Although the two were tangled in a tussle for the top spot over the final of laps, O'Ward held off making multiple runs for the lead until jumping to the outside of Newgarden’s No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet heading to the white flag and snatching the top spot entering Turn 1.
However, there wasn’t enough in O’Ward’s No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet to fend off the return challenge of Newgarden, who delivered his own monstrous outside pass to reclaim the lead in Turn 3 en route to claiming his second consecutive win in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”
For O’Ward, the result marks his second runner-up finish over his last three Indy 500 starts, having also finished on the wrong end of a last-lap wheel-to-wheel battle with Marcus Ericsson in 2022.
When the 25-year-old Mexican pulled into his pit stall, he was left with watching the celebrations from afar with tears in his eyes.
“It was just such a stressful race,” O’Ward said. “We were up and down, up and down. The car definitely wasn't the easiest to drive at certain moments.
“I just tried to keep pace as much of the race as I could. I feel like I did. Really prepared to open the doors to ultimately have a chance to win at the end of this, and yeah, it's just heartbreaking. Two corners short.
“I'm glad that we finished the race. Congratulations to Josef, two in a row. But yeah, I put that car in certain points where I didn't know if I was going to come out the other end and in one piece because I just want to win this race so freaking bad. It owes me nothing, so every time we come back, there's always a smile on my face to have another opportunity.”
O’Ward, who admitted he had battled the flu throughout the week and had a fever a majority of the week, led 12 laps but lamented not getting one more.
“It's been a tough month,” said O’Ward, who started eighth. “So much goes into this race. I think I'm somebody that wears my heart on my sleeve. I don't really hide anything.
“It's just when you've come so close and it just doesn't seem to -- you just can't seem to get it right, it's just a lot of emotion.”
In reflection, O’Ward wasn’t sure anything could have been done differently on the last lap.
“No, I don't think you can control that,” O’Ward said. “I think in a way I've cracked a code and I know how to position myself to win this race. I know I can win this race, and I know that I know how to also protect a good result when maybe the win isn't in the cards for me.
“But yeah, just in a race like that where it was a constant emotional roller coaster where things -- things that weren't going perfectly smooth, they really weren't, but I think the team did a fantastic job, gave me an opportunity and called a really good strategy to then get ourselves back to the front and made a very strong overcut which ultimately put us into contention there in the end.
“And then just trying to get into the top two cars the last few laps, it’s so hard to do with these cars. You're just stuck there, and you have to risk so much.
“I think on both fronts, on Scott (Dixon) and Alex (Rossi), I was like probably higher probability of shunting the car than getting back in one piece. But that's what you have to do, I guess. Today we're second.”
