1952 Indianapolis 500
The 36th Indianapolis 500 was on May 30th place in 1952 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and was the second of eight races of the Formula 1 season 1952.
Background
With Alberto Ascari for the first time was a European riders from the current Drivers' Championship at the start of the 500 miles of Indianapolis. Due to the scheduling conflicts of the training days he had thereby waive the Grand Prize of Switzerland. Background was probably Ferrari to gain a greater awareness on the U.S. market. The American Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti - next Ascari had been reported yet another three vehicles, but all could not qualify.
Training
The unusual for the European audience qualification rules for the 500- mile race had the consequence that the fastest man, Chet Miller, only was able to get a starting place in the back of the field, as the launch site was dependent not only on the race-time but crucially also on the day on which it was run. So the fastest driver of the first training day, Fred Agabashian was on pole position. In the course of the day, there had been two serious accidents. Bobby Ball and Bayliss Levrett drove into the perimeter wall and were hospitalized. But Ball was able to recover to the point that he was able to start on May 30. Ascari was able to get a starting place in the seventh row on its debut on the oval.
Race
The start behind the pace car won McGrath. Since the start enable the vehicles were not quite in formation, Ruttman could drive up to third place, while pole-sitter Agabashian and standing next to him Linden were passed through to the rear. Ruttman took over in the second round Rathmann and in the twelfth he took over from McGrath leadership. However, he was already a lap later supplanted by Bill Vukovich from the first location, which he expanded to 62 Round to 29 seconds. Through his pit stop he fell behind Ruttman and Rathmann. Rathmann, he was able to overtake quickly, but only the stopping of Ruttman in the 83rd round brought him all the way forward. The leadership he was able to expand up to 130 round to nearly two minutes. It was not enough to him but anyway, to claim the first position after his second stop, because it took longer than usual because of a jammed wheel. But after Ruttmans second stop he came forward again. Vukovich, the race seemed certain to win, but 10 laps to go he landed due to a defective steering system in the boundary wall and had to concede victory so Ruttman. Ascari could not finish the race well. In the 40th round he slide because of a broken wheel in the infield and had to retire. Until then, he was in seventh place. Maybe the accident on the spokes of the wheels was due, the Ferrari still used, while the American car competed with more stable magnesium wheels.
Message list
Classification
Line-up
Race results
Standings after the race
The first five were 8, 6, 4, 3, 2 points; one point there was for the fastest lap. There are only the four best results from the eight races. * Includes the point for the fastest lap, numbers in parentheses are void results.