Conor Daly was “hanging on for dear life” in the Indy 500

Conor Daly felt he was “hanging on for dear life” after his tyres “completely fell off a cliff” late in the Indy 500.

Home favourite Daly emerged as a serious contender for the Indy 500 after the midway point of the race, grabbing the lead on lap 120 after passing eventual winner Alex Palou.

The Juncos Holinger Racing driver was running second behind Ryan Hunter-Reay with about 40 laps to run when he experienced a sudden tyre drop-off, causing him to plummet to fifth place.

A furious Daly repeatedly told his team that he needed to make an immediate pitstop, fearing that he would crash given the lack of grip he was getting from his Firestone rubber.

The crew were initially hesitant to bring him into the pitlane as he was still outside the pit window, but eventually had to oblige to Daly’s request.

The whole drama wrecked his chances of scoring a maiden IndyCar win, the 33-year-old eventually crossing the finish line in 10th place.

Speaking afterwards, Daly said he couldn’t understand why his tyres experienced such a massive drop-off late in the race.

“I don’t know if something broke,” Daly said. “We got to definitely look into it, but the car was just evil the last two sets of tyres. I have no idea what happened.

“We didn’t even make really many changes, so it just completely fell off a cliff, and I was hanging on for dear life, like literally crashing every turn.”

“So just kind of a shame. I mean, something maybe could have gone wrong, but I mean, the team did great. The car was so fast at the beginning, and it’s exactly what I needed. And then something happened, so we [have] got to look into it.”

Another Indy 500 ends in disappointment

In his 11 appearances in the Indy 500, dating back to his debut in 2013, Daly has never finished higher than sixth.

“Last year, I had a damper explode essentially,” he said. “So we just got to look into it. Because this car was so good, and then all of a sudden, it fell off a lot.

“Still proud of our efforts, and the team did such a great job with the pit stops. But yeah, just weren’t quite there.”

Daly’s frustration also stems from the fact that he was running ahead of Chip Ganassi’s Palou when he first experienced tyre woes. Both were also on a similar strategy and needed to save fuel to make it to the finish.

“It’s just sad, because, like, I know we were with Palou really the whole time and we pitted with him and we were in the right spot,” Daly said. “So we were doing everything we needed to do.

“Maybe our fuel number was a bit aggressive. We have to look into why our fuel number maybe was a bit too aggressive.”

“Yeah, it really sucks. I thought this was the year, and it was feeling like it. Just something happened, and we [have] got to figure out why.”