You have to survive to win the Indy 500 and part of that is looking after the engine. The Chevy drivers called it - they said any Honda pushing the limit will have reliability issues. Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alonso led 28 and 27 laps respectively. Alonso noted engine strangeness mid race and the team was aware of it. Chilton led the charge for about 50 laps but many laps were under yellow caution. Sato only led briefly until the last 5 laps spending most of his time in 3rd~7th or behind Alonso. Alonso on the other hand was leading early and mid race while making overtakes on the outside. Leading for that many laps without a tow and averaging near fastest speed leads me to believe his strategy wasn't quite right. It seemed Alonso was the hare trying to win the race early on, concentrating on being competitive when he might have wanted to have been conservative. Ed Jones and Sato appeared to have saved their engines for the last sprint. Relying on the tow for much of the race, the Honda engines that didn't spend too much time leading had enough left to finish the race. Chilton did a remarkable job leading for as much as he did though he faded towards the end but managed to bring it home 4th. Alonso was definitely a rookie and while he did qualify 5th I thought Sato had a better chance due to experience and having qualified 4th. Also after having read a recent interview of Sato I actually felt he was going to win because of some strange irony such that I even told my wife to watch for Sato. She later told me I had called it!
While I'm sure it was disappointing for McLaren I'm definitely glad it was a Honda that won and that Sato finally came through. He drove a poised and measured race and judging by how much the crowd cheered Sato it certainly felt he deserved that win that got away.
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