Ryan Hunter-Reay started in the 19th position but became only the second American winner of the Indianapolis 500 in the last nine years as he held off three-time winner Helio Castroneves by the second-closest margin in race history – .0060 – to claim the victory. The finishing duel was set up 25 laps earlier when, on a yellow flag restart, pole winner Ed Carpenter was involved in a two-car crash when he went three cars wide into Turn One with Townsend Bell and Jimmy Hinchcliffe. Bell, on the outside, pinched down on Carpenter, who then had no room to maneuver as Hinchcliffe tried a questionable low pass that wound up taking both him and Carpenter – 2/3 of the starting front row – out as Bell sped away unscathed.
It was ironic then as, a mere 15 laps later, Bell spun out untouched – but causing a red flag to come out as the race officials figured they would not be able to clean up debris on the track within the number of laps left in the race. The resulting race restart with six laps remaining found Hunter-Reay and Castroneves exchanging the lead before Hunter-Reay was able to barely fend off Castroneves at the checkered flag.
2014 Indianapolis 500 Results
1 Ryan Hunter-Reay 28 Honda 200
2 Helio Castroneves 3 Chevrolet 200
3 Marco Andretti 25 Honda 200
4 Carlos Munoz 34 Honda 200
5 Juan Pablo Montoya 2 Chevrolet 200
6 Kurt Busch 26 Honda 200
7 Sebastien Bourdais 11 Chevrolet 200
8 Will Power 12 Chevrolet 200
9 Sage Karam 22 Chevrolet 200
10 JR Hildebrand 21 Chevrolet 200
11 Oriol Servia 16 Honda 200
12 Simon Pagenaud 77 Honda 200
13 Alex Tagliani 68 Honda 200
14 Jacques Villeneuve 5 Honda 200
15 Sebastian Saavedra 17 Chevrolet 200
16 James Davison 33 Chevrolet 200
17 Carlos Huertas 18 Honda 200
18 Ryan Briscoe 8 Chevrolet 200
19 Takuma Sato 14 Honda 200
20 Jack Hawksworth 98 Honda 200
21 Mikhail Aleshin 7 Honda 198
22 Justin Wilson 19 Honda 198
23 Martin Plowman 41 Honda 196
24 Pippa Mann 63 Honda 193
25 Townsend Bell 6 Honda 190
26 Tony Kanaan 10 Chevrolet 177
27 Ed Carpenter 20 Chevrolet 175
28 James Hinchcliffe 27 Honda 175
29 Scott Dixon 9 Chevrolet 167
30 Josef Newgarden 67 Honda 156
31 Charlie Kimball 83 Chevrolet 149
32 Buddy Lazier 91 Chevrolet 87
33 Graham Rahal 15 Honda 44