INDIANAPOLIS — For as long as I’ve been a racing fan, I’ve always been enamoured with the ‘Triple Crown of Motorsports.’
The Triple Crown is made up of Formula 1’s Monaco Grand Prix, the 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car race, and the Indianapolis 500. Together they are the three most iconic events in all of racing.
And after attending my first Indy 500 this past weekend, I can now say that I’ve covered all three Triple Crown events.
Comparing them is difficult. All three races are special in their own right, and I’ve adored reporting on them all. But the Indy 500 is going to hold a very special place in memory.
It’s not just because of the thrilling finish, the closest in the race’s history after a final-lap shootout, or the feel-good story of new dad Felix Rosenqvist being the winner.
It’s because this race really took me back to my racing roots. It rekindled in me the kind of excitement and novelty I felt as a child when my mom would take me to race tracks, or when I got to cover my first races as a reporter.
The Indy 500 didn’t just live up to my expectations; it blew them away.
F1 has been my main beat for well over a decade now, yet my first Triple Crown race was actually the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2017, working for a specialist website. I’d been four years earlier as a spectator, but to report on it was hugely exciting.
That was at the height of the LMP1 era, incredible — and wildly expensive — prototype sports cars that set lap records. It made for some great racing and record-setting laps, with 2017 lodged in my memory after a huge fightback from Porsche to claim its 19th (and to date most recent) Le Mans win despite more than an hour in the garage due to a problem.
A car passes under the Dunlop Bridge at sunrise during the 2017 Le Mans 24 Hour race (Dan Istitene / Getty Images)
What I loved about Le Mans was the rawness of the event. It was about the smell of the barbecues in the middle of the night and campfires around the track, the fans roaming around the paddock and getting up close with the cars. Everyone bought into traditions steeped in over a century of racing. It bred a community feel on every level, celebrating the joy of the winners and comforting the despair of defeat.
My first Monaco came the following year. It was the F1 race I’d always most enjoyed watching on TV as a kid, marveling at how close the cars would get to the barriers, the towering buildings lining the streets, and the yachts in the harbor. The ‘jewel in the crown’ status was something I’d always wanted to experience myself.
And I got it. It was very different from Le Mans, of course, given the VIP (and often VVIP)-heavy nature of the event, and there was a chance to go onto a yacht for the first time in my life. But it was what happened on the track that still left me most captivated.
Going trackside for the first time in Monaco remains among my favorite F1 memories. The chance to see just how committed the drivers were through some of the corners, and getting so close if felt like you could reach over the barrier and touch the cars, was thrilling.
It remains so to this day. I’m incredibly excited to get back to Monaco in a couple of weeks, the clash with the Indy 500 now a thing of the past. For all of the criticism the race gets because of the lack of on-track action, to me, it remains iconic. It still takes remarkable skill from the drivers to win it. It still means a lot.
You can’t get anything like Monaco anywhere else in the world. The idea of a race around the winding streets of a principality would seem ludicrous in the modern age. Nobody would come up with that kind of F1 track today, or likely ever will. I firmly believe that preserving that history is key to our sport’s future.
But when I do return to Monaco, the memories of the last five days that I have spent at Indianapolis Motor Speedway are going to be front of mind, for it has truly been one of the highlights of my racing life.
I’ll start with the on-track action itself. If you watched the race, you’ll know what a nail-biting finish it was. Even before Rosenqvist’s brave, late surge to break David Malukas’s heart, the quality of the battles, with fights going three or four cars wide at points, was astonishing.
Alexander Rossi and Alex Palou battle during the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 24, 2026. (Justin Casterline / Getty Images)
The IndyCar paddock as a whole also went out of its way to make a newcomer feel especially welcome. It was lovely to see some familiar faces from my F1 days (and even back when I covered Formula E, including the race winner!) but at no point did I feel like a stranger in a new series. There was a genuine excitement and enthusiasm that I was attending the race.
The history of the place was also impossible to ignore. The very first thing I did on Wednesday upon arriving at the track was go and touch the yard of bricks on the main straight. The enormity of the circuit was also a lot to take in, especially when the grandstands filled up on Sunday.
I got to speak with team managers, engineers and fellow reporters who proudly knew how many Indy 500s they’d attended. Johnny Rutherford, a three-time winner, topped the tally of those I spoke to, Sunday’s Indy 500 being his 65th(!). Yet even he took great glee in hearing about my experience as a ‘rookie.’
The Indy 500’s moniker as “the greatest spectacle in racing” has always sat with me as a funny one. It’s a big claim to make, especially when there are many other great events that would surely compete for that title, Monaco and Le Mans among them.
But it was on the grid ahead of the race that I was left in zero doubt: it truly is the greatest spectacle in racing.
The Purdue marching band. The driver introductions. The fly-pasts of the jets. The national anthem. Back Home Again in Indiana. All of it played into a powerful build-up to the green flag. As rammed as the grid was, busier than I’ve ever known one to be at an F1 race, there was so much anticipation and appreciation for the pageantry and tradition.
It was on the grid that I met with a familiar face: former F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo, who I’d not seen since his final grand prix in Singapore almost two years ago. He looked around, wide-eyed, at the mass of people and the noise building.
“Dude…” Ricciardo said. “This is f—ing wild.”
I then bumped into a senior IndyCar official who knew I was a first-timer and exhaled in sheer disbelief. He went to shake my hand: “Welcome to the Indianapolis 500.” I got it.
What also struck me about the Indy 500 was the level of community and accessibility. The fans brought so much noise, passion and color as they roamed Gasoline Alley and got up close to the cars and garages. I especially enjoyed all the hot dog-themed costumes and clothing for Friday’s Wienie 500, itself another highlight of my trip.
Despite the 3:45 a.m. alarm and the 18 hours spent at the circuit on race day, all I could think driving out on Sunday night was “when can I do this again?”
My hope is to be back next year, when the 500 looks poised to avoid clashing with F1 — and I’m sure I won’t be the only F1 paddock member spending their ‘off’ week in Indianapolis.
The Indy 500 gave me the kind of buzz I’d not felt before in motorsport, a new dimension to my love for racing that will only grow each time I’m lucky enough to return, much as it has in Monaco and Le Mans. There’s a reason why they make up the Triple Crown. They truly stand alone. And man… what a joy this ride remains.
