Second Thoughts: Can David Malukas, Marcus Armstrong Get Over Indy 500 Heartbreak?

The finish of the Indianapolis 500 was barely 24 hours old, and both David Malukas and Marcus Armstrong had replayed it over and over in their minds. Armstrong had already watched a replay of the final lap several times. Malukas said he didn’t sleep, just going over what he could have done differently. At some point, they have to put it out of their heads and get back to racing. Just how hard will that be for the 24-year-old Malukas and 25-year-old Armstrong? “You dream of that every single day — that exact moment, fighting for the lead of the Indy 500 in the final lap,” Armstrong told me and other reporters Monday night. “So when you have the chance to do that and fulfill a dream, and you don’t do it, it hurts.” It certainly can’t be easy. Armstrong was the leader going into the final lap and, while admittedly not always the best place to be, he saw Malukas get past him as expected but then had the unexpected happened when he lost a battle of wills with teammate Felix Rosenqvist, whose car was strong enough on the outside that Armstrong eventually had to lift in Turn 3. Malukas, crying on national television, showed the deep disappointment of losing in the final hundred feet to Rosenqvist, who passed him just prior to the finish line to win by a margin of 0.0233 seconds, the smallest margin in Indianapolis 500 history. Can they get focused for the race this weekend in Detroit, the first of the 11 remaining races on the INDYCAR calendar? They have to try to put the, well, second thoughts behind them. Malukas sits second in the overall standings — just 37 points behind three-time defending series champion Alex Palou — in what has proven to be a great first year for him at Team Penske. “It just wasn’t meant to be,” Malukas told me and other reporters Monday night. “But either way, we’re more driven than ever to come back here. And even for the rest of the rest of the season, I mean, it’s a lot of twos, but we are P2 in the championship now, and the fight’s not over there. “Heads are high and just more driven than ever.” Neither Malukas nor Armstrong has an INDYCAR win in their careers. Armstrong is 0-for-53; Malukas 0-for-68. “I’ve watched it a lot,” Armstrong said. “I’ve watched it many times, it’s annoying because I completely followed my intuition, you know? I went early on that restart, I knew I needed to, just like [Marcus] Ericsson did in 2022. “I went early. I knew Malukas was going to get me. I saved a bit of my [hybrid boost] deployment even for that because I knew he was going to do me — and just didn’t quite have it to keep a Felix behind me.” Malukas didn’t need to watch it as much as just wonder what could have been. “I stared at the wall [Sunday night] and just thought about 8,000 different scenarios of what I could have done differently,” Malukas said. “Always thinking back, there’s so many different things I could have done. But just in that moment, you’re making these high-speed decisions. It’s always tough. “From my side, I studied so many previous races, and whoever is leading into Turn 3 normally has it down. And on that restart, I was fully committed to making the move going into Turn 1, just because our car was incredible. I knew I was going to be able to hold it going into Turn 3. I just was not expecting a run [by Rosenqvist] coming out of Turn 4.” [MALUKAS’ HEARTBREAK: ‘This Is My Live Or Die Right Here’] The winning Rosenqvist felt for both Malukas and Armstrong. “They’re big boys,” Ronseqvist told me Wednesday morning. “I talked to both of them. … At the end of the day, I think we all did what we could. There wasn’t really many regrets at the front of the field. It just kind of played out the way it played out.” That is exactly what Armstrong said about lifting in order to keep from crashing and potentially wrecking himself and Meyer Shank teammate Rosenqvist. “If I kept it full throttle, I don’t know if we would have made it through the corner,” Armstrong said. “I don’t regret it now, because I’d be standing here with a P25 [25th-place finish] or whatever, and the team obviously would have lost an Indy 500. “I did what I thought was right at that very moment, and I was just a little bit crowded. And I was also in turbulent air from Malukas. It was a no-win situation for me.”