Castroneves stoked for his CTMP debut
Helio Castroneves is a 20-year veteran of IndyCar racing but when he pulls into Canadian Tire Motorsport Park next week to compete in the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix (July 5-8), he’ll be a raw rookie — and in more ways than one.
Not only is he a first-season driver in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship but he’s never before seen CTMP, much less driven around the storied circuit that’s located about 20 kilometres north of Bowmanville.
“Nope,” Castroneves told a group of Canadian reporters on a conference call, “I’ve never been there (to CTMP) but I’ve heard about the place, that it’s really fast. I heard it’s going to suit me well because I enjoy high-speed cor- ners, which is the kind of track I like.”
One of the people he might have “heard about the place” from is his boss, Roger Penske, who teamed up with Acura this year to enter two cars in the WeatherTech championship prototype class. When Penske was young and just starting out in the automotive world, he race-drove himself and what was then Mosport Park was a frequent destination.
Penske, of course, will be at CTMP for the Mobil 1 Grand Prix, which is race No. 7 in the 10-race North American sports car championship series. And the following weekend, July 13-15, he’ll be at Exhibition Place with drivers Josef Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud and 2018 Indy 500 winner Will Power to contest the 33rd Honda Indy Toronto.
Following a career in Indy Lights, Castroneves broke into the IndyCar ranks in 1998 with, first, Tony Bettenhausen’s team and then Carl Hogan’s. The following year, at the season finale in California, young Canadian racing star Greg Moore, who had signed to race for Team Penske beginning in 2000, was killed and Castroneves agreed to replace him.
With Penske Racing, the 43-year-old native of Brazil won the Indianapolis 500 in 2001, 2002 and 2009, making him one of only nine drivers to have won it three times. He also finished second in 2003, 2014 and 2017 and won the pole four times, including back-toback poles in 2009 and ’10.
In total, he won 29 races in his bigleague IndyCar career and notched 45 pole positions. In six sports car races to date, he’s won one (at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, co-driving with Ricky Taylor) and was on the podium two other times.
Following the 2017 season, Penske opted to go with a team of three Indy cars instead of four and to start a sports car team with Acura.
He offered employment to Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya.
Both former Indianapolis 500 winners will be behind the wheels of Acura ARX-05s powered by 3.5 L Turbo V6s. Translation: they’re rockets.
Castroneves admits he could have stayed in IndyCar racing, because he had offers from other teams, but that he considers the Penske organization to be family and he preferred staying home.
It also helped that Penske gave him a car in which to race at this year’s Indianapolis 500 — he crashed out in the end — and will enter him in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing one more time next May.
“I love racing — it’s the air that I breathe,” Castroneves said during the conference call. “It’s what I want to do. I want to obviously still be on a good competitive team and still be with Team Penske. These sports cars are a great opportunity for me to keep going.”
The Acura prototype is also a big test for the veteran racer. “When you jump into something different, it’s a super challenge,” he said. “It’s like you’re starting all over again.”
He feels that the switch has given him a new lease on life and he has no plans to retire.
“As long as I still have this fire inside of me and as long as I’m competitive, I’ll keep going,” he said. “I don’t want to just be a number. I want to be the number. As long as I still have that in me, my goal is to go till I’m at least 50, because these days I believe age is just a number.”
And he’s already looking forward to next year’s Indy 500 because before he hangs up his helmet for good, he wants to become a four-time winner of that classic, just like Rick Mears, Al Unser Sr. and the legendary A.J. Foyt before him.
“It was difficult this year because the car was new (the Dallara chassis has a new aerodynamic body) and it was tough getting used to. It caught a lot of people out (Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick were two of the other veterans who also crashed) but once they (Team Penske) get it completely sorted, I will be able to practise and hopefully be better in the race.”
The WeatherTech championship people are thrilled that internationally famous race drivers such as Castroneves and Montoya are now on the roster.
“We’ve always had the cars but now we’ve added the star power of the drivers,” Scott Atherton, the IMSA. president, told the New York Times in an interview.
“And not just the kind of drivers where you have to be a hard-core, card-carrying race fan to be aware of. That hasn’t been part of our equation. But now it is. All of the core elements have always been there. Now we’ve added this other dimension that’s going to take us to a whole new level.”
The proof, as they say, is in the pudding and Castroneves, Taylor and Montoya — among others — will be pedal to the metal when practice starts at CTMP next Friday.
And the WeatherTech championship for exotic prototype and GT race cars will not be the only series in competition. In addition to the high-tech cars such as Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Corvette, Ferrari, Ford, Lamborghini, Lexus, Mazda, Mercedes, Nissan. Porsche and the Acuras that Castroneves, et al, will race, the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge and the IMSA Prototype Challenge Series will also be on track.
For additional details and information about tickets and camping, go to canadiantiremotorsportpark.ca