INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Pato O'Ward smiles as he walks through Gasoline Alley, seeing the Arrow McLaren No. 5 shirts.
Sure, he's popular, but O'Ward wants something more — to be called an Indianapolis 500 champion.
After three near misses in his past four races on the Brickyard's iconic 2.5-mile oval, the two-time runner-up is hoping to finally sip the milk and celebrate with all of his fans and everyone else in the grandstands at the Brickyard.
“It’s cool.
It’s obviously a big part of why we do what we do, right?” O'Ward said as he tries to become the race's first winner from Mexico. “We want to be here to entertain people, inspire people. At the end of the day it is the greatest event in the world. I might be a little bit biased. But it’s going down this Sunday.”
Few drivers have come as close as O'Ward without eventually making it to victory lane here. He finished second in 2022 and 2024, third in 2025, fourth in 2021 and sixth in 2020 as an Indy rookie. His only finish outside the top five came in 2023 when he was 24th.
This year, O'Ward thought he finally had the car to dethrone defending Indy champ Alex Palou only to see it, the one he qualified sixth, severely damaged in a crash Monday. That forced him into a backup car.
The good news: It's the same one he won twice with last season.
The bad news: Palou again is the betting favorite after taking his second Indy pole last weekend, as he tries to become the seventh back-to-back winner in race history.
That means everyone else in the 33-car field will be chasing the Spaniard with four IndyCar titles and three wins this season.
“I know I’m hungrier than ever just because I know what comes with it (the 500 win) and what it means,” the Chip Ganassi Racing driver said. “I don’t feel more or less pressure. It's not like because I won once, I need another one. It’s more the opposite. It's more like I want to go back-to-back.”
Alexander Rossi, the 2016 race winner, seemed perfectly set up to win his second race, too, when he qualified a career-best second, next to Palou on the front row. But his crash also forced the Ed Carpenter Driver into surgery for an injured middle finger and an injured right ankle Monday night and into a backup car Friday after he'd been cleared to drive. The Californian will wear a specially designed brace and a protective boot on race day.
“We're probably going to be able to keep the swelling down,” Rossi said. “Everything is ready to go, the range of motion is staying good enough to do what we need to do.”
Who else is trying to make history?
Four-time race winner Helio Castroneves is making his fifth attempt to become the first five-time winner and at age 51, the Brazilian would also be the oldest winner.
Team Penske hopes to add to its record 20 Indy wins with David Malukas, Scott McLaughlin and two-time 500 winner Josef Newgarden. Malukas qualified third, McLaughlin is ninth and Newgarden who had the fastest car on Carb Day, starts 23rd.
A victory by 2008 Indy champ Scott Dixon would be the largest gap between wins in race history.
Katherine Legge will try to become the first female and just the second driver to complete racing's “double” — 1,100 miles of racing in Indianapolis and Charlotte, North Carolina, on the same day. She'll be qualifying for the Coca-Cola 600 on Saturday before returning to Indy where she will compete for HMD Motorsports with A.J. Foyt Racing.
And Sunday's race will be the first since 1957 without an Andretti, a Foyt or an Unser on the grid.
But for O'Ward this race is about just one thing — winning.
“I don’t have any worries about (the car),” he said. “I know it’s going to behave like it’s supposed to. Like I said, it’s a very good car. I really like this car.”
Palou just keeps extending his lead. He came to Indy with a 15-point advantage over Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Global, which grew to 27 despite his fifth-place finish in the Indianapolis Grand Prix.
It could expand even more Sunday because Kirkwood is starting at No. 25. But the standings are the least of Kirkwood's concerns this weekend.
“Of course, we’re not stoked where we are starting,” the Andretti Global driver said. "We also are very confident with our cars. That 12 points, hopefully we’ll get that back in the future, but we’re not letting ourselves think about it. Monday we’ll be focused on points.”
Rossi won the 500s centennial race, but it's A.J. Foyt Enterprises driver Santino Ferrucci who will be making his 100th IndyCar start on Sunday.
Ferrucci is the first driver to post top-10 finishes in each of his first seven starts with a career-best third coming in 2023. But he's never won a race. He's starting from the No. 5 spot Sunday.
Six drivers in IndyCar history have won their 100th career start but none came at Indy.
“That would be quite the day,” Ferrucci said when asked about the possibility of becoming the first to do it. “Honestly, I think Sunday, we have a great car, we have a great crew, there’s no reason as to why we won’t be there.”
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