Indianapolis 500: Pagenaud sweeps the month of May with Indy 500 win

Simon Pagenaud has won his first Indianapolis 500 after a close fight with Alexander Rossi in the final laps.

Pagenaud held off the 2016 winner after the swapped positions for a number of laps, overtaking each other at the first corner following a late restart.

Pagenaud made the final overtake stick with one and a half laps to go, getting around Rossi at Turn 3, and staying ahead to take the chequered flag.

It marks the second consecutive win for the Frenchman, as he took victory at the IndyCar Grand Prix two weeks ago for Team Penske.

With double points on offer for the 500 win, Pagenaud leaps to the top of the championship standings. Rossi crossed the line two-tenths of a second behind the Frenchman, while Takuma Sato was third - both he and Rossi were chasing their second 500 win.

Josef Newgarden was fourth and struggled with his car throughout the race. At each pit stop, he made front wing adjustments to improve the balance of his car.

The third Penske car of Will Power was fifth, despite having to take one of the restarts from the back of the field after he hit one of his crew members while serving his pit stop.

The first yellow of the day was thrown out when Colton Herta retired with a gearbox issue on the fifth lap.

Kyle Kaiser was the first to become a victim to the walls, as he spun and suffered terminal damage to his Juncos car, ending the fairytale story after he bumped Fernando Alonso from qualifying.

Marcus Ericsson also caused a yellow after he spun when entering the pits, damaging his front wing.

The final caution, which saw the red flag deployed, was brought out when Sebastian Bourdais and Graham Rahal came together at Turn 3, with Felix Rosenqvist, Zach Veach and Charlie Kimball also getting caught up.

The resulting restart saw the close battle between Pagenaud and Rossi, with Pagenaud coming out on top and giving Roger Penske his 18th Indy 500 win.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1.	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	2:50.39.2797	-
2.	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	2:50.39.4883	+0.2086
3.	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	2:50.39.6210	+0.3413
4.	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	2:50.40.1776	+0.8979
5.	Will Power	Team Penske	2:50.40.8970	+1.6173
6.	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	2:50.41.2587	+1.9790
7.	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	2:50.42.0852	+2.8055
8.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	2:50.43.2995	+4.0198
9.	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	2:50.44.0505	+4.7708
10.	Conor Daly	Andretti Autosport	2:50.44.6256	+5.3459
11.	James Hinchcliffe	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	2:50.44.7618	+5.4821
12	James Davison	Dale Coyne Racing with Byrd and Belardi	2:50.45.5047	+6.2250
13.	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	2:50.46.8297	+7.5500
14.	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	2:50.47.8363	+8.5566
15.	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	2:50.49.6950	+10.4153
16.	Pippa Mann	Clauson-Marshall Racing	2:50.52.2600	+12.9803
17	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	2:50.54.0392	+14.7595
18.	Helio Castroneves	Team Penske	2:50.49.0031	+1 Lap
19.	Sage Karam	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	2:50.51.5697	+1 Lap
20.	J.R. Hildebrand	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	2:50.51.9110	+1 Lap
21.	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM	2:50.55.1235	+1 Lap
22.	Oriol Servia	Team Stange Racing with Arrow Schmidt Peterson	2:50.55.5954	+1 Lap
23.	Marcus Ericsson	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	2:50.56.0464	+2 Laps
24.	Jordan King	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	2:50.56.2725	+2 Laps
25.	Charlie Kimball	Carlin	2:51.01.0337	+4 Laps
26.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta Autosport with Marco & Curb-Agajani	2:51.05.2004	+5 Laps
27.	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	2:21.00.8224	+24 Laps
28	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	2:21.02.8734	+24 Laps
29.	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	2:21.03.1752	+24 Laps
30.	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan	2:21.30.4575	+24 Laps
31.	Kyle Kaiser	Juncos Racing	54:33.5858	+129 Laps
32.	Ben Hanley	DragonSpeed	45:30.1160	+146 Laps
33.	Colton Herta	Harding Steinbrenner Racing	00:05.2074	+197 Laps