The eventful Indy 500 saw Marco Andretti shifted from sixth to third two hours after the race after a scoring clarification, while Danica Patrick placed sixth and Tony Kanaan 11th, and Ryan Hunter-Reay and fifth team driver John Andretti both crashed out of the race.
"I'm pleased with the decision to correct timing and scoring and place the No. 26 car in third place," said Andretti. "I was talking on the radio saying good job to my crew and all of a sudden people were flying past me. It's a pretty well written rule that you can't pass under yellow so I was surprised to see it was happening. We were prepared to protest, but luckily, we didn't have to. Brian (Barnhart) went back and pulled the data. Our engine was running when we finished the race under caution. The proper decision was made.
"Overall it was a great day for the Venom boys. I never doubted that we would be in the fight; I was pleased all week with how the car felt in race trim. We would like to have won but racing from 16th to third is something we can be happy with. It would have been interesting if we had gone the distance and it hadn't come down to fuel. Dario (Franchitti) has always been the king of saving fuel. If I had to guess, we were running more downforce which is obviously more drag so we were using more fuel. I think Dario, on his own, was the car to beat, but in traffic he was human. That's what makes Indianapolis what it is; it's not easy to win this thing, but we'll come back and try again."
Hunter-Reay suffered an injury to his thumb in the race, but not from the spectacular collision with Mike Conway at the end. "It actually happened during the pit lane incident with (Scott) Dixon," he related. "He cleared out into me and I tore all the ligaments (in my thumb). A couple laps later, it was hurting. But, then I went to push a button on my steering wheel and the thumb bent back to me. That's a problem."
Hunter-Reay acknowledged that he may have inadvertently played a part in the terrifying crash with Conway, from which the British driver was lucky to emerge with "only" a broken leg, when his IZOD car ran out of fuel.
"It was a real bummer that it happened like that," he said. "We ran out of fuel and when you run out of fuel in these cars, it's like hitting the brakes. You go from wide open to nothing. I knew I had a bunch of cars back there (behind me) and I'm sorry that Mike is hurt. That's a shame."
Kanaan was disappointed after his spectacular charge from the last row was blunted by a late pit stop, restricting him to an 11th-place finish.
"This was great teamwork. The whole 7-Eleven team showed that we never give up," said the Brazilian veteran. "We definitely never give up. We had a fast car -- not fast enough to win the race, but, I think our car deserved a top-three (finish). We just need to learn from it. I think this team is more together than ever. I just told my guys, 'Let's keep fighting.' "All I care about is that I tried as hard as I could today and we have to keep trying. I keep myself at peace by knowing that I drove 100 percent. I did everything I could and so did my team."
Of the late stop, Kanaan said, "We took a gamble on fuel. I'm not a big fan of fuel strategy races, but they can work both ways. This time it didn't work for us."
He admitted to having his disappointment alleviated a little by the support that the crowd showed him at the end of the race.
"I promised the fans a good start and I think I did that," Kanaan said. "The fans have been so good to me and today was no different. Walking off the pit lane, it looked like I won. It makes me feel good. If you can't win, but you can have this kind of amazing support from the fans, it's a great feeling. We owe them our effort and an exciting race. That's why we race and that's why they come to watch us race. They don't come to watch cars following other cars all day long. Hopefully, I did my part today."
Meanwhile Danica Patrick -- who was originally credited with fifth place but was relegated to sixth after the late scoring revision -- credited her team with turning around what had been a frustrating year for her at Indy.
"What a great way to end a tough month," she said. "It was a challenging race, but together with my crew doing outstanding pit stops and the engineers calling a great strategy, we were able to pull off a good finish for the GoDaddy car. I never doubted we could accomplish this together as a team. We finished the month on a high note, so heading into Texas is a confidence booster."