He won the pole with Italian team Prema Racing, a dominant European organization that this season expanded to IndyCar. Shwartzman has never before raced on an oval and will start alongside two-time winner Takuma Sato and Pato O’Ward, who lost to Newgarden on the last lap year.

Memorial Day Weekend brings us the 109th running of “the greatest spectacle in racing” — the Indianapolis 500. The Indy 500 sold out its grandstand of 350,000 for the first time since 2016, and the decades-old local TV blackout has been lifted so locals can watch the race live.

Josef Newgarden doesn’t shy away from the question of winning an unprecedented third consecutive Indianapolis 500. In the 108-race history of the event, no driver has gone back-to-back-to-back. Both of his wins have come in dramatic fashion,