Castroneves matches the legends with record run
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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
