
Castroneves: How I kept it under control to make Indy 500 history
Helio Castroneves’ overwhelming vivaciousness outside the cockpit belies a hardcore racer who knows how to plot his moves – and then recall it all for us. A day after his fourth Indy 500 win, Helio explained his tactics to David Malsher-Lopez.
“Oh my garrrr! You’re kee-ing me! That’s eencreyable!” says Helio Castroneves the day after his victory, as I inform him of my favorite stat from the 105th running of the Indianapolis 500. The winning margin in his fourth Indy 500 victory – 0.49sec – equals the total of his deficits from the three occasions he finished the race as runner-up in 2003, ’14 and ’17.
Forgive the phonetic spelling of Helio’s charming Brazilian-Portuguese American-English (I promise you I'll stop now), but it’s important to convey how much of a high he was still on, 24 hours after joining AJ Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway pantheon of four-time 500 winners.

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