He won the pole with Italian team Prema Racing, a dominant European organization that this season expanded to IndyCar. Shwartzman has never before raced on an oval and will start alongside two-time winner Takuma Sato and Pato O’Ward, who lost to Newgarden on the last lap year.

Memorial Day Weekend brings us the 109th running of “the greatest spectacle in racing” — the Indianapolis 500. The Indy 500 sold out its grandstand of 350,000 for the first time since 2016, and the decades-old local TV blackout has been lifted so locals can watch the race live.

There has been so much drama ahead of Sunday's 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 that Kyle Larson's attempt to complete the 1,100-mile NASCAR double doesn't even crack the top attention-getters. Roger Penske's credibility was tested this week and he fired the top three executives of his IndyCar team because the cars of two-time defending race winner Josef Newgarden and Will Power failed inspection.