How 'chess master' Castroneves cemented his Indy legend status

Twelve years after his third Indianapolis 500 victory, Helio Castroneves won his fourth and joined AJ Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears in an exclusive club. No one has conquered the Memorial Day Weekend classic at Indianapolis Motor Speedway more times.

The round-numbered anniversaries lay thick on the ground – it was 60 years since Foyt’s first, 50 years since Unser’s second, 30 years since Mears’ fourth and 20 years since Castroneves’ first. It was also 10 years since a part-timer in a part-time entry – Dan Wheldon for Bryan Herta Autosport – had won America’s greatest motor race.

But there were also more geeky stats to absorb. The three times that Castroneves had finished as gutted runner-up – to Gil de Ferran in 2003, Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2014 and Takuma Sato in 2017 – his losing margins came to a total of just 0.4901 seconds, while his winning margin over Alex Palou last Sunday was 0.4928s. Oh, and it was the fastest Indy 500 ever, won at an average speed of 190.69mph.

It was Castroneves’ 31st IndyCar win, which in the all-time roster lifts him to equal 10th, alongside Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy, the man he so controversially beat in the 2002 Indy 500. He became the first driver in history to win the Daytona 24 Hours and the Indianapolis 500 in the same year, prompting the thought that maybe a World Endurance Championship team owner should have considered hiring him for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. And at 46 years and 20 days old he became the fourth-oldest winner in Indy 500 history, beaten only by Al Unser in 1987, Bobby Unser in 1981 and Emerson Fittipaldi in 1993.

But arguably the number that mattered most was 135,000 – that was the official number of spectators that the Speedway’s owner, Penske Entertainment, was allowed to let in, as per current statewide and local COVID restrictions regarding mass gatherings. That’s supposedly only 40% capacity at the Speedway, but still there were enough fans to help expunge the memories of the eerily empty grandstands of the postponed Indy 500 last August during the pandemic – and enough to celebrate with Castroneves.

After his slowdown lap, he parked his Meyer Shank Racing Dallara-Honda just beyond the yard of bricks start/finish line, clambered out of the car and did his famous ‘Spider Man’ routine, clambering up the debris fence to share the joy with his adoring public.

Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing Honda celebrates his victory

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Coming down from the fence, Castroneves crouched on the wall and for a long time embraced team co-owner Michael Shank, as they absorbed what they had achieved together. MSR had given its ‘temp’ proof that there is such a thing as Life After Penske, while the Brazilian veteran had brought star power and firepower to a team still in its infancy as an IndyCar entity. Team and driver had validated one other, culminating in the biggest prize in motorsport.

For both, this journey had started in 2017, when Michael Andretti asked Shank if MSR – which then stood for Michael Shank Racing – could help run Andretti Autosport’s sixth entry in Indy. Having previously made a few attempts to expand his highly respected IMSA team into IndyCar, Shank leapt at the opportunity to run Jack Harvey as a one-off.

The following season, he partnered with Jim Meyer to form Meyer Shank Racing, and formed a technical alliance with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to enter six races, which became 10 in 2019, and saw Harvey deliver the team a podium finish on a wet day at IMS road course.

"Jim [Meyer, co-owner] and I looked at the numbers – the performance numbers from Helio in 2017. I didn’t quite get him not running anymore. I thought he still had something left in him" Michael Shank

When Schmidt Peterson switched to Chevy engines for 2020, Honda stalwart MSR turned back to Andretti for its technical collaboration, and went full time but still running just one car. This year is the next step in a process, adding a second car for Castroneves in six races, and with the ultimate ambition of running two cars full-time.

“I got a bit tired of reading we’re the little team that could,” said Meyer. “We’ve never believed that. We had a plan and Mike was incredibly disciplined. I wanted to go faster earlier. He explained to me how fast we could waste our money if we weren’t careful.  

“We believe every day we can compete with anybody out here. I will also tell you having data from eight cars [at Indy] is certainly really helpful. That’s where the relationship with Andretti Technologies really pays off for us.”

Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing Honda

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

The availability of Castroneves for this project is a whole other story. Four years ago, on learning that 2017 would be his last driving a Team Penske IndyCar full-time, he agonised over whether to shop around for an alternative team, or take up Roger Penske’s offer of a three-year deal to race the new Acura programme in IMSA, combined with Indy 500 entries. He still felt strong, had scored three poles and a win, and finished fourth in the championship.

But sticking with The Captain and having a Penske to drive at Indy was too tempting – and last year resulted in him scoring his first championship title in 31 years! But that was also the last year of Penske’s deal with Acura, and, with Scott McLaughlin being transferred from Supercars to form a four-strong full-time IndyCar squad, RP had nothing left for Castroneves to race, so they went their separate ways after 21 years.

So far, that’s worked out better for driver than team. Castroneves joined the Wayne Taylor Racing line-up as the ‘extra’ pilot of WTR’s Acura for the IMSA season-opening Daytona 24 in January and emerged triumphant. And after signing a six-race IndyCar deal with MSR to drive a car crewed by only two full-timers, he’s won the Indy 500. Meanwhile, the six different IndyCar winners this year have come from six different teams – none of them Penske.

“Jim and I looked at the numbers – the performance numbers from Helio in 2017,” said Shank. “I didn’t quite get him not running anymore. I thought he still had something left in him. He went on to do the Acura programme, did really well in Prototypes. We felt like we needed a veteran to come in and help our programme overall and also help Jack.

“Jack was involved at every step of this kind of talk. We want a young guy and an experienced guy. We all agreed that we wanted Helio. Man, I tell you, he’s just so good here…”

“We practised here in April,” added Meyer. “After Helio ran his first five laps, Mike looked at me, I looked at him, we go, ‘Turns out he still has got it’. We were very, very confident that we would have good outcomes today. We’re just thrilled.”

Throughout the six-day week of practice and qualifying for the 500, MSR had seen Castroneves and Harvey on pace with the best Andretti cars of Colton Herta, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi, which ensured they were contenders for the Fast Nine. On Saturday, Harvey suffered a bizarre tyre failure on his first qualifying run and then could only reach 20th on his second attempt as the track heated up. Castroneves, meanwhile, did get into the Fast Nine, and landed a place in the middle of the third row of three.

Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing Honda, Michael Shank

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Everyone felt Ganassi’s four-car armada had the advantage but knew also that on this unusually cool day that allowed everyone to run close, Scott Dixon would not be able to exploit the superiority of his car – and talent – for he’d end up towing along his fastest rivals. So instead, he’d drop back behind the aggressors, sit in their wake and save fuel.

Leading a whole stint – breaking the air – can cost you two laps of stint length compared with an otherwise identical car that sits in the tow of one or two cars. Were the race to run green all the way (the 500 never does), with a stint length of around 33 laps, that means six pitstops will be required, but you’re always trying to shorten that last one into a splash ’n dash if possible.

So it was no surprise when Dixon dropped to third by the end of lap two, behind Rinus VeeKay’s Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara-Chevy, and Herta. Meanwhile, Castroneves muscled past Hunter-Reay and Ganassi’s Palou on the opening 2.5 miles, and on lap 16 deposed fellow veteran Tony Kanaan to move onto Ed Carpenter’s tail.
Inevitably, VeeKay had to stop first, on lap 31, whereas his rivals managed to fuel-save – some even made it to lap 34. But that was to be their undoing on this day.

At the start of lap 199, Castroneves drafted the Ganassi driver down the pit straight, swung out and passed him around the outside of Turn 1. As they homed in on backmarkers, now it was the veteran getting the benefit of the tow… And the rest is – literally – history

Stefan Wilson crashed at the entry to pitlane, which temporarily closed the pits as cautions always do. Eight cars were running on fumes by now, and had to violate the rule regarding emergency service in closed pits, and would be forced to restart from the back of the field. Three of these were Ganassi cars – Dixon, Kanaan and Marcus Ericsson.

Had that been Dixon’s only problem, he still might have won. Instead, his car ran out of fuel as he coasted down pitlane and, once filled up, the car wouldn’t restart. A lap later, the same thing happened to Rossi.

Meanwhile, local hero Conor Daly had moved up from 19th to third, thanks to being at racing speed after his pitstop, just as the majority of cars pitting at the same time were held down to caution speed. So, soon after the restart, he and team-mate VeeKay zapped past Herta, and Daly went to the front, to roars from the crowd. Stalking these three, however, were Castroneves and Palou (now Ganassi’s only realistic hope), Pato O’Ward in the Arrow McLaren SP, Hunter-Reay and the Rahal Letterman Lanigan cars of Graham Rahal and defending winner Takuma Sato. No one was able to make a break.

Then, as he exited the pits following his third stop, Rahal’s left-rear wheel came off, sending him across the grass on pit exit and hard into the Turn 2 exit wall. The wheel, too, bounced off the wall and came down on the nose of Daly’s car, causing enough damage to take him out of the running.

Conor Daly, Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet, Rinus VeeKay, Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet, Colton Herta, Andretti Autosport Honda, Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing Honda, Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images

Swift in and out-laps and flawless stops by his MSR crew had put Castroneves in the lead. And while he swiftly lost a couple of spots to O’Ward and Palou, they weren’t escaping from him – occasionally he’d pass them, then drop back.

Shank explained: “Finally I figured out about [lap] 155 he’s doing this on purpose. Everything he did from 150 on was a chess match. He knew exactly what he was doing. That’s the ‘greatest of all time’ in him. He was calculated – exactly what I expected.”

VeeKay’s and Herta’s cars had faded the further back they ran, and Hunter-Reay too was out of the equation when, like Penske’s Will Power, he found his brake pedal went to the floor without causing retardation as he attempted his fourth pitstop and he blew through the pitlane speed limit, inducing an inevitable drivethrough.

O’Ward had the opposite problem, not quite having the ‘go’ necessary to battle with Palou and Castroneves. The very much off-strategy Felix Rosenqvist and Sato ran up-front over the closing laps, and the Arrow McLaren SP driver inadvertently helped Palou pull a slight gap over Castroneves when he rejoined right in front of him (almost a lap down) but on fresh tyres was able to run at the leader’s pace. However, Rosenqvist had to serve a drivethrough penalty for a pit speed violation, so that left Palou vulnerable.

At the start of lap 199, Castroneves drafted the Ganassi driver down the pit straight, swung out and passed him around the outside of Turn 1. As they homed in on backmarkers, now it was the veteran getting the benefit of the tow… And the rest is – literally – history.

“I believe Helio deserves to go for a fifth Indianapolis win,” concluded Shank. “We’re going to do everything we can to make that happen for him. You agree, Jim?”

“I agree,” said Meyer. “It’s fantastic.”

It is.

Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing Honda taking the checkered flag

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images