INDIANAPOLIS — Simona de Silvestro was still in her helmet when her race team owner threw her arms around the driver who had just qualified for the Indianapolis 500 by the narrowest of margins.

De Silvestro’s pony-tailed crew members stopped by to congratulate her, as did 2018 Indy 500 winner Will Power. Surviving the make-or-break seconds and breakneck speeds needed to make the 33-car field is cause enough for a celebration at Indy, especially after sweating out a 75-minute, five-car shootout for one of the final three spots in Sunday’s race.

For the Swiss driver, her predominantly female team and owner Beth Paretta, leading an almost all-girls club to the starting grid for “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” is exactly that — a start.

The start of an idea that every position on an IndyCar race team can be held by a woman. The start of a true, conscientious push to form an unbreakable pipeline that will lead women to an Indy 500 championship as a driver, owner or engineer. That women can climb the IndyCar ladder and reach the highest level of racing — and take that traditional swig of milk after a win in the biggest race of the year.

“I feel like we climbed a mountain together,” Paretta said.

Those peaks rise far beyond the track. In the NBC truck, producer Rene Hatlelid will set the scene for the telecast and former IndyCar driver Danica Patrick will reprise her role in the studio. On race day, women help run the show everywhere from public relations to critical jobs on pit road.

Jimmie McMillian, the series’ chief diversity officer, said IndyCar, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IMS Productions is composed of about 35% to 40% women, with many in leadership roles, such as the head of IndyCar’s legal team, Gretchen Snelling.

Hatlelid produced NASCAR for 15 years for ESPN and NBC, and this is her first year as the full-time producer for NBC’s coverage of IndyCar. On the final day of qualifying, Hatlelid navigated 58 straight minutes of action on NBC without a commercial break.

“That was two days of planning of us chatting it out, should we go here, should we go there,” she said. “The lead-up is just kind of thinking of everything you need to get in and how to incorporate it properly and make it work for the fan. That’s what matters.”

De Silvestro, making her first Indy 500 appearance since 2015, is one of nine female drivers who have started the race. Sarah Fisher started nine times and Patrick eight — she finished third in 2009 — and the 2010, ’11 and ’13 races all had four women in the field.

Fisher transitioned to team ownership, then merged her team with Ed Carpenter Racing before getting out of IndyCar altogether. Patrick made a much publicized move to NASCAR after becoming a crossover star in IndyCar. She retired after the 2018 Indy 500.

Maude Yagle is the only female team owner to win the Indy 500, in 1929 with driver Ray Keech.

The starts and competitive races have had significant meaning in auto racing, where the playing field has long been dominated by men and legitimate chances to compete seem to come and go as fast as a lap around the oval. Paretta, who fielded a failed female-driven attempt to qualify for the 2016 Indy 500, is determined to prove women can look at motorsports as a career option.

“Hopefully it’s resonated with people to be more than another team, another entry, trying our best,” Paretta said. “We’re trying to do a lot more and trying to provide opportunity and hopefully some inspiration, both for kids and for women everywhere to push and work hard to also know that anybody might be possible for yourself.”

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