FOX Sports Takes the Pole for Network's First Indianapolis 500 With 60 Hours of Live Coverage Highlighted by an Impressive Lineup of Talent and Dignitaries

Will Buxton, James Hinchcliffe, Townsend Bell Lead Race Coverage; Jamie Little, Kevin Lee and Georgia Henneberry Report from the Pits, as Racer and FOX INDYCAR Reporter Jack Harvey Prepares to Compete
1997 INDYCAR SERIES Champion Tony Stewart, Former INDYCAR SERIES Racer Danica Patrick and Host Chris Myers Join Inaugural FOX Broadcast Lineup
The 'Greatest Spectacle in Racing' Draws the Biggest FOX Stars as Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski and Michael Strahan Join the Party
LOS ANGELES – FOX Sports, America's new home for INDYCAR, announces the 'Greatest Spectacle of Racing' – on FOX. The network's first Indianapolis 500 flanks the airwaves with a whopping 60 hours of live coverage featuring an impressive lineup of talent and dignitaries.
FOX INDYCAR play-by-play announcer Will Buxton is joined by 9x-time Indianapolis 500 entrant James Hinchcliffe and 10x Indy 500 racer Townsend Bell on the call for the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge, Sunday, May 25 , on FOX, FOX Deportes and the FOX Sports app. Pre-race coverage begins at 10:00 AM ET and the green flag drops at 12:45 PM ET.
Jamie Little, the first female pit reporter for a television broadcast of the prestigious Indianapolis 500 (2004), covered 11 consecutive Indianapolis 500s from 2004 to 2014 and joins Kevin Lee and Georgia Henneberry on pit road for this year's race. FOX INDYCAR pit reporter Jack Harvey is attempting to make the race and will offer insights from behind the wheel.
FOX INDY 500 PRERACE
Tony Stewart, the 1997 INDYCAR SERIES champion, and Danica Patrick, who led 19 laps in the iconic race in 2005 and finished third in 2009, the highest finish ever by a woman, are joined by veteran FOX broadcaster Chris Myers, bolstering the FOX INDYCAR broadcast lineup for this year's Indy 500.
Tom Rinaldi, winner of 17 national Sports Emmy Awards and seven national Edward R. Murrow Awards, will offer feature interviews. Little will have a sit-down interview with NASCAR champion Kyle Larson, who once again is attempting the Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 'double.'
FOX Sports reporter Erin Andrews, the first woman singularly honored with the Pat Summerall Award, will have a conversation with two-time defending Indianapolis 500 champion Josef Newgarden.
FOX SPORTS STARS JOIN THE ACTION
Announced just yesterday, 7x Super Bowl champion and lead FOX NFL analyst Tom Brady will take the high-speed 'Fastest Seat in Sports' ride along with 7x NASCAR Cup Series champ and former NTT INDYCAR SERIES driver Jimmie Johnson at the wheel, leading the field to the green flag for the Indy 500. FOX NFL analyst, Super Bowl champion and Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Strahan will drive the Indy 500 pace car, and 4x-time Super Bowl winner and FOX NFL analyst Rob Gronkowski will serve as Grand Marshal of the infamous infield Indy 500 Snake Pit .
FS1 ON THE ROAD FOR INDY 500
FS1's FIRST THINGS FIRST with Nick Wright, Chris Broussard and Kevin Wildes, will be on-site from Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Thursday, May 22 (3:00 PM ET to 5:00 PM ET), and Friday, May 23 (1:00 to 2:30 PM ET; 4:00 to 5:00 PM ET).
FOX DEPORTES
FOX Deportes presents its first broadcast of the Indy 500 with live coverage from Indianapolis beginning on Thursday, May 22. Motorsports reporter Giselle Zarur delivers interviews, features and live hits each day for TOTAL SPORTS 360, the network's daily sports news program.
Sunday coverage kicks off at noon ET, featuring leading Spanish-language motorsports announcer Tony Rivera, Emmy Award-winner Jessi Losada and former INDYCAR SERIES driver Oriol Servia, an 11x Indy 500 racer, as analyst. Zarur reports from the pits.
The FOX INDYCAR broadcast team has extensive behind-the-wheel Indianapolis 500 perspective: Driver Starts Poles Best Finish Top 10s Oriol Servia (FOX Deportes) 11 4 (2012) 2 Townsend Bell 10 4 (2009) 0 James Hinchcliffe 9 1 (2016) 6 (2012) 3 Danica Patrick1 8 3 (2009) 6 Jack Harvey 7 9 (2020) 1 Tony Stewart2 5 1 (1996) 5 (1997) 3
12005 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year; 21996 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year

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Indianapolis Star

an hour ago

• Indianapolis Star

Why Jay Frye used Al Pacino's speech to set tone for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — Though they ultimately weren't left kissing the bricks as they'd hoped, and as it appeared they very well might be part way through this year's Indianapolis 500, Jay Frye felt he and his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team had built some noted momentum coming out of the Month of May unlike RLL had experienced since it's victory in 2020. Weeks into his tenure as the team's new president, a role Frye took over mid-April at the Long Beach Grand Prix, Frye, the old Missouri tight end and offensive tackle sat the team down and played Al Pacino's locker room speech from "Any Given Sunday" in an attempt to instill the importance of 'inches' to the race team that has had flashes of brilliance over the last couple years but largely has fallen deep into the mid-pack after years of darkhorse title contention with Graham Rahal. 'The inches we need are everywhere around us," the speech goes. "They're in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch, because we know that when we add up all those inches, that's going to make the (expletive) difference between winning and losing.' With all three cars in the Fast Six at the IMS road course and a challenge for the win by Rahal, the team found some inches. They found a few more in leading the most laps in the 500, qualifying a car on the front row and landing a pair of top-12 finishes for the team's two youngest drivers. But in the two weeks since — races that have included four crashed cars, three did-not-finishes and no finishes better than 20th across all three of the team's full-time cars — RLL has left yards' worth of inches strewn across the track. Road America, Frye told IndyStar, marks an opportunity to spool back up some momentum. 'We've shot ourselves in the foot a lot and lost a lot of points, and we can't do that. There's things we have to do to adjust and make sure that type of stuff doesn't happen,' Frye told IndyStar, hours ahead of what proved to be a dismal night at World Wide Technology Raceway for RLL, with Rahal 22nd eight laps down on pace, Devlin DeFrancesco 43 laps down in 23rd after a Lap 4 crash the team managed to repair and rookie Louis Foster in 26th by virtue of a crash caused by drifting too high into the marbles and ending up in the wall before he'd be T-boned by Josef Newgarden. 'We had a team meeting (a couple weeks ago), and I showed the team that clip … and that's what this is," he continued. "There's little things all around you, and if you don't take advantage of them or capitalize on them, and you mess that inch up, you end up 20th, and we should've finished 12th. When our cars have been fast, we've finished 20th, and when our cars are not as fast, we've been finishing 20th. You've got to find a way to build that momentum and get it going.' 'You have to reprogram your whole mind': Fired by IndyCar, Jay Frye talks new role with RLL Entering this weekend, both Foster and DeFranesco, 24th and 25th in points respectively, sit outside the all-important Leaders Circle spots that pay the top 22 charter-holding IndyCar entrants more than $1.1 million the following year. At the moment, the Nos. 45 and 30 cars sit 23rd and 24th — with Rahal's No. 15 plummeting down to 18th after sitting 13th following his season-best sixth-place finish on the IMS road course. Over the last four years at Road America, RLL has taken a liking to the National Park of Speed, with eight finishes of 11th or better out of 11 starts. In 10 career starts at the track, Rahal has only finished outside the top 11 once and has a pair of podiums in 2007 and 2016. With its billiard table-smooth surface, Road America offers some similarities to the IMS road course, a track RLL has shined at across the board in recent years, giving Frye hope Saturday's qualifying and Sunday's race can act as a spring board for the team ahead of a jam-packed July without an off weekend. 'There's so much good here. There's a lot of really good things, but again, it's just about piecing it all together and getting some momentum on our side,' Frye said. 'We really need to finish where we're running. You've got to maximize what we've got, and we need to build momentum and finish the year strong and build into 2026. That's the key. 'Momentum is a funny thing.' Insider: Jay Frye was once IndyCar's change agent, until he no longer fit the Penske mold Reflecting back on his previous life as a NASCAR team executive, Frye pointed to his days atop MB2 Motorsports in 2007, where driver Mark Martin finished 0.02 seconds from a Daytona 500 win, and then went on a tear for the otherwise mid-pack team and led the points for several weeks at the start of that year. 'And then there's other times where you've having trouble, and you can work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you can't get out of (a rut),' he said. 'We're not struggling. There's good things that have been happening, except it's been inconsistent. Momentum is real, and I felt like we were building some coming out of May and had three or four things happen, and we don't get a good result, and there went that momentum. 'We've got to stop that.'

Indianapolis Star

an hour ago

• Indianapolis Star

Will Buxton 1 on 1: Formula 1 regret leads to exploring America through calling IndyCar races

A onetime writer and lifelong devotee of Formula 1 who grew up in the United Kingdom, Will Buxton makes his living these days broadcasting IndyCar races on American television. Tabbed as the lead announcer for Fox Sports' inaugural season alongside analysts Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe, the excitable and gregarious 44-year-old has immersed himself in the history, prepared tirelessly and learned on the fly. Buxton, who had been to only three tracks on the NTT IndyCar Series schedule before taking the role, will reach the halfway point of his 17-race rookie season during the June 20-22 XPEL Grand Prix at Elkhart Lake's Road America. In a half-hour conversation with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Buxton talked about growing into the job, criticism, regrets, the season, the tracks — in particular the rural Wisconsin road course that comes next — and what he's trying to accomplish both on the Fox broadcasts and away from the booth. Here are highlights. Question: As the series hits the midpoint this weekend, how is your comfort level? Answer: I don't think you could ever be entirely comfortable doing play by play, I don't think you ever should be entirely comfortable doing play by play. There's always nerves. There's always massive tension. That expectation of the unknown is part of the allure. It's part of what keeps you coming back. We take what we do very, very seriously. We have a lot of fun doing it, but we all go into it with a huge amount of nerves every single broadcast, because you care. Can you characterize how your confidence level or however you want to describe it compares to before the season started? I wouldn't call it confidence. I think it's more comfort in terms of being more engrained with the championship, building more relationships, feeling more established and OK, we're not even half a season in, but that's the way the IndyCar Series is. It's incredibly open-armed and welcoming, and to have felt that has really aided my learning process and my ability, hopefully, to be able to bring out these characters and these stories and get people immersed in the wonder of IndyCar. Have you spent much time studying the broadcasts or does it pretty much need to be full steam ahead at this point yet? As difficult as it is and as horrible as it is to have to listen back to your own voice, yeah, every, every race, every week, every session, we all watch them back individually. We make notes, we bring them to bear at production meetings or private meetings and personal meetings that we have with the production crew, because we're always looking for ways that we can improve. And I think if we take the (St. Petersburg, Florida, season opener) and compare it to the St Louis race, (it's) a completely different broadcast, I think, a completely different sound, a very different look. And that goes not just for me, but for every member of the team. We have a brilliant director in Mitch Riggin who had never directed a single lap of racing, of auto racing, until we got to St. Pete. We have a diverse crew who have been involved in multiple sports, some of them in racing, some of them not in racing over their careers, and they've all been brought together to try to bring something fresh and something different to IndyCar. There's always things we can learn from (what) the fans are saying and the feedback that the fans are bringing to us. I think one of the most noticeable parts of that has been the pylon on the left-hand side of the screen that denotes who is where and what stage of the race they're in, what tires they might be running. That has changed every single race and I think that really exemplifies the constant desire to grow and to learn and to improve. Insider: Rising IndyCar star David Malukas knows 'I need to mature' on track, 'switch off' Team Penske rumors What you say is instantly out there forever. Are there a couple of things you said that you'd like to have back? About 98% of it. That's the addiction. That's what brings you back every time. You know there is no such thing as a perfect broadcast, there never will be, and the day that anybody achieves that, that's the day you quit, because it's never going to get any better. I started out in print. And I loved having the time to be able to craft and edit and amend and then get your article to a place where you are so happy with it, and then you send it in, and your editor ruins it. So to sort of be unedited is both freeing and also terrifying. You can try to polish it too much, and you can try to make it too perfect, but then it doesn't sound real, and you're not reacting in the moment. And the one thing that we want to do with this broadcast, and the one thing that we as a booth want to do, with myself and Townsend and James, is make the folks at home feel like they're sitting on the couch with us and that our reactions are their reactions and anytime something big happens, it's almost like you're jumping over the couch at them and putting your arm around the viewer and be like, 'Come on, my god, look at this, this is crazy,' and bring them in for the ride. Even the great calls, the legendary calls that go down in history and that we have, that resonate in our minds forever, the announcers who made those calls, they will still look at it and think, timing was a bit off, could have used a different word there. Insider: Why IndyCar's 1 million viewers on Sunday night is good ... but not as good as it looks How do you deal with critics? Anyone who likes to jump on social media and tell me that they don't think I'm good enough, trust me, that thought goes through my mind daily. You should always strive to be better and strive to improve. I find social media a challenge. There's been a very clear shift over the past decade from where it was as a place of community and interaction and trying to share joy and positivity to something that is now inherently negative and can be quite painfully toxic. And I find that a real sadness, because what it has done is it has made me intentionally kind of draw back from the interaction that I used to enjoy so much, and that interaction was all about bringing fans closer to the sport, but it's so difficult not to be affected by the tidal wave of negativity that I have kind of had to take a step back. But I do occasionally go on, and I do occasionally search my own name and have a bit of a giggle at some of the hideous stuff that is written, because you can't take it seriously. There's a great mantra out there, which is don't take criticism from people you wouldn't take advice from, and that's a good one to go along with. 'It's terrifying': Meet Will Buxton, next voice of IndyCar. (He's never attended an Indy 500.) I imagine Indianapolis was an outsized portion of your early preparation. How has the work or the focus changed since May? Actually, I've dedicated I'd say probably equal time to every race and to the championship and the history as a whole. Growing up in Europe, Formula 1 was the sport that I watched the most, and so a lot of its history and its major moments were things that just sort of seeped their way into my subconscious through osmosis. IndyCar is a championship I've always loved, but it wasn't as readily available in the European market as it was in the American market. And so the history and that side of the knowledge base that I need to have, I have had to work at that, and I will always have to work at that in order to get myself to that same place. The 500 was really interesting for me, and I did spend, obviously, quite a bit of time going into the history of it. The 500 is 110 years of history. You just have to do that much more to be that more aware of everything that has gone on there. But with every race weekend, I think you know, the first part for me is learning the recent history, certainly learning the history of the current drivers and what they've achieved on that track and how they might fare there. You've been to some of the tracks on the schedule, but not all, right? Pretty much every track for me is a new experience. I'd done the Milwaukee Mile (as a pit reporter). I'd been to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to do qualifying, but never the 500. I've been to Road America, that we're going to this week, but only as a guest of (racer-turned-broadcaster and fellow Englishman) David Hobbs when we were colleagues back in the NBC and Speed Channel days (of Formula 1 coverage in the United States), because he has a house out at Elkhart Lake. So been there, been to Siebkens (a famous local hotel/restaurant/bar with a long reputation among racers). Just once. Barber (Motorsports Park), for me, absolutely blew my mind. It was like an amalgamation of some of the most beautiful European racing circuits that I've ever visited. Going and doing a race under the lights on a short course oval like we did at (World Wide Technology Raceway outside) St. Louis was absolutely incredible. I'd been to Belle Isle before, so I've been to Detroit, but I'd never done the Detroit street race before, so it's lovely What I'm discovering is, and what I love about this year, is for my entire professional life, I've been used to traveling the world and experiencing different countries and different cultures. And I think it's true what people say about America, that every state and every city within those states you know, is almost like visiting a different country. … I'm loving that kind of cultural discovery of America. What were your impressions of the actual racetrack in your time at Road America? Hobbo actually took me out in a road car at Road America. And yeah, it's a tough track. The drivers all recognize it as a very, very tricky circuit. One of the ones they enjoy the most, obviously, is a circuit steeped in history, and one that you love to see still being on the calendar, because it's one of those ones that really means something to people. But I loved it. I loved driving around. I loved visiting Siebkens and the historical aspect of it. And I think that's what's so wonderful about this championship, going to your classic racetracks like your Laguna Secas and Long Beach and obviously Indianapolis and Road America and places like that, and then also discovering circuits that have only been on the calendar for a decade or less. We've got Arlington coming onto the calendar next year as a brand new race. I actually really enjoyed Thermal, and I know it gets bad press but I enjoyed the facility. I enjoyed the race. Because, again, I come from the world of Formula 1. We had drivers fighting their way up through the field. Will Power had an amazing race that day, and then we had a guy who had sat in third place for most of the race, came out 11 seconds behind the leader, and over the course of the next 10 laps, battled past the two dominant cars of the weekend and pulled off into the distance to win. That in Formula 1 terms is a generational race, but in IndyCar terms was seen to be somewhat below par, and that really taught me a very early lesson about what the expectations are in this championship for an exciting race. As the series has moved from place to place to place, have you had the opportunity to take in the surroundings, or has it been mostly hotel, booth and back? One of the big regrets of my 25 years in Formula 1 was that I don't think I took as many opportunities as I should have done to go out and explore and experience some of the amazing places that I got to visit. I went to China I want to say 12, 13, 14 times (covering Formula 1 as a journalist or broadcast host). I've never seen the Great Wall other than flying over it. Admittedly, the race was nowhere near it, but you'd think you'd probably try and take some time. We went to India a couple of times. I never got to the Taj Mahal. Those things, they're regrets, because you don't get to travel to those places all the time, and when you're traveling there for work, I probably should have taken a couple of days and got out and seen some of the great wonders of the world. I am trying to go and see everything I can. When we went to Barber, I made a point on my first day there, because I had about a half a day where I knew I wasn't needed to do anything, I went and explored the history of Birmingham, the civil rights movement, which is still very recent history of America ... and how important that is, not just to the history of this country, but to the present and the future of this country. And I'm trying to do that everywhere I go. I'm trying to take in the city, the area, the history, together, a fuller context of not just where I am in the moment and that city, but the country, which is one that I love. I've broadcast in America for such a long time, be it with Formula 1 or now with IndyCar, and I feel immensely privileged to be able to do so, but I don't think that you can properly broadcast to a nation unless you fully understand its history and its complex history and what makes the people and what makes the country what it is. So I'm trying to do that everywhere I go. 'Blown out of proportion': Nolan Siegel's radio rant no biggie for Team Penske's Scott McLaughlin After a wild night at World Wide Raceway, what are you looking for this weekend? St. Louis looked like it was going to be a Chevy weekend, and especially like it was going to be a Penske weekend. (Josef) Newgarden looked phenomenal. Obviously, (Will) Power took the pole. And then in the race itself, (Conor) Daly was so impressive. (Christian) Rasmussen was unbelievable. (Pato) O'Ward was in the hunt the entire night. And yet, here we are with not just another Honda win, but another Kyle Kirkwood win. And I think people have been sleeping on Kyle Kirkwood for too long. … And now he's emerged as the guy most likely to challenge Alex (Palou) for the title in 2025 and it's a wonderful story, and it's one I can't wait to tell. But can Penske find a way back? They're having an absolutely horrible season, and everything that could go wrong seems to be going wrong for them. So that's a fascinating narrative, and there are just so many young drivers looking for their breakthrough moment. (David) Malukas has been so impressive over the last few races, and I brought up Rasmussen, he's been mega as well, sixth at the Indy 500, third last time out in St. Louis. A wonderful breakthrough performance for PREMA Racing as well, with (Robert) Shwartzman finishing in the top 10 for them for the first time. There are so many great stories in the NTT IndyCar Series, and that's one of the things that brought me over from F1 was the fact that this, at its heart, is a drivers championship, where the driver makes the difference. And on any given Sunday, it doesn't matter where you start the race, you have a chance to win.

Yahoo

3 hours ago

• Yahoo

Buccaneers' Mike Evans Credits Baker Mayfield For His Return

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