faster than you are allowed to work!

Lowest average win rate

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the lowest average winning speed was set by Ray Harrun on Marmon Wasp in 1911. His average speed over 200 laps was 74.59 mph. Although this figure may not be impressive now, in 1911 it was damn fast.

By comparison, a 1911 Ford Model T had a top speed of around 40-45 mph. The same year also sees the first official Indianapolis 500 as we know it. Entrance cost $1.

Fastest lap in the race

In 1996, former Formula One driver Eddie Cheever set a lap record that still stands to this day. During the race, Cheever completed the lap at 1 mph. Despite his record lap, Cheever finished the race in 236.103th place.

Many riders tried, but none could match Cheever's speed on that fateful day. Two years later, Cheever won the 500 in the Instant Classic.

Keep finding out which incredible rider has the most consecutive Indy 500 wins!

Most career wins – driver

Three riders share this amazing and special honor and they are all legends in their own right. AJ Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears have won the Indy 500 4 times each. Voith did this in 1961, 1964, 1967 and 1977.

Unser performed his quadrilogy in 1970, 1971, 1978 and 1987. Mears completed the set in 1979, 1984, 1988 and 1991. Winning a race once is special, repetition makes you one of the best, and doing it four times makes you a legend.

Career Wins - Team/Owner

Roger Penske retired from racing cars in 1965. He competed in two Formula One races, was a four-time SCCA Runner-up Champion, won the NASCAR Late Model Race at Riverside Speedway in 1, and was considered an extremely talented driver.

However, his talent as a team owner is arguably greater as he has won the Indy 500 15 times. His first win came with Mark Donoghue in 1972 and his last in 2018 with Willpower.

Most consecutive wins – driver

Five riders have won the Indy 500 in a row. To date, no one has been able to win the race three times in a row, a testament to the difficulty of the race and the scale of the competition.

Driver Wilbur Shaw won in 1939 and 1940, Maury Rose in 1947 and 1948. Then Bill Vukovic won in 1953 and 1954, while Al Unser won in 1970 and 1971 and Helio Castroneves in 2001 and 2002.

Youngest Winner

Troy Rutman won the 1952 Indy 500 at the tender age of 22 years and 80 days. Troy competed in the 500 eight more times but only finished twice as he suffered mechanical problems on 6 of those eight attempts.

Thirty-five later, another record will be set, but not by Rutman. The oldest driver ever to win The Greatest Spectacle in Racing will enter the winning streak.

Guess who it might be?

oldest winner

The legendary Al Unser is the oldest rider to win an Indy 500 race. He was five days away from his 48th birthday when he won the race in 1987, his final of four Indy 500 victories.

Unser continued to race until 1994 when he retired after trying to qualify for the 500 at the age of 55. At the time of his retirement, he was one of the oldest sports racers.

Highest score among female drivers

This is a record that is sure to fall in the near future. More and more talented female drivers are finding their way into top-level motorsports and the sport as a whole is much better for it. Until the next star appears, the highest scoring female Indy 500 pilot will be Danica Patrick.

In 2009, Patrick, then driving for Andretti Green Racing, took an honorable 3rd place. She has one career win in the Indycar series, at the Indy Japan 300 at Twin Ring Motegi in 2008.

Largest Margin of Victory

French racing star Jules Goux holds the record for the longest margin of victory in an Indy 500 race: a staggering 13 minutes and 8.4 seconds in the 1913 race. Gu was also the first Frenchman and European to win the race.

He was reported to have drunk four bottles of champagne while driving and said, "Without good wine, I could not have won." The following year, drunk driving was banned on the Indy 500 for obvious reasons.

Smallest Margin of Victory

In 1992, an epic Indy 500 finish happened: two-time winner Al Unser Jr. beat Scott Goodyear by just 2 seconds! It takes more time to read the word "fast" than the distance between the two cars.

This was Goodyear's first year at the Indy circuit. He took second place again in 1997 and finished second in class at Le Mans in 2 driving a 1996 works Porsche GT car. So close and so far.

And ahead we will find out which of the riders has completed the most laps of the Indy 500 of all time!

Most career laps

From 1965 to 1990, and then again from 1992 to 1993, the legendary Al Unser raced in the Indy 500. Although he has four wins to his credit, he can also claim to have the most laps on the circuit with 644 laps. a multi-year career with 27 career starts.

Even more incredible is that in 1978 Al Unser won the Indy 500, Pocono 500 and Ontario 500. That's three 500 mile wins in one year!

Laps Led Dual Record

The 1912 500 Indy race was a unique event and is notable for having the driver hold the record for the most laps driven in a race without a win, as well as the fewest laps driven by a winner!

Ralph DePalma was leading the race on lap three and began to pull away from the field. On lap 199 of his 200, his car lost power on the back straight. He and his mechanic pushed the car across the finish line to finish with the most laps in the race (196) behind winner Joe Dawson who led the fewest laps of all winners with two.

Most laps driven by a rookie driver

Two-time Indy 500 champion Juan Pablo Montoya led 167 of 200 laps en route to his 2000 victory. This is the highest scoring result ever by a rookie in the Indy 500.

Montoya's win that year was the first for a rookie since 1966. It took him 15 years to get his second win since finishing 15th on the grid in 2015. This 15-year gap between wins serves as a great reminder of just how difficult the Indy 500 must be to master.

The rider has led most Indy 500 races and is on fire next on this list!

Most races ended without a win

Rex Mays has a dubious reputation as he has led the Indy 500 nine times but failed to turn any of them into victories. Mays was undeniably quick, starting four times in the race from pole and starting from the front row seven of the 12 times he has competed in Indy.

Unfortunately, his best results came in 1940 and 1941 when he finished second in both races. Sadly, Mays died in a car accident while racing in 1949 at the age of 36.

Most wins from pole position

Rick "Rocket Rick" Mears has a record four Indy 500 wins. Equally notable, he won three of them from pole (1979, 1988, 1991). Mears is also a three-time Indycar Series Champion having won the crown in 3, 1979 and 1981.

Rick Mears is no stranger to starting in the front row. Rick Mears has 38 Indycar pole positions in his career. Today, the Indy icon works as a consultant for Penske Racing and Helio Castroneves.

Most career Indy 500 starts

Another sports legend, AJ Foyt, has a staggering statistic. Along with his four Indy 500 wins, Voith has the most career racing starts of any racer aged 35. That's right, he's raced the Indy 500 every year for 35 straight years since 1958.

Voith is also unique as a racing driver as he has raced both front and rear engined cars; his four wins are evenly split between the two configurations.

Least number of cars at the finish line

The 1966 Indy 500 race was to be one of the greatest races of all time. The field was packed with some of the world's most talented drivers including Sir Jackie Stewart, Jim Clark, Mario Andretti, Graham Hill, Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, Al Unser, AJ Foyt and Cale Yarborough.

Today, this year is sadly remembered as the year of the least number of cars at the finish line: only 7 of the 33 starters completed the full 200 laps. The accident on the first lap resulted in 11 cars being destroyed and another 15 crashed due to mechanical problems.

Lowest starting position of the winner

Three-time winner and Hall of Famer Louis Meyer started the 3 Indy 1936 in 500th place. That year he took the win, his third of 28 wins, while leading 500 laps. Meyer retired as a driver in '96 and returned to work as a mechanic and engine builder.

Together with Dale Drake, he will take over the management of the Offenhauser engine factory and together they will design and manufacture the Meyer-Drake Offy engines that will dominate Indy racing. These engines have powered every Indy 500 winner for a very long time.

Fewest pit stops

Pit stops have become part of racing and part of racing strategy. Using them to your advantage often determines who wins, who loses and who has to spend a lot of fuel to save time to get to the end of the race.

Would you believe that in the history of the Indy 500, four cars have completed an entire race without a single pit stop? Dave Evans first did it in 1931, followed by Cliff Berger in 1941, Jimmy Jackson in 1949 and Johnny Muntz in 1949.