In a wild conclusion to the 200-lap race, Armstrong overtook second-placed McLaren driver Pato O’Ward and race-leading Meyer Shank Racing teammate Felix Rosenqvist on the penultimate restart.
The caution came out just moments after taking the lead when Rahal Letterman Laningan Racing rookie Mick Schumacher clouted the wall at Turn 1.
That left just enough time for a one-lap shootout.
Armstrong elected to go early through the middle of Turn 4 when the green flag was shown to try create a gap to Team Penske’s David Malukas behind him.
The slipstream proved too strong, however. Malukas shot around the outside into Turn 1 to take the lead.
Armstrong had Rosenqvist on his right too, and the pair ran side-by-side all the way from Turn 1 to Turn 4.
Rosenqvist cleared Armstrong midway through Turn 4 before setting after Malukas and edging him out by a meagre 0.023s at the yard of bricks.
With no tow, Armstrong dropped back to fifth as a resurgent Scott McLaughlin and O’Ward finished third and fourth respectively.
A disconsolate Armstrong was visibly emotional post-race.
Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves was among those first to console Armstrong, as well as his father Rick.
“I’m so disappointed because I felt like the last corner, I was given two options,” Armstrong said.
“The first one was to either crash with my teammate or I have to lift, and I chose to lift a bit and that was the situation.
“We were in a position to win it. That could have been us that towed past Malukas.
“I can’t believe it. Honestly. Just so close, and I just feel like I made the wrong call at the most pivotal moment.
“If I could do it again, I’d do it very differently.”
This year marked Armstrong’s third Indianapolis 500 start.
He began his IndyCar career in 2023 as a part-timer, electing not to race on the ovals.
He failed to finish his debut in 2024 after his car suffered a mechanical failure on just the sixth lap. In 2025, he finished a lap down.
Meyer Shank Racing co-owner Mike Shank praised Armstrong’s drive given his relative experience.
“It’s his third year, but he’s had different things happen to him that didn’t go well here,” said Shank.
“So for him come out today and drive the race he drove is just incredible.
“If you think about … how clean he and Felix raced each other, I wouldn’t have given up the bottom for nothing. Right? And he didn’t. Felix did it the hard way, which is really impressive.
“So Marcus will be a great story and a good person to talk to. Because he’s pretty torn up right now, and we haven’t talked to him.
“I get that, and I want that. I want him to want this race. He was this close is winning it. He could have won it easily. So really proud of that..”
Shank admitted the final 40-second lap was nerve-racking as he and the team watched Armstrong and Rosenqvist war over second and third.
“Jim (Meyer) and I literally said last night at our team party, we just don’t want to take each other out,” said Shank.
“If we give a centimetre, we give a centimetre and a half to our teammate. But now you’re last lap Indy 500. There’s no argument you’re going to do whatever you have to do to whoever it is to win the race.
“They raced really well together for two years basically, almost two years now. They’re good teammates. They’re friends enough. They’re good friends, actually, and they respected each other on that run.
“Now, Marcus is going to be pissed off for a while, but if you go back and watch it, I thought for sure we were causing ourselves more damage than good during that lap with slowing them down, but it turned out it didn’t, and we’re super happy.”
Armstrong’s agony was in stark contrast to Rosenqvist’s jubilation.
He became just the third driver from Sweden after Kenny Brack (1999) and Marcus Ericsson (2023) to win the Indianapolis 500.
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