During the qualifying race for the Indianapolis 500, Ryan Hunter-Reay only managed to be the 19^th fastest among the 33 candidates. But on Sunday, he won his first Indy 500 after a nerve-wracking fight with Helio Castroneves.

Hunter-Reay is the first American racer to win the Indy 500 since Sam Hornish Jr's victory over Marco Andretti in 2006. The Florida native also nabbed the second-closest finish in the history of the 100-year-old race, according to Los Angeles Times.

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The American driver defeated Castroneves with just a margin of 0.060 if a second. The record fir the closest finish is held by Al Unser Jr who defeated Scott Goodyear with a margin of 0.043 of a second in 1992.

Marco Andretti and Carlos Muñoz, both teammates of the new champion at the Andretti Autosport team, took the third and fourth places, respectively.

The fifth rank was filled in with Juan Pablo Montoya. NASCAR driver Kurt Busch took the sixth place with his Andretti Autosport car.

All throughout the day, Hunter-Reay maintained one of the strongest cars, leading 56 out of the 200 laps in the event. A daring move, which involved cutting in a bit of infield grass, helped him maintain his lead in the last two laps and zoom past Castroneves.

According to team owner Michael Andretti, that move complete took Helio by surprise.

When Townsend Bell crashed in to the Turn 2 wall in the last 10 laps, a final restart was set up. Officials used a red flag to pause the race while the wall was repaired and the dented car was cleaned up.

A few laps before that, Bell had narrowly avoided another big crash during a tug for the second place with Ed Carpenter and James Hinchcliffe. The latter two had collided and crashed into the well as the three of them were going through Turn 1.

Other competitors also experienced different problems. Scott Dixon, who won the Indy 500 in 2008, spun around and crashed on Lap 168 amidst his race for the fourth place.

Will Power, a teammate of Castroneves, was contending for the 10^th place when he received penalty for speeding on pit road. He dropped to 19^th place but later on surfaced to finish the race at eighth.

TagsRyan Hunter-Reay, Indy 500