2015 ABC Supply 500

2015 ABC Supply 500

Race details
15th round of the 2015 IndyCar Series season
Date	August 23, 2015
Official name	ABC Supply 500
Location	Pocono Raceway, Long Pond, Pennsylvania
Course	Permanent racing facility 2.500 mi / 4.023 km
Distance	200 laps 500.000 mi / 804.67 km
Weather	Temperatures reaching up to 81 °F (27 °C); wind speeds approaching speeds of 8.06 miles per hour (12.97 km/h)[1]
Pole position
Driver	Hélio Castroneves (Team Penske)
Time	1:21.6217 (2-lap)
Fastest lap
Driver	Juan Pablo Montoya (Team Penske)
Time	40.9927 (on lap 125 of 200)
Podium
First	Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosport)
Second	Josef Newgarden (CFH Racing)
Third	Juan Pablo Montoya (Team Penske)

The 2015 ABC Supply 500 was an IndyCar Series event that was contested at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania, USA. The race served as the penultimate race of the 2015 IndyCar Series season, and was the third and final leg of the season's Fuzzy's Ultra Premium Vodka IndyCar Triple Crown.

The race was won by Ryan Hunter-Reay driving the No. 28 DHL Dallara-Honda for Andretti Autosport. It was marred, however, by an incident involving Sage Karam and Justin Wilson twenty laps from the finish that resulted in Wilson suffering a serious head injury – having been hit by the nose cone from Karam's car – which proved to be fatal.

Background

The race was run on Sunday, August 23, 2015. The scheduled distance was 500 miles (800 kilometres), which required 200 laps around the triangular oval 2.5 miles (4.0 kilometres) in length.

Recap

The pole position was won by Hélio Castroneves of Team Penske, driving the No. 3 car. Penske Chevrolets qualified in the first three positions, with Castroneves' teammate Simon Pagenaud starting alongside him in the No. 22 and defending series champion Will Power behind him in position three.

Karam, driving a Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing, qualified sixth, with Hunter-Reay seventh and Wilson eighth. Overall, twenty-four drivers qualified for the race.

Castroneves would eventually crash out of the event, finishing sixteenth. Wilson was scored in fifteenth, with Karam one position in front of him. The highest finishing of the Penske cars was the No. 2 of series points leader Juan Pablo Montoya, as he finished in third to receive a spot on the podium. Josef Newgarden, driving the No. 67 Chevrolet for CFH Racing, took the other position on the podium by way of his second-place finish and finished with a race-high 47 laps led. He was followed by Gabby Chaves, who led 31 laps in the No. 98 Honda for Bryan Herta Autosport, and Pagenaud, who led 30 laps. Hunter-Reay, Castroneves, and Tony Kanaan each led more than 20 laps.

There were 12 caution periods for 74 laps, and the race ended under the yellow flag. Eleven cars were running at the finish, with each being on the lead lap except for Pippa Mann, whose No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda was running in thirteenth place fifteen laps down.

Broadcasting

NBCSN and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network provided coverage of the event on television and radio respectively. Leigh Diffey called the race on television with Steve Matchett and Paul Tracy providing analysis. Matchett – Diffey's colleague from NBCSN's coverage of Formula One – was substituting for Townsend Bell, whose commitments to his United SportsCar Championship team took him to Virginia International Raceway that day where he finished first in his classification at the Oak Tree Grand Prix.

Paul Page headed the IMS booth with analyst Davey Hamilton, with Mark Jaynes and Jeff Query reporting from the track.

Fatal accident

On lap 180 of the event, Karam was leading when he lost control of his car in turn one and made contact with the wall. The impact tore away most of the front end of Karam's car and he slid to a stop just past the exit to Turn 1. The nose cone off the Chevrolet came off with such force that it was bouncing along on the track as the drivers drove past. When Wilson, running fourteenth, drove by the scene, Karam's nose cone struck him in the head and knocked him unconscious. The No. 25 Honda lost control and veered off track, hitting the inner wall just past Turn 1 and continuing to slide up the track.

Karam, though shaken up, was able to exit his car with no major injuries. Wilson, however, was unresponsive when the track safety crew arrived at his machine and he had to be extricated from the car. A medivac helicopter was called for and transported Wilson to Lehigh Valley Hospital in nearby Allentown. He was reported to be in a coma with a severe head injury and was listed in critical condition. At approximately 21:00 local time on August 24, 2015, a press conference at Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced that Wilson had died from his injuries at the age of 37.^[2][3][4]

Wilson was the first IndyCar driver to lose his life since Dan Wheldon's fatal accident at the 2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championship in Las Vegas. His death was the second such occurrence in the world of open-wheel racing in 2015, following the death of Marussia F1 driver Jules Bianchi nine months after suffering a diffuse axonal injury in a crash at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix.

Results

Qualifying

Pos	No.	Name	Time	Gap
1	3	Hélio Castroneves	1:21.6217	—
2	22	Simon Pagenaud	1:21.6382	+ 0.0165
3	1	Will Power	1:21.6704	+ 0.0487
4	67	Josef Newgarden	1:21.7659	+ 0.1442
5	15	Graham Rahal	1:21.7743	+ 0.1526
6	26	Carlos Muñoz	1:21.8809	+ 0.2592
7	25	Justin Wilson	1:21.9356	+ 0.3139
8	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	1:21.9402	+ 0.3185
9	14	Takuma Sato	1:21.9755	+ 0.3538
10	11	Sébastien Bourdais	1:21.9968	+ 0.3751
11	9	Scott Dixon	1:22.2035	+ 0.5818
12	10	Tony Kanaan	1:22.2610	+ 0.6393
13	19	Tristan Vautier	1:22.3435	+ 0.7218
14	41	Jack Hawksworth	1:22.4437	+ 0.8220
15	7	James Jakes	1:22.4757	+ 0.8540
16	98	Gabby Chaves	1:22.5111	+ 0.8894
17	18	Pippa Mann	1:22.8075	+ 1.1858
18	5	Ryan Briscoe	1:22.8571	+ 1.2354
19	2	Juan Pablo Montoya	1:22.8751	+ 1.2534
20	8	Sage Karam	1:23.1791	+ 1.5574
21	20	Ed Carpenter	1:23.2120	+ 1.5903
22	27	Marco Andretti	1:23.6816	+ 2.0599
23	83	Charlie Kimball	No time	—
24	4	Stefano Coletti	No time	—
Qualifications

Race

Pos	No.	Driver	Team	Engine	Laps	Time/Retired	Pit Stops	Grid	Laps Led	Pts.
1	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	Honda	200	3:25:08.1095	6	8	29	51
2	67	Josef Newgarden	CFH Racing	Chevrolet	200	+0.3157	8	4	47	43
3	2	Juan Pablo Montoya W	Team Penske	Chevrolet	200	+0.5696	7	19		35
4	1	Will Power	Team Penske	Chevrolet	200	+1.4707	10	3	2	33
5	26	Carlos Muñoz	Andretti Autosport	Honda	200	+2.0003	8	6		30
6	14	Takuma Sato	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	Honda	200	+3.5167	11	9	3	29
7	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	Chevrolet	200	+4.5025	7	2	30	27
8	5	Ryan Briscoe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	Honda	200	+4.7997	7	18	3	25
9	9	Scott Dixon W	Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet	200	+5.6857	8	11		22
10	7	James Jakes	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	Honda	200	+6.2994	10	15		20
11	98	Gabby Chaves R	Bryan Herta Autosport	Honda	197	Mechanical	5	16	31	20
12	83	Charlie Kimball	Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet	193	Mechanical	13	23	1	19
13	18	Pippa Mann	Dale Coyne Racing	Honda	185	+15 Laps	12	17		17
14	8	Sage Karam R	Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet	179	Contact	6	20	7	17
15	25	Justin Wilson	Andretti Autosport	Honda	179	Contact (Fatal)	8	7	2	16
16	3	Hélio Castroneves	Team Penske	Chevrolet	166	Contact	7	1	24	16
17	20	Ed Carpenter	CFH Racing	Chevrolet	156	Mechanical	7	21		13
18	27	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	Honda	138	Contact	5	22		12
19	10	Tony Kanaan	Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet	131	Contact	4	12	21	12
20	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda	92	Contact	3	5		10
21	19	Tristan Vautier	Dale Coyne Racing	Honda	92	Contact	6	13		9
22	41	Jack Hawksworth	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	Honda	82	Mechanical	4	14		8
23	11	Sébastien Bourdais	KV Racing Technology	Chevrolet	36	Contact	1	10		7
24	4	Stefano Coletti R	KV Racing Technology	Chevrolet	19	Mechanical		24		6
OFFICIAL BOX SCORE

Key	Meaning
R	Rookie
W	Past winner

References

1. "Weather History for Long Pond, PA – August 23, 2015". Old Farmer's Almanac. Yankee Publishing, Inc. August 23, 2015. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
2. "Justin Wilson airlifted to hospital during Pocono race". ESPN. August 23, 2015. Retrieved August 23, 2015.
3. Olson, Jeff (August 23, 2015). "IndyCar driver Justin Wilson in a coma after Pocono crash". USA Today. Retrieved August 23, 2015.
4. "IndyCar Driver Justin Wilson Has Died of a Head Injury". ABC News. August 24, 2015. Retrieved August 24, 2015.