Patronise F1

Prologue - Good evening, and welcome to a very special bonus terry here on Patronise. As part of Super Bumper Racing Sunday(TM), we are tackling the Indy 500 for the first (and just possibly last) time.

Reasons why this may well be the worst Patty MBM ever -
1) I've done approximately 34 seconds of research for this race, not being an Indycar regular. I'm not even 100% sure what all the cars look like.
2) Because it is the last day of the Premier League season in the UK (Super Mega Survival Sunday), Sky Sports are heavily covering the relegation tussle, to the extent that their Indy 500 coverage starts at 6pm, which is the exact time the race is supposed to start. Hmm.
3) At some point in the next hour or so, a pizza will arrive for my highly glamorous dinner, leading to a bout of eating/typing multi-tasking.
4) I'm all alone. I think The Foot has fallen asleep, and The Elbow is busy watching his blessed Newcastle United side get tragically relegated from said Premier League. As things stand.
5) Goto 1)

17.50 BST - Never mind. I'll muddle through, as ever. If there's anyone actually reading this, go here to read Patty's "expert" preview of the race, and here for a special, Indy-themed Six of the Best.

17.55 BST - Ok. Here's something else I didn't realise. The Indy 500 gets a guest celebrity to drive the pace car at the start of the race. Celebrities. To drive the safety car. This year, it is some actor bloke called Josh Duhamel, who I've never heard of, but just look at the list of past drivers! Jay Leno! Morgan Freeman! Colin bloody Powell! Jim Caviezel! Jesus Christ himself drove the safety car! Why is this all news to me????? Who is Josh Duhamel????

Breaking soccerball news - Newcastle United have been relegated. Our thoughts are with The Elbow.

17.58 BST - Still no coverage. Dion Dublin is a lovely bloke and all, but let's sack this football lark off now, eh, Mr Sky Sports?

18.01 BST - Excellent news everyone! According to the official raceday schedule, there's a whole bunch of admin they need to get out of the way before we get going. Including an exciting-sounding "balloon spectacle". The race is scheduled to begin at the very precise time of 6.12pm BST.

18.03 BST - And we're away on Sky Sports! Keith Huewen is the presenter, and he comes across as a super-budget Jim Rosenthal. He's joined by Johnny Mowlem, who from what I can tell has never driven in Indycar, let alone the 500, and a bloke whose name I missed. We're live at the track as well, but I fear we've missed the balloons.

Here's the front bunch on the grid - 1 Helio Castroneves, 2 Ryan Briscoe, 3 Dario Franchitti, 4 Graham Rahal, 5 Scott Dixon, 6 Tony Kanaan, 7 Mario Moraes, 8 Marco Andretti, 9 Will Power, 10 Danica Patrick, 11 Alex Lloyd, 12 Raphael Matos.

I don't know who most of those people are. This was a good idea, wasn't it.

Formation lap(s) - The cars are away. We've also missed the "Gentlemen, start your engine!" call as well, so this is going spectacularly. Someone's having a baby in the pit lane, according to one of the ABC pit reporters.

Does this really take 3 and a half hours? In the words of George Oscar Bluth II, I've made a huge mistake.

Start #1 - Is flagged off, because the grid formation was garbage.

Start #2 - Is a lot better, but then there's a crash immediately. Mario Moraes and Marco Andretti collide at the exit of turn 1, after the rookie Brazilian just drove up into the famously-surnamed American. We have ourselves a caution period.

Lap 3 - Well this is fun, isn't it. Castroneves leads under caution from Franchitti, Briscoe, Dixon and Kanaan. Wronged 2002 would-be winner Paul Tracy is 9th, WILLPOWER is 7th.

Lap 5 - Some cars are pitting, topping up on fuel while we crawl around. Marco Andretti describes Moraes as "clueless". His Indy 500 lasted around 500 yards.

Moraes disagrees - He thinks the blame lies with Andretti, and is stalking down the pit lane to "have a word" with the American. Wooo! Fight, fight, fight!

Lap 7 - The Indycar live timing thing is a relentless heap of rubbish. NUMBERS EVERYWHERE! MEANINGLESS NUMBERS! We're still under caution, but are preparing to go racing again on the next lap. Which will be nice.

Lap 8 - Green green green! And Franchitti makes an immediate move to take the lead into T1! Alex Lloyd, the young Brit in the embarrassing pink car, pits to fix a rear tail light. He had been running in the top ten.

Lap 11 - Franchitti is extending a bit of a lead up front. Tracy drops to 10th as Vitor Meira steams by. The front six have got a big gap now, with WILLPOWER dropping back in 7th.

Lap 13 - Oh good, we've gone to a break. Lalalalala.

Lap 16 - Robert Doornbos (remember him?) is down in 21st place having qualified rather poorly. Justin Wilson (remember him?) is 14th, involved in a tussle with Ed Carpenter and Dan Wheldon.

Lap 20 - People moan and say that Indycar is just millions of meaningless overtaking moves, but in reality it's all rather processional at the moment. Tracy gets a bit of screentime, he's still running 10th, just ahead of ladygirl racer Danica Patrick.

Lap 22 - YELLOW! - Ryan Hunter-Reay, potential USF1 man has managed to crash down the pit lane entrance, bringing out another caution. Replays show that he drifted up into the wall, hit it, and spun down into the pit lane. Oopsie.

Lap 23 - What? The commentators just segued into an extract from Patrick's pit radio. I don't hear anything, but the commentators seem to be discussing stuff she said. Do I need to pay more to get full audio?

Lap 24 - Everyone streams into the pits as they finally open, now Hunter-Reay's car has been removed from the area. Franchitti manages to keep the lead, but Briscoe has leapfrogged Castroneves into second place.

Race order - Franchitti, Briscoe, Castroneves, Dixon, Rahal, Kanaan, Matos, WILLPOWER, Patrick, Tracy.

Lap 26 - Fantastic news, Sky Sports have lost the ABC audio, which means that Keith Huewen, Johnny Mowlam and the other bloke are having to phone in some sort of commentary over the top of the pictures. Doornbos is now up in 18th.

Lap 28 - One more lap of pace car nonsense and then we'll be racing again. The commentators are referring to everything with the prefix "GoDaddy.com". I don't know what that is, but I already hate it.

Lap 29 - GREEN! - And my pizza is here! Crisis! Franchitti keeps the lead, and Scott Dixon passes Castroneves for 3rd.

Lap 32 - WILLPOWER is down to 9th, and Tracy is flying after the restart, up to 8th from 10th and challenging Raphael Matos for 7th.

Note to Sky Sports Producers - It would make sense to schedule your ad breaks during the caution periods.

Lap 36 - The Power fights back! He gets ahead of Paul Tracy for 8th. There's a NASCAR race on later apparently. I'm not MBMing that.

Lap 40 - It's all going wrong for Tracy, as he's also passed by Patrick. "Passed by a girl! The humiliation!" the misogynist in me wants to type.

Lap 44 - EJ Viso has been in the pits and lost three laps with some sort of problem. That drops him from *mumble* to dead last. Franchitti has a 0.68s lead over Briscoe, who has a 0.75s lead over Dixon.

Lap 48 - Another break. Give me strength.

Lap 50 - A quarter of the way through. Hideki Mutoh and Vitor Meira have both got ahead of Tracy now. Race order is Franchitti, Briscoe, Dixon, Castroneves, Rahal, Kanaan, Matos, Power, Patrick and Mutoh.

Lap 51 - Woah! Doornbos has a massive slide and snags the wall. He pits to check for damage, and the engine is turned off. Doesn't look good.

Lap 53 - Lead change! Franchitti has had a bad lap and Briscoe is past! Meanwhile, Doornbos is officially out of the race. Boo.

Lap 57 - There's traffic issues for the leaders now, but Briscoe picks his way through to keep the lead. And a crash! Graham Rahal is out of the race with a crash into the wall at turn 4. Both of the Newman/Haas/Lanigan cars out in the space of three minutes. YELLOW!

Lap 58 - Back behind the pace car then. This pizza is disgusting.

Lap 61 - We've had pit stops, and the order has changed to Briscoe, Dixon, Franchitti, Kanaan, Castroneves, Matos, Patrick, Power, Wheldon and Carpenter. Justin Wilson has managed to spin in the pits, somewhat laughably.

Lap 63 - GREEN! - Briscoe is swamped by Dixon at the start! And by Franchitti! And by Tony Kanaan! And by Castroneves! And by just about everyone! What a disaster for the Aussie! And now it's all kicking off, cars banging wheels behind Briscoe as he slows right down! Crazy stuff! Have I used enough exclamation marks in this entry!!!!

Lap 65 - Briscoe pits, bereft of grip. An absolute nightmare for him. Dixon now leads from Franchitti, Kanaan, Matos, Patrick, Castroneves, Power and Wheldon. Both Penske cars got dreadful restarts.

Lap 67 - The top three are running off and hiding, already 2.9 seconds separate Dixon from 4th placed Matos, who is the leading rookie driver. But he's got Patrick all over the back of him.

Lap 69 - No idea why, but Marco Andretti is back in the race, some 60 laps in arrears. OH GOOD, AN AD BREAK.

Further note to Sky Sports Producers - Don't fill up these millions of ad breaks with endless plugs for all the other sport you've got. It's not very becoming behaviour.

Lap 74 - Dixon now leads by nearly a second. He won here last year and is looking very strong. His team mate Franchitti is behind him, while Matos continues to fall back. Castroneves still stuck in 6th and doing nothing.

Lap 76 - Some movers further back. Townsend Bell is up in 9th, Paul Tracy continues to run in the top ten, and journeyman Oriol Servia is up to 11th.

Lap 79 - Dan Wheldon has a spunky camouflage colour scheme. I like that. Dixon's pace is flattening out, and Franchitti is now right with his team mate, with Kanaan moving up as well.

Lap 81 - EJ Viso is the name of the traffic, and he makes a bit of a bodge of getting out of the way for Franchitti, allowing Dixon to extend a second or so lead. CRASH! Not any more though, Davey Hamilton (who?) has hit the wall, and we're back under caution. Same issue as for Rahal, as he got high in turn 4 and just drifted into the concrete.

Lap 83 - So, another caution period. Dixon, Franchitti, Kanaan, Matos, Castroneves, Power, Patrick, Bell, Wheldon and Tracy is the top ten.

Lap 84 - Davey Hamilton is 47 years old. That's mental.

Lap 85 - Another round of pit stops. I won't try and describe them, but the post-stop order is: Franchitti, Dixon, Kanaan, Castroneves, Matos, Power, Patrick, Wheldon, Bell, Tracy.

Lap 87 - This is all very tedious. Can the NBA playoffs get any more exciting, opines the commentator. I'm going to say yes, yes they can.

Lap 89 - They're doing the silent radio thing again! It's unnerving.

Briscoe update - He's still in the race, but down in 23rd place.

Lap 90 - GREEN! - Picture-perfect start from the Chip Ganassi Racing team mates, Franchitti leads from Dixon and Kanaan, and further back Servia gets past Tracy for 10th.

Lap 93 - WILLPOWER is all over Matos, but can't line up a pass. Dixon leads by nearly a second, Justin Wilson is now up to 12th, despite that earlier spin in the pits.

Lap 98 - Approaching the halfway point at Indy. OH! MASSIVE CRASH! Kanaan has had a horrible shunt into the outside wall. He looks ok, but there were flames coming out the back as he went rolling down the back straight. Nasty, nasty stuff.

Lap 99 - According to the replays, it looks like something broke on Kanaan's car, which pitched him into the wall, and he then carried on and hit the next wall as well. He's out of the car, he's fine, but that was all a bit horrible.

Lap 100 - Halfway point, and we're behind what will probably be a lengthy safety car here. Dixon leads from Franchitti, Castroneves, Matos, Power, Patrick, Wheldon and Bell.

Lap 101 - Lots more pitting. Dixon still leads from Franchitti, Power (who didn't take new tyres), Matos, Castroneves, Wheldon, Bell, Tracy, Carpenter and Patrick.

Lap 104 - Not sure why or how, but Oriol Servia is out of the race with some sort of mechanical gremlin. That's a big shame, he was on course for a strong result.

Lap 105 - I think Doornbos is back in the race as well, albeit a billionty laps down. The guys who compete in the regular championship are coming back out if they can in order to gain a place or two past the full-on retirements, to score a few more points in the ludicrously complicated Indycar scoring system.

Lap 108 - Kanaan says he "got beat up big time" in his accident. It was a very nasty one, and the violence of the crash was enough to give him a limp. Fuel pressure problems did it for Servia. Though he does have an excellent beard.

Lap 109 - The safety car is still out. I am so bored.

Lap 110 - GREEN! - Here we go! The Chip Ganassi cars lead away, Dixon keeping the lead, and Castroneves has nailed Matos into T1, and is looking racy behind WILLPOWER.

Lap 112 - Alex Tagliani, who didn't qualify for this race and took over another car to get in, is up from 33rd to 11th, which is impressive. Mike Conway, another of the 23 Brits in the field, is having a cracking scrap with the Canadian man, but gets forced low and loses out to Meira and John Andretti.

Lap 114 - The top two are now 1.32 seconds clear of Power, who seems to be struggling slightly. Dan Wheldon vs Raphael Matos is looking like a tasty scrap for 5th.

Lap 116 - There's some darts on Sky Sports tomorrow. We should so do a MBM on the darts. If I can do this, I can do anything. Ryan Briscoe's recovery drive is starting to gain momentum, he's up to 18th, though he's over 12 seconds off the lead.

Lap 120 - It's all quite quiet right now. Wilson has dropped back to 21st. By my reckoning we've got 26 cars left. I think Marco Andretti has retired for good now.

Lap 123 - Power is back on the pace now, and has gapped Castroneves behind him, but he can't quite get up with the leading pair. Best fight in the top 10 is now Townsend Bell chasing Dan Wheldon for 6th.

Lap 125 - It's Alex Lloyd's wife who was "giving birth in the pits". And I'm not lying, she's actually having contractions in the pit lane. She calmly tells an ABC reporter that they're every ten minutes. Wtf? I don't have to do a MBM on that do I?

Lap 129 - The gap from 1st to 3rd is now 2.16 seconds. This is a Brawn-esque display of dominance from Chip Ganassi Racing so far, but we've got plenty of laps left for it all to change. Bell has got past Dan Wheldon.

Lap 132 - YELLOW! - For no discernable reason.

Lap 133 - Ok, it's because backmarker Nelson Philippe brushed the wall at turn four. He's pitted to be checked over, and this caution won't last long.

Lap 134 - Another round of pit stops, and drama! Franchitti has a major problem with the fuel hose and he's dropped well back. Meanwhile, Vitor Meira has a massive fuel fire, there's extinguisher fluid all over the place, but somehow Meira, who was sitting in the middle of a fireball, is back out in the race. Blimey.

New race order - Dixon, Castroneves, Power, Tracy(!), Wheldon, Bell, Carpenter, Franchitti, Patrick and Briscoe.

Lap 139 - Ok, this isn't a short caution. This is going on forever. And it was for virtually no reason at all. Looks like Franchitti's fuel hose just wouldn't detach. Can he fight his way back through?

Lap 140 - So Dixon has lost his reargunner, and he's got the Penske pair of Castroneves and Power on his tail, with Tracy in 4th. What price a Tracy win? Matos comes back into the pits to top up, and he's dropped down to the back.

Hark! An e-mail! A man posing as Jamie Redknapp asks: "Are you regretting giving up your Sunday evening to watch these over-the-hill drivers/talentless newbies fail to find their way around a circle?". I'd say "Yes", Jamie, but that would infer that I usually have better things to do with my Sunday evenings, which would be a tragic lie.

Lap 141 - GREEN! - And Castroneves immediately jumps Dixon! Things go from bad to slightly badder for the Chip Ganassi team. Tracy gets bundled out at the restart, and he drops to 6th behind Wheldon and Bell. Franchitti has dropped to 12th as well, somehow.

Lap 144 - Castroneves has a decent gap already, but Power et al are dropping off the back of Dixon. Ryan Briscoe, recovering after his weird grip issue earlier, is now up to 8th. Mike Conway an improbable 10th, and Franchitti is still stuck in 12th, behind Alex Tagliani. Another advert break in "being a stupid advert break" shock.

Lap 149 - Entering the final quarter of this indescribably long race now. Franchitti is ahead of Tagliani, and now chasing Conway for 10th. Tracy has now dropped back to 8th, so the answer to "what price a Tracy win?" is "quite a lot, actually".

Lap 153 - Ladygirl Patrick is having a real go at passing Ed Carpenter for 6th. Townsend Bell is running 5th, which is a good effort given that this is a one-off drive for him. Still no sign of a change at the front, but Franchitti is now up to 9th, ahead of the hapless Tracy.

Lap 156 - Aussies rejoyce! Power barrells past Dixon down the start-finish straight to take 2nd. Castroneves leads from his team mate Power, Dixon, Wheldon, Bell, Patrick, Carpenter, Briscoe, Franchitti and Tracy. If I said there was another ad break, would you believe me?

Lap 158 - All the ads are the same every break as well, including an insufferable one for Lucozade. That's not a Lucozade ad, this is a Lucozade ad.

Lap 160 - YELLOW! - Justin Wilson becomes the latest man to visit the wall at turn four, precipitating ANOTHER caution period. And probably an ad break.

Lap 162 - Doornbos has also given up again, by the by. With Wilson out, we now have 22 of the 33 starters left. Everyone save Milka Duno is on the lead lap. Pit stops ahoy! The splash and dash for the cash, is how the ABC commentator describes it.

Lap 163 - Brilliant stop for Briscoe! Castroneves still leads, but the second Penske car is now 2nd, from Wheldon, Patrick, Bell, Power, Dixon, Carpenter, Franchitti and Conway. Nightmare stop for Dixon, and he's now got it all to do to make it two Indy wins in a row.

Lap 164 - The Indycar live timing updates says "There is a beer can high in turn 4". At least someone's having a good time.

Lap 166 - Ok, according the the pit radios that I can't hear, Briscoe has been short-fuelled to give him track position, so he's a bit screwed here if he has to stop again. We go GREEN! Castroneves breaks clear from Briscoe, and Wheldon has his hands full with Danica Patrick. Insert smutty line here.

Lap 169 - There are complaints about the dirtyness of the track off the racing line, which goes some way to explaining the lack of real overtaking. Dixon and Franchitti still running 7th and 8th, seeing their Indy 500 hopes vanish into the distance.

Lap 171 - It's not clear if everyone needs to stop again or not. Briscoe probably does, and has a go for the lead, but fails. 29 laps to go.

Lap 173 - YELLOW! - Oh crikey blimey. That's a horrible shunt for Vitor Meira and Raphael Matos. Meira in particular seemed to be sliding sideways along the outside barrier when we cut to it. Replay shows how horrible it was. Meira went to pass Matos and his right rear made contact with Matos's front left, Meira's car lifted up, turned into the wall and slid on it's side down tha outside of the track. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Lap 175 - That was seriously nasty. Both drivers are out of their cars. Matos seems fine, but I think Meira was more than a little shaken up by it. There's a bloke with welding gear fixing the barrier where he made contact, just to emphasise the severity of the impact.

Lap 178 - Meira was awake but "complaining of pain" as he was put into the ambulance, apparently. I'm not surprised, frankly.

Lap 179 - Briscoe pits under caution to fill up to the end. That's wrecked his chances. Castroneves, Wheldon, Patrick, Power, Bell, Dixon, Franchitti, Carpenter is the order.

Lap 181 - We're all set for a sprint finish here. 19 laps to the checkered flag, and it's still anyone's race. Once we get racing again of course.

Lap 183 - GREEN! - Castroneves controls the restart perfectly, and Wheldon has to defend from Patrick. Bell has got the drop on Power to move up to 4th. Yowch! Hideki Mutoh gets the wrong idea completely and goes across the grass on the back straight. How he kept that going in the right direction I have no idea.

Lap 185 - Castroneves is in the box seat, with a 1.55 second lead over Wheldon. Dixon and Franchitti still 6th and 7th, stuck behind WILLPOWER.

Lap 187 - Briscoe is down to 15th, Lloyd is 13th, Conway has dropped back to 18th. We've got 20 cars left and 13 laps to go. Wooooo.

Lap 189 - Meira has gone off to hospital with back pain. Not good news. Meanwhile, Castroneves is 1.37 seconds clear. Surely he's got this sewn up?

Lap 192 - No passing anywhere in the top ten. Wheldon doesn't look to have the pace to get up with the leader.

Lap 194 - This has actually become quite boring. Should he win, this would be Castroneves's 3rd Indy 500 win.

Lap 195 - "Hollywood could not write this script" the ABC man says, in reference to the fact that a month ago, Castroneves was in court on tax evasion charges. I don't know, has he seen Driven?

Lap 197 - Three to go. The lead is up to 2 seconds. This has been a crushing performance judged to perfection.

Lap 199 - The white flag comes out! A few laps after Dan Wheldon waved his own version of it. Castroneves is 2.5 miles away from a glass of milk!

Finish - Helio Castroneves wins the 93rd Indianapolis 500! A joyous cheer from the crowd, America fell in love with Helio after he won the fifth series of Dancing With The Stars. No, I'm not making that up. Wheldon finishes second, from Patrick, Bell, Power, Dixon, Franchitti, Carpenter, Tracy, Mutoh, Tagliani and Tomas Scheckter. Lloyd was 13th, Briscoe 15th and Mike Conway 18th.

21.35 BST - They also love him because his trademark celebration is to climb up the catchfencing at the side of the track. Despite the best efforts of some overly stuffy track officials, Castroneves duly scurrys up the barrier and punches the air. Lovely stuff.

21.40 BST - Helio is bawling like a baby as he enters Victory Lane. He gets a massive garland for his efforts, AND THERE'S THE BOTTLE OF MILK! It looks, frankly, crap. I'm sure it's just one of those cartons you can buy for 49p down your corner shop. I was expecting it to be solid gold or something.

"You guys kept me so strong!" - Is his message to the fans. I assume. As post-race interviews go, this is just really really awkward. Roger Penske is there, and props to him, as this is his 15th Indy win as a team owner. Congratulations as well to Danica Patrick, who becomes the first ever woman to make the Indy 500 podium. Not that they really have a podium.

Epilogue - So that was that. Patty's epic Super Bumper Racing Sunday is at an end. It's been a rollercoaster ride of racing, crashes and horrific pizza. Hope you've enjoyed our random prattling, and thank you Mr E-mail man. That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Though that may have been the pizza. Anyhoo, we'll have all the usual reaction and fun from this weekend up over the next few days, and we'll be back with more live stuff in two weeks time for the Turkish Grand Prix weekend. Until then, farewell.