2011 Indy 500 Revisited: Dan Wheldon Won on the Last Corner
The 2026 IndyCar season is over, so the Happy Hour Racing Monday IndyCar Recap is spending the offseason pulling one great race out of the archive. This week: the 2011 Indianapolis 500, the race a rookie lost in the last 1,000 feet.
The Short Version
The 2011 Indy 500 was the 95th running, held May 29, 2011, and billed as the 100th anniversary of the first race at Indianapolis. Rookie JR Hildebrand led the last two laps and needed one clean corner to win it. He did not get one. He went high to clear a slower car in Turn 4, found the marbles, and hit the wall. Dan Wheldon, running second in a part-time car for a tiny team, drove past the wreck and won. Wheldon led exactly one lap all day: lap 200.
A Driver With No Ride and a Team With One Car
Wheldon came into May 2011 without a full-time seat. He had already won the 500 in 2005 and taken the series title that same year, but he started 2011 on the sidelines and ended up entering only three races all season. His Indy ride was a one-off with Bryan Herta Autosport, a small operation that had barely scraped into the 2010 race.
Team owner Bryan Herta has said Wheldon talked the team into believing before the car ever rolled out. "Right away, he just kept saying, 'Oh, we can win the race, we can do this thing,'" Herta told Motor Sport Magazine. "Over time, he transformed our team."
The No. 98 was quick immediately. Wheldon qualified sixth at 226.490 mph, four spots behind pole winner Alex Tagliani, who put the Sam Schmidt Motorsports car on top at 227.472 mph.
Chip Ganassi Racing Controlled It, Then Lost It
For most of the afternoon this looked like a Ganassi race. Scott Dixon led 73 laps, more than anybody, and defending winner Dario Franchitti led 51. Between them they led 124 of the 200 laps. Tagliani led 20 before contact with the wall ended his day on lap 148 and dropped him to 28th.
It was not a clean race. Seven cautions ate 40 laps, with crashes for Takuma Sato, EJ Viso, Jay Howard, James Hinchcliffe twice, Ryan Briscoe and Townsend Bell. But after the lap 158 caution it stayed green to the end, and that is what set up the finish. Ten drivers led, and the lead changed hands 23 times.
The Last Ten Laps Were a Fuel Gamble
When the race went back to green on lap 164, a handful of cars ducked in to top off, giving up track position for a shot at running to the finish without stopping again. Franchitti and Hildebrand were among them.
So the last ten laps came down to three drivers stretching fuel: Bertrand Baguette, Franchitti and Hildebrand. Behind them, Dixon and Wheldon had already pitted and could run flat out.
With three laps to go, Baguette gave in and pitted. Franchitti kept slowing down to save, and faded. That handed the lead to Hildebrand, a rookie in the Panther Racing No. 4, and the white flag came out with an American rookie about to win the Indianapolis 500 for the first time since Helio Castroneves in 2001.
Turn Four
Coming off the north short chute and into Turn 4, Hildebrand caught the slower car of Charlie Kimball running the inside line. He went high around him, got into the marbles above the groove, and slid into the outside wall. The car came off the fence with no steering and three wheels still turning, sliding down the front straight toward the yard of bricks.
Wheldon went by in the final 1,000 feet and won by 2.1086 seconds. Hildebrand kept sliding and took second in a wrecked car, and he was still named Rookie of the Year.
"It's a helpless feeling," Hildebrand said afterward. "I caught him in the wrong piece of track. I got up in the marbles and that was it." Asked if he would try the same move again, he said simply: "No."
Wheldon was blunt about where he stood. "I just felt a lot of relief. It's an incredible feeling. I never gave up," he said, before joking that his contract expired at midnight.
Panther Racing briefly weighed asking for a review, arguing Wheldon passed under yellow. Video showed the yellow came out after the pass, and officials ruled Hildebrand's car was a wounded car and legal to pass. The result stood.
The Numbers
That one lap led broke a record that had stood 99 years, since Joe Dawson in 1912. Wheldon also became the 18th driver to win the 500 more than once. His average of 170.265 mph made it the fourth-fastest Indianapolis 500 to that point, and the first finished in under three hours since Juan Pablo Montoya in 2000.
Why This One Still Comes Up
Wheldon died on October 16, 2011, in a crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He was 33. The Indy 500 was his last win, and one of only three races he entered that year.
Two days after his death, Dallara confirmed the new 2012 chassis would carry his initials in honor of the development work he had done testing it. That car is the DW12, and IndyCar is still racing a version of it today. The replacement, the IR-28, is not due until 2028. Every time a current car rolls out, it carries his name.
When Dan Wheldon took a picture with...Dan Wheldon 😅
- Indianapolis Motor Speedway (@IMS) August 8, 2025
@jdouglas4 shares a story from when the #Indy500 legend saw his sign on the Pagoda in 2011 in the latest episode of Behind the Bricks!
Bryan Herta Autosport got its credibility out of that afternoon too. "After you win the Indy 500, it was instant credibility," Herta said. The team won the 500 again in 2016 with Alexander Rossi.
The Bottom Line
The Indianapolis 500 does not care how long you led. Scott Dixon led 73 laps and finished fifth. Dario Franchitti led 51 and finished 12th. Dan Wheldon led one, and his face is on the Borg-Warner Trophy. That is the whole appeal of the place, and it is worth remembering while we wait out the winter. If you want to see where the series goes next, we keep the IndyCar Series schedule and standings updated all season.
Your turn: if you were spotting for JR Hildebrand on that last lap, do you tell him to lift and settle for the win behind Kimball, or do you let him go for it? Tell us in the comments.
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