INDIANAPOLIS -- Felix Rosenqvist thought his car was good enough to win the previous four Indianapolis 500s. On Sunday, the 34-year-old Swede finally got to celebrate with a sip of milk.
The difference: He was more focused on being a dad and felt less pressure to reach Victory Lane.
Rosenqvist responded by making a daring outside move in the closing yards, sling-shotting past leader David Malukas and across the yard of bricks by half a car length in the closest race in 500 history and capping the most memorable month of his life.
The 0.023-second victory was his second in 120 career IndyCar starts, his first on an oval, and it came 20 days after he welcomed his first child, daughter Stella.
"After we had our baby, Stella, I was like I've already won the month of May," said Rosenqvist, whose other win came in July 2020 at Road America. "But winning was the cherry on top of an incredible month."
Neither Rosenqvist's wife, Emille, nor his newborn daughter were at the track.
FELIX ROSENQVIST WINS THE CLOSEST FINISH IN INDY 500 HISTORY! pic.twitter.com/BBGobsgX3I
— INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) May 24, 2026
Rosenqvist jumped on top of his Meyer Shank Racing car, pumping his arms in the air before tasting the milk and then dumping it over his head. And why not savor it after what he has endured on this iconic 2.5-mile track?
He entered race day with five straight top-nine 500-qualifying runs but no poles. He'd also finished fourth in the race twice over the past four years, including 2025, while winding up 27th in the other two.
And it looked as if this one might be slipping away, too, when the red flag came out with seven laps to go and he got passed on the ensuing restart and again when Malukas appeared to be pulling away while Rosenqvist and teammate Marcus Armstrong were racing wheel-to-wheel on the final lap.
"I was given two options: either I lift or I crash with Felix," said Armstrong, who finished fifth. "I chose to lift. I don't know if I could have done anything different."
With Armstrong out of the way, Rosenqvist pulled up behind Malukas, swung his car to the outside and pushed it as hard as he could. The momentum -- and the tow -- sent him past Team Penske's top finisher, relegating Malukas to runner-up status for the second straight year.
Meyer Shank earned its second 500 win, and Helio Castroneves, one of four four-time 500 winners, celebrated his first as a team owner.
The victory margin was even closer than the 1992 race when Al Unser Jr. beat Scott Goodyear to the finish line by 0.043 seconds. But that was little consolation to Malukas. Even moving up to second in the points standings was little consolation to the 24-year-old American.
"I just don't know what else we could have done," a distraught Malukas said. "We were driving 150% that whole time. We had the fastest car out there, loved that whole race. It was ours to win and I knew that, so I just never pushed like that my whole life."
Malukas appeared to be in position to win with four turns left.
He beat leader Armstrong off the final restart with one lap to go and led through each of the final four corners as Rosenqvist tried to snake his way down Indy's front straightaway and moved to the outside.
This time, Rosenqvist timed it perfectly, stayed on the high driving line and didn't think twice about going for it. He's the third Swede to win the 500, joining Kenny Brack in 1999 and Marcus Ericsson in 2022.
Rosenqvist even had to hold off his best friend in racing, Pato O'Ward of Arrow McLaren. The two-time race runner-up finished fourth -- his fourth top-five finish in four years -- behind Malukas' teammate, Scott McLaughlin. Armstrong wound up fifth.
"I haven't seen a finish like that ever," Rosenqvist said. "So initially, I was like 'OK, I'm second' because this never happens, you never have enough time to get that pass. But it happened and it's just incredible."
It was a wild conclusion to a strange race day that included a handful of crashes, two red flag delays -- a 12-minute stoppage midway through the race because of rain and the 10-minute delay after Indy rookie Caio Collet slammed hard into the wall with eight laps to go.
But just as it appeared Rosenqvist and O'Ward might come up short again, they got another chance when Mick Schumacher, the son of seven-time world champ Michael Schumacher, brushed the second turn wall with 3½ laps left
That contact set up the final one-lap shootout, and this time, Rosenqvist sensed it was going to be different.
"I think somehow this was the first time I felt less [pressure] because I had so much to come home to at night, and I'm like happy," Rosenqvist said before telling reporters he had already spoken with his wife after the race. "It's actually kind of nice when taking more pressure off of yourself in a way when you think about the right stuff because we all put enough pressure on these folks. I think actually it turned out to be a good point to become a dad."
Álex Palou, the pole winner and defending Indy champ, extended his lead to 37 points after leading the most laps (59) and making the most on-track passes (60). But he settled for seventh.
Afterward, Palau was penalized five points for a technical violation found in the post-race inspection, with IndyCar saying the "non-compliance was the result of an assembly error and not an intentional modification."
