Quote:
Originally Posted by greglepore
Mario had 2, but had the car give up on him after he had dominated the entire race..
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Which means he had ONE. Almost only works for horseshoes, hand grenades, and atom bombs. Goodyear lost two 500s by a combined six-tenths of a second, but close doesn’t count when it comes to the Borg-Warner Trophy. Hildebrand led the Indy in his rookie year and crashed in turn 4 of the last stinking lap. He is not remembered for winning but for ending up as 1st loser. PT (the Chrome Horn) got a raw deal due to a yellow flag and didn't his face on the trophy in 2002 (full disclosure: I am a PT fan).
Quote:
Originally Posted by javadog
You might want to rethink that. Mario and Michael should each have won the race as many times as Mears, had their cars not failed so often from minor mechanical failures. Mario had more than a dozen mechanical failures and led the most laps of a race without winning many times. I can think of three races where his car crapped out on him while he was leading the race.
Michael has completed the most laps and led the most laps of any driver that has never won the event. He's only had one non-finish due to a brush with a wall, all of his other DNF's were mechanical. Some of his mechanical failures occurred while he had a big lead late in a race.
Don't forget, Andretti's team won last years race, with a rookie in the car.
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Anyone can thrash a car to get out front. Part of the skill in the 500 is saving your car so that you can be there at the end. There are some drivers who virtually never have a DNF. They don't put themselves in bad situations and know how to take care of the car. Bobby Rahal won a title that way (full disclosure I was a huge Bobby Rahal fan).
Both Mario and Michael had a driving style and philosophy of win or crash but don't come in 2nd. At best, you can say they are lousy engineers who build cars that aren't up to the task of 500 miles and if that is the case Alonso won't have a chance.
The Rossi win is an example of smart strategy. They played the mileage game and won. It wasn't pretty crossing the bricks at 179 mph but they don't ask how pretty just how many.