Dan Wheldon pours the ceremonial bottle of milk over his head after winning the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday. (Reuters)

Indianapolis: Danica Patrick, a 23-year-old rookie who does not drive like one, rocketed into the lead with ten laps left Sunday in the 89th Indianapolis 500, chasing away earlier misfortune and storming toward a first with each left-hand turn.

No woman had ever led the race, let alone won it.

About 300,000 fans at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway clapped, pumped their fists and screamed, urging Patrick to hang on. She would have loved to, she said, but she also had to save fuel merely to finish the race.

Forced to conserve fuel because of a gamble by her team that she could make it to the end without an additional pit stop, Patrick was passed with six laps left by Dan Wheldon, a 26-year-old Briton who held on for his first Indy 500 victory. Patrick faded and finished fourth, behind Vitor Meira and Bryan Herta.

Three women had driven in a combined 15 Indy 500’s before Patrick, and Janet Guthrie was the only woman to finish in the top 10; she was ninth in 1978.

Despite making two mistakes, Patrick did much better than that ? achieving a rare distinction for a woman by competing against men at the highest level of a sport and almost winning.

Asked if she had made the point that female drivers could compete against men, Patrick quickly said: “I made a hell of a point for anybody, are you kidding me?”

Patrick, driving in only her fifth Indy Racing League event, had become a phenomenon at the speedway this month, posting the fastest speed in practice on May 12 and qualifying fourth, another best for a woman, for the 33-car starting grid.

Before this year, Patrick, a native of Roscoe, Illinois, and a resident of Phoenix, was an accomplished driver in the Toyota Atlantic series. She finished fourth in the previous IRL race, on April 30 in Japan.

The co-owners of her car are Bobby Rahal, the 1986 Indy 500 winner, and David Letterman, the late-night talk-show host. The team’s top driver, Buddy Rice, won the Indy 500 last year. The consensus among race aficionados was that she had a good chance to win.

Patrick has been marketed by the IRL as an ing?nue. The IRL took full advantage of her appearance, posing her for glamorous pictures. But she can also drive fast.

“She’s not 23 years old,” Letterman said in a television interview after the race. “She’s no kid.”

Wheldon’s victory was the first for a British driver at the Indy 500 since Graham Hill in 1966. Wheldon, who has won four of five IRL races this year, also chased away a speedway ghost for Michael Andretti, the co-owner of his car.

Andretti, who retired after the 2003 season, drove in 14 Indy 500’s without a victory. He led 426 laps in his races here, but never the last one. His father, Mario, drove in 29 Indy 500s and won only once, in 1969.

“No more talk of this stupid curse,” Michael Andretti said. “It’s dead. It’s going to be nice coming back here next year and not talking about that. You know, it gets old, I’ll tell you.”

Patrick certainly had to overcome more to get to the front of the pack than Wheldon.

She fell to 16th from fourth when she stalled her engine after a pit stop on the 79th lap of the 200-lap race, then spent the next 70 laps climbing back into the top ten.

“I’m going to be mad at myself for the stall,” she said.

THE TIMES, LONDON