CASTRONEVES’S NEAREST NEAR-MISS
“HUNTER-REAY RECKONED THE GAP BETWEEN THE PENSKE AND THE GRASS WAS ENOUGH”
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Helio Castroneves, who this year – qualifying allowing – will make his 20th Indy 500 start, is seeking to join AJ Foyt, Al Unser and
Rick Mears in the four-time winners’ club.
But it’s easy to forget how close the Brazilian has been to nailing that fourth triumph.
In 2003, he came up 0.2290s short to team-mate Gil de Ferran, and in 2017 he was 0.2011s behind Andretti Autosport’s Takuma Sato, despite suffering damage to his rear wing in the trail of debris that resulted from Scott Dixon’s enormous accident. But should he finish second again, it will surely not be closer than in 2014.
On that occasion, Ryan Hunter-reay (Andretti Autosport) edged the Penske driver by just 0.06s. In other words, Castroneves’s combined losses when finishing runner-up still haven’t reached half a second!
The duel between RHR and Castroneves truly began on lap 183 but was interrupted by a red flag when Townsend Bell shunted on lap 193, and Indycar was keen to see a race to the twin chequers after the 2012 and 2013 events (won by Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan respectively) had both finished under caution.
There were six laps to go at the restart and, as was typical in the Dallara DW12 era, the cars’ tow meant regular changes of lead down the front stretch, where the leader would hug the pitwall to force their pursuer to go the long way around at Turn 1.
On lap 197, with Castroneves leading, Hunter-reay came off Turn 2 with better momentum and, while Castroneves felt like he’d gone far enough to the inside to force the American to try the long way round into Turn 3, Hunterreay reckoned the gap between the Penske machine and the grass was enough to squeeze himself through. And it was… just.
Two laps later, Castroneves was back in front and this time, as he headed down the back straight and spied Hunter-reay was close and gaining again, he eliminated any thoughts the Andretti driver might have of making an inside manoeuvre again by edging closer to the grass.
It did the trick, but it was just enough to compromise Castroneves’s own line into Turn 3 and therefore his speed through the short chute. Hitting the pitstraight for the penultimate time, Hunter-reay was past him and into the lead even before they reached the yard of bricks. He then held on throughout that final lap to score a brilliant triumph.