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Last Thursday afternoon, most IndyCar fans were caught off guard with the news that Arrow McLaren SP rookie driver Oliver Askew was withdrawing from this weekend’s Harvest Grand Prix at IMS. Following the race at Mid-Ohio, Askew said he was having balance and coordination issues. Throughout the weekend, it was reported that this was the result of his hard crash into the pit entrance attenuator, during last month’s Indianapolis 500. If you saw the crash, it’s certainly believable that he would still be dealing with the after-effects more than a month later.

As big a shock as that was, his replacement was an even bigger surprise. Helio Castroneves will step into the cockpit of the No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevy for both races of the IMS double-header this weekend. It will be the first time for him to drive in an IndyCar race for a team other than Team Penske, since he drove for the late Carl Hogan at the ill-fated Fontana race in 1999.

It’s hard to put into perspective how long ago that was. Bill Clinton was still in the White House and Kenny Bräck was the reigning Indianapolis 500 champion. Our biggest fear was Y2K, because we had been led to believe that it would create a digital Armageddon. Regis Philbin was hosting the latest prime-time television phenomenon, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? And the internet was still in it’s infancy to the point that most of us still had dial-up. Remember AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy?

Greg Moore and Gil de Ferran were already signed to Marlboro Team Penske for the 2000 season. Penske was doing an overhaul of his team, which was actually struggling at the time. Al Unser, Jr. was out as driver, in favor of these two. Penske also ditched his own Penske chassis in favor of the proven Reynard. Mercedes-Benz was pulling out, as was Goodyear, so Penske went with Honda and Firestone. The on-track version of Marlboro Team Penske for 2000, would look a lot different than it did in 1999.

Unfortunately, Greg Moore was fatally injured in the 1999 CART season-finale at Fontana and he never drove for The Captain. Helio Castroneves was out of a ride, because his team folded after Fontana. He had looked promising in his two years in CART, driving for Hogan and Tony Bettenhausen. He was hastily signed by Team Penske, just a matter of days after Moore’s death. Perhaps a little too hastily, because they used the same contract that Moore had signed – they just changed the name and Helio signed it. That was one of the many factors that led to Helio’s tax scandal in the fall of 2008, but that’s a whole other story.

Gil de Ferran was the calm veteran, while Helio Castroneves was the excitable young driver. The two Brazilian drivers formed a bond and a friendship like few teammates do. The off-track friendship provided outstanding results on the track, as well. Gil de Ferran won the 2000 and 2001 CART championship, while Helio earned his first career victory just seven races into his tenure with Penske. Castroneves then went on to win the 2001 and 2002 Indianapolis 500. In what would ultimately be his final IndyCar season, de Ferran won the 2003 Indianapolis 500 and Castroneves finished second.

By this time, Marlboro Team Penske had already made their transition from CART to the IRL After winning the 2000-01 CART crown, Penske moved his entire team to the IRL in 2002. The following year, most of the major CART teams followed, with the exception of Newman/Haas.

Why the ancient history lesson? Because there’s a link from what transpired twenty years ago to what will happen this weekend.

I mentioned that Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves cemented a lasting friendship during the four years the two countrymen drove together for The Captain. That relationship is still strong today. Can you guess who one of the three principals at Arrow McLaren SP is? Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson are two of them. The third is Gil de Ferran.

Even before Askew withdrew, there had already been speculation that Arrow McLaren SP would expand to a third car for 2021. Furthermore, Helio Castroneves was one of the names linked to a possible third car.

Since the end of the 2017 season, Helio Castroneves had been relegated to Month of May-only status for Team Penske’s IndyCar program. He and former teammate Juan Montoya had been sent out to pasture at Penske’s sports car program at Acura Team Penske; but both drivers saw that as an unwanted consolation prize. They both wanted to drive in IndyCar. But the sports car program was a pretty good gig for drivers in their mid-forties.

Helio’s results as a part-time IndyCar driver were unimpressive. In 2017, his last fulltime season – Helio finished fifth in the IMS Grand Prix and second in the Indianapolis 500. In 2019, the last year to do both – he finished twenty-first in the Grand Prix and eighteenth in the “500”. Last month, in what many consider to be his last IndyCar race at Team Penske – Castroneves had his best Indianapolis 500 finish as a part-time driver, when he finished eleventh.

When Helio Castroneves crawls into a McLaren car this weekend, I don’t think this is purely as a substitute driver. I think this is an audition for a third car at McLaren for 2021. In fact, I think it is Helio’s job to lose. I think about the only way Castroneves does not get that ride for next season is if he shows he is no longer competitive in an Indy car on a non-oval, or if he simply cannot get along with the team.

Gil de Ferran is a smart man. He knows what he is getting in Helio Castroneves and sees that this could fill a leadership void. They were Penske teammates for four years while de Ferran was in the mentor role, and Castroneves was the student. I think de Ferran realizes that over the course of a long season, he needs an experienced driver who has tasted success to mentor his two young drivers. Pato O’Ward has shown flashes of brilliance as he is about to complete his first fulltime IndyCar season, while currently sitting third in points. He has proven that Arrow McLaren SP is capable of providing a fast race car, but he has also shown glimpses that he is also a young and inexperienced driver that can still make rookie mistakes.

I think Oliver Askew will eventually be an outstanding driver, but he is a true rookie and with that comes rookie mistakes. He has a very technical approach to his racing, much like Gil de Ferran. O’Ward is a more instinctive and excitable driver, much like Helio Castroneves. Both young drivers have the potential to really compliment each other in the years ahead, but they both need some seasoning.

I think de Ferran has realized that the best way to develop his two young drivers is to add a very seasoned driver to the mix. It has been seventeen years since de Ferran last stepped out of an Indy car. O’Ward was four and Askew was seven. de Ferran could probably tell both drivers exactly what to do in certain instances, but they may not actually hear it. Since Helio Castroneves is still considered current, he could tell them the exact same thing and they could relate to it a lot more, even though de Ferran is only seven and a half years older than Helio. When you are twenty-one like O’Ward, seven years may as well be thirty.

Some suspect that Helio Castroneves is washed up, while others claim he never had much talent to begin with – that he was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Many pray that he never wins that elusive fourth Indianapolis 500, because they don’t consider him worthy of even being mentioned in the same breath with the likes of Foyt, Unser and Mears.

It probably won’t surprise you that I disagree. In my opinion, Helio Castroneves has proven his ability to adapt. He won in CART, winning six races over two years before his team switched over to the IRL. The first time he sat in an IRL car, he won the Indianapolis 500 as a rookie. His first full season in the IRL, he finished second in the points to Sam Hornish, but still managed to win his second straight Indianapolis 500, albeit under some controversy. The knock on Helio has been that he never won a championship. While that is true, in his eighteen fulltime seasons with Team Penske – Helio finished fourth or better thirteen times, while finishing second in points four of those times.

Since this current car entered the NTT IndyCar Series in 2012, Helio’s six respective fulltime finishes in points were fourth, second, second, fifth, third and fourth. There were also two very close second place finishes in the Indianapolis 500 in those years – the most recent in his last fulltime season in 2017.

Even though his heart was still in the IndyCar program, Helio has seen success in Team Penske’s Acura sports car program. After this past weekend at Mid-Ohio, he and teammate Ricky Taylor are now riding a three-race winning streak. With that team going away at the end of the season and his three-year Indy-only contract now up, Helio Castroneves is now a free-agent. He has made it clear to anyone that will listen that he wants a fulltime ride in IndyCar. I think Gil de Ferran has heard him.

Helio Castroneves still has the goods. Most importantly, he still has the desire. I’m convinced that drivers in their forties don’t see their skills diminish that much. Reaction time may not be what it was earlier, but experience can make up for that. Instead, I think some drivers in their forties don’t have quite the desire to push a car toward the edge that they had in their twenties. Having a wife, kids and responsibilities can do that. Chip Ganassi once said that he never saw having children make a driver go faster. That was before Scott Dixon and Emma started having children. Now Dixon is forty and a father of three, yet he shows no signs of slowing down as he is headed for a likely sixth championship.

I think Helio Castroneves has the same desire as Dixon, yet they channel it in totally different ways. Scott Dixon is the Ice Man and always keeps his emotions in check. Castroneves wears his emotions on his sleeve, but that emotion is what has driven him over the years.

It will look odd to see Helio Castroneves crawl into a papaya orange McLaren car this weekend, and not in any of the Penske liveries he has carried over the years. But I think his experience and his adaptability will serve his well in his substitute role. Do I predict a Castroneves win in either of the two races in the Harvest Grand Prix at IMS? No, but I do think he will be competitive and give more than a solid performance. He is driven to prove that he can still wheel an Indy car competitively. I think he will prove his doubters wrong…again.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on September 28, 2020 at 4:01 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.