Indy 500 Entry List (10th Update)

UPDATE #11 AR1.com has confirmed that Lazier is "in" The car is assembled, etc. We heard some rumor today that Lazier might entertain another driver besides Buddy, but we didn’t run into anyone from the team to confirm.

05/14/16 INDYCAR president of competition Jay Frye says there will be 33 entries in the Indianapolis 500, and possibly 34. There are currently 32 confirmed entries, with the thirty-third expected to be Lazier Partners Racing fielding the No. 4 entry for 1996 winner Buddy Lazier. The team has moved into a garage is Gasoline Alley. The thirty-fourth could be Grace Autosport, who have noted they have much of the package needed with the exception of a car.

05/12/16 Filippi is being replaced by Chaves so it looks like Conor Daly will drive the 4th Coyne car at Indy.

05/11/16 Chaves is now confirmed at Coyne. We are now at 31 confirmed entries, still two short of a full field. So who is out at Coyne – Daly or Filippi? Coyne will only run 4 cars and 3 of his drivers are confirmed below.

05/10/16 Racer reports that the Buddy Lazier deal is all but done. Still up in the air are the two Coyne entries in addition to Clauson and Mann – Daly and Filippi. Apparently one of those deals are not going to come through and Gabby Chaves is probably going to get the ride because he has sponsorship money ready to go. Testing starts Monday.

05/07/16

Tony "I am Indy" George took his hammer to work every day until CART was destroyed. CART brought 50 to 100 entries to the Indy 500 every year. Now they can hardly get 33.

Scratch a possible Michael Shank entry in the Indy 500. It looks like we'll barely have 33 cars for this the 100th running. If the Buddy Lazier entry does not happen we are down to 32 entries.

05/02/16 Scratch Sebastian Saavedra and AFS Racing from the Indy 500 entry list below as they have pulled the plug and we hear Buddy Lazier's effort may not happen either. "It was just time. Everything started too late," Saavedra told RACER. "We had an idea of the time to do it, which was very tight, and once we got started working on it, there was a lot more to do than expected, we didn't have enough personnel, and many, many factors added up to us telling Gary we shouldn't do it."

AR1 is hearing that the rumored entry for Buddy Lazier in the 100th Running of the Indy 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil could be in trouble due to funding.

Lazier has made 18 starts in the Memorial Day Weekend classic, winning in 1996 and finishing second in 1998 and 2000. He last raced in the 500 in 2014 starting 33rd and finishing 32nd. Last year, the 48-year-old Vail, Colorado native failed to qualify.

While Lazier and Lazier Partners Racing have been rumored to make a run this year, we hear part of the hold-up is the team did not pay their Chevrolet engine lease bill from last year. If true that Lazier cannot make a 500 run work our math has the field at 33 entries.

(Editor's note: How pathetic! Whether Lazier is part of it or not, who knows. But how sad that the centennial running of what was once the greatest race in the world is struggling to even find thirty-three cars to enter the race. If Lazier is out we are down to 32 cars. The Hulman-George family and IMS should be ashamed of the self-inflicted destruction they have wrought.)

04/26/16 Stefan Wilson has been confirmed by KVSH Racing so goes to confirmed below.

04/25/16 With news today that AFS Racing will field a Chevy for Sebastian Saavedra in the Indy 500 per racer.com, the list of entries has been updated below with now 17 Chevys and 17 Hondas.

04/23/16 We already had Stefan Wilson at KVSH in a third car below. To substantiate our information from a week ago, RACER has reported the KVSH Racing team is preparing to announce the 26-year-old Brit as its third driver in next month's 100th Indy 500. The announcement could come as soon as early next week. "I can't talk about it right now," co-owner Jimmy Vasser told Racer Saturday morning at Barber. "But there's a good chance of a third car – better than 50-50." We keep him italicized for now.

04/23/16 With today's announcement that SPM has signed Servia for the Indy 500, his name in the table below becomes unitalicized. There are still 5 unconfirmed drivers listed, for this the 100th running of the Indy 500. We used to have 40, 50 or even 60 drivers entered before Tony George took his hammer to the sport.

Oriol Servia

04/23/16 We had a TBA in the entry list below for the third Schmidt Peterson car for the Indy 500. Now Sam told motorsport.com they are holding out for Oriol Servia to get the money together, with Gabby Chaves as an alternate should Servia not be able to raise enough money.

Our Indy 500 Entry List Tally (Italic = Not Confirmed yet)