INDYCAR: Day-after disqualification hands Callum Ilott the Indianapolis 500 last-place finish
by William Soquet, LASTCAR.info Staff Writer
PHOTO: Penske Entertainment
Callum Ilott finished last for the 3rd time in his NTT IndyCar Series career in Sunday’s 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway when his #90 Idra Chevrolet was disqualified from the race after completing all 200 laps.
The finish came in Ilott’s 40th series start and was his first since Detroit in 2023, 33 races ago. Across NTT IndyCar Series history, it was the first for the #90, the 120th for Chevrolet, and the third for a disqualification.
Ilott’s career arc has taken a wild ride since his early exit from Detroit two years ago. He continued to be an ace for Juncos Hollinger Racing in 2023, often pushing the #77 into the early teens and capping the season off with a fifth-place finish at Laguna Seca. However, a racing incident with teammate Agustin Canapino that day led to a social media firestorm, one of many that unfortunately defined Canapino’s career in IndyCar. This was not helped by team owner Ricardo Juncos noting after the race that he was “bitter” about Ilott’s aggressive overtaking, a somewhat rich comment from the owner of one of IndyCar’s lowest-performing teams. Although team and driver appeared to be headed towards a contract option pickup before the season finale, they were on shaky ground following. Ultimately, in late October, the team announced that it had mutually parted ways with Ilott.
That late October release from JHR was not good for Ilott’s IndyCar prospects for the following season. The only rides left were two seats at Dale Coyne Racing and potentially a seat at A.J. Foyt Racing. Instead, he looked to the world of sports cars. He found a home with Jota Sport, a team partially owned by NFL champion Tom Brady, to compete in the World Endurance Championship in 2024. The season started with a runner-up finish in Qatar alongside co-drivers Norman Nato and Will Stevens. However, that very same week, IndyCar came calling again. David Malukas was unable to drive the #6 Arrow McLaren machine after an offseason mountain bike crash, and the team enlisted Ilott as what was supposed to be a temporary fill-in. He finished 11th at St. Petersburg, a fine effort for a fill-in driver. As Malukas’ injury continued to preclude him from driving, Ilott also drove for Arrow McLaren at Thermal Club and the Indianapolis 500, running well in the big race and notching another 11th-place result. Ultimately, the #6 cycled through several drivers in 2024 as Ilott returned to sports car racing. That was a good choice, as the team won at Spa-Francorchamps and finished seventh in the WEC hypercar standings.
Italian junior formula team Prema announced its intent to enter IndyCar in April 2024, and Ilott was immediately a natural candidate for the ride. He had previously driven for the outfit in Formula 3, finishing fourth in that championship in 2017. In September, he was announced as the team’s first driver. He was eventually paired with Formula 2 standout Robert Shwartzman, who had previously tested an IndyCar for Chip Ganassi Racing. After making only two points-paying starts in 2024, the signing with Prema marked a return to full-time competition.
Early returns on the Ilott-Prema pairing have been indicative of a rookie team in the series and a driver who is somewhere between rookie and veteran. A 19th in a carnage-filled St. Petersburg event was the team’s best result across the first five races of the season, while teammate Shwartzman did not fare any better.
With IndyCar’s charter system essentially killing off any one-off entries for random races throughout the season, the influx of one-off entries for the Indianapolis 500 became even more special this season. Seven one-off entries joined the 27 full-time cars for a total of 34 entries. Among the one-offs were:
- #06 Meyer Shank Racing: Helio Castroneves. MSR’s minority owner was back for another crack at winning a fifth Indy 500, which would crown him as the only driver with that many wins in the race.
- #17 Arrow McLaren with Hendrick: Kyle Larson. Arguably the most versatile driver in the world, Larson was back for the second half of a two-year agreement to run The Double. This year, however, Hendrick Motorsports made it clear that when push came to shove, Larson would be in Charlotte for everything that mattered.
- #23 Dreyer and Reinbold Racing: Ryan Hunter-Reay. RHR returned to DRR for a second 500-only program, filling the flagship entry at the only consistent Indy 500-only team. Now 44 years old, Captain America’s age did not draw as much attention as Castroneves or Sato, but his experience eventually brought him to the lead on race day.
- #24 Dreyer and Reinbold Racing: Jack Harvey. Shuffled out of Dale Coyne Racing after a tumultuous 2024 season, Harvey shuffled into a new FOX Sports talent rotation as a pit reporter and brought funding from longtime partner INVST to make the opportunity happen.
- #75 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing: Takuma Sato. Perennially a threat at Indy, Sato took his “no attack, no chance” motto to heart during the open test, crashing a car that was high up on the speed charts, then continuing to race despite breaking a rib in that wreck. He remains a bright spot for RLL at Indianapolis.
- #98 Andretti Global: Marco Andretti. In a similar category as Castroneves, RHR, and Sato, Andretti completed a successful full-time career in IndyCar and now sticks to the 500, attempting to finally take the checkered after coming so very close in 2006.
All 34 entries cycled through four days of practice before qualifying. On Fast Friday, Kyffin Simpson, the Indianapolis Grand Prix last-place finisher, was last on the charts, crashing on his first at-speed lap. Of cars who made a full lap, Larson was last. Right above him were Harvey (32nd), Nolan Siegel (31st), and Devlin DeFrancesco (30th), potentially signaling trouble for those cars the following day. Ilott was 18th in the order, showing enough speed to avoid serious talks of being bumped to the Last Row Shootout.
On Saturday, the Top 30 entries locked themselves into the show. The four relegated cars were Andretti, Marcus Armstrong (who crashed during Saturday morning practice), and both Dale Coyne Racing cars – Rinus VeeKay and Jacob Abel. Ilott was 23rd on Saturday – enough to get him in to the event safely, but not quite the sixth-place pace of teammate Shwartzman. Sunday’s frantic hour to set the back row yielded a Row 11 lineup of Andretti in 31st, Armstrong in 32nd, and VeeKay in 33rd. Abel, driving a car adorned with a Miller High Life livery intended as a Danny Sullivan throwback, was denied a spot in the starting field in his first attempt. Shwartzman continued his Cinderella run to the front, scoring pole after a wild prophecy from Josef Newgarden, who took a break from jogging while qualifying was going on to join IndyCar Radio and share his pick for pole.
The first last-place switch on race week came only the day after time trials wrapped up. After disqualifying the cars of Newgarden and Will Power from pole qualifying on Sunday, the series found that the modified rear attenuators on those cars were such an egregious violation that the #2 and #12 would be moved to the end of the starting lineup for the race. The damage for Team Penske didn’t stop there, as on Wednesday, Roger Penske fired team president Tim Cindric, managing director Ron Ruzewski and general manager Kyle Moyer.
Intermittent showers on race morning threatened another last-place change before the drop of the green. The race was delayed seemingly minute-by-minute as the track teetered on the edge of being lost. Should the race not start before a certain time, Kyle Larson would forfeit the race and Tony Kanaan would step in the car, albeit from the back of the field. That, however, did not happen, as the command to fire engines was given roughly 40 minutes after the scheduled time.
On the pace laps, disaster struck. Scott McLaughlin, the only Penske car to not start at the back of the field, lost control while warming up his tires heading into Turn 1 on the final pace lap. His #3 Pennzoil machine made heavy front-end contact with the inside fronstretch wall, ending his race before it began and causing the first few laps of the race to be run under yellow conditions. He was visibly emotional inside and outside the cockpit after the crash, as well as in several media interviews.
Andretti followed McLaughlin to the infield care center after only a few more laps. In the first corner of green-flag action, the pair of DRR cars pushed four-wide into Turn 1, and Harvey made contact with Andretti, who was running by the wall. Andretti lost control of the car and spun, was tagged by Armstrong mid-corner, and crashed into the outside wall with the back of his car. However, he was credited with four completed laps.
Mechanical retirements also played a role in determining what looked to be the Bottom Five. Alexander Rossi’s car succumbed to a fire in pit lane after 73 laps, and a brake lockup led to a pit road crash that ended VeeKay’s race 81 laps in. Shwartzman originally rounded out the Bottom Five, with brake issues to blame for his early exit as well - his resulting in a frightening collision with four members of his pit crew.
The day after the race, news broke that second-place finisher Marcus Ericsson, sixth-place finisher Kyle Kirkwood and Ilott, who worked his way through the field and finished twelfth, were disqualified. As was the case with the 2024 St. Petersburg disqualifications, the disqualified cars were classified in the final results based on their original finishing order in the race, leaving Ilott last of the three and last in the race.
Andretti’s penalties came from illegally modified suspension covers, but Prema’s penalty was for a left front wing that was out of height compliance. Piers Phillips, Prema’s IndyCar CEO, told RACER that the inspection failure was likely due to contact with Pato O’Ward early in the race and a crew member that stood on the wing end plate during a pit stop. Additionally, the team accepted the penalty with no plans to appeal.
LASTCAR STATISTICS
*Ilott is the first driver to finish last via disqualification since Scott McLaughlin was disqualified for illegal push-to-pass usage after St. Petersburg in 2024.
*Across his three last-place finishes, Ilott has finished last at each track type (road, street, and oval) exactly once.
*Ilott’s 200 laps completed are the most ever for an IndyCar Series last-place finisher (1996 to present). The previous recordholder was Sage Karam, who completed 193 laps before crashing out at Iowa in 2019.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
33) #90-Callum Ilott / 200 laps / disqualified
32) #27-Kyle Kirkwood / 200 laps / disqualified
31) #28-Marcus Ericsson / 200 laps / disqualified
30) #3-Scott McLaughlin / 0 laps / crash
29) #98-Marco Andretti / 4 laps / crash
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES OWNERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Team Penske (2)
2nd) Chip Ganassi Racing, Dale Coyne Racing, Prema Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (1)
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES MANUFACTURERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet, Honda (3)
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP
