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INDIANAPOLIS — Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves will make his 25th start in The Greatest Spectacle in Racing on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Castroneves, who is 50 years old, will start the No. 06 Cliffs Honda for Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian 22nd on the grid.
“That’s my age. I love it,” the Brazilian veteran said. “Wow, 25. 25th edition, let’s put this way, which is amazing. Well, if I wouldn’t be much love with this place, I wouldn’t be coming back for sure. But this place has been good to me. This place is amazing. I want to try to get what a lot of people and especially the rewrite history.”
Citing the new hybrid system on the Indy cars, Castroneves acknowledges a lot has changed with the cars not just over 25 years, but in the last year.
“It definitely changed a lot with the new system, with the hybrid,” Castroneves said. “We all heard, unfortunately, we had a lot more crashes than I remember in terms of when you come with something — car very similar to the years before, but very different on driving style.
“So, yes, I feel that with the extra weight that we have and the cars becoming a little harder. However, you do have the hybrid to use it. Even though it’s not like a push-to-pass, but it feels a little bit.”
Castroneves believes as a result, the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 will be quite interesting.
“I believe this could be very, very interesting this race. There is a lot going on, and people don’t realize when you are actually use the regen, it feels a little bit like a brake,” he explained. “You’ve got to be on top of this scenario, deploy and regen at the same time, at the right time, because if something goes ordinary, you’re going to get passed by a lot of people.
“The race definitely will be entertaining,” he said. “Yeah, it will be exciting. Hopefully we don’t race until 8 o’clock like last year. It was a little different for me, but yeah, I can’t wait to get to the race for sure.”
Castroneves acknowledged there are many drivers in the field who he has very little experience racing against.
“As a driver, you want to compete with people,” Castroneves said. “You want to get better with some of the people that you don’t know because that makes you learn more, learn different style, let’s put this way. I’ll be seeing that.
“Some of them are a little too aggressive in my point. Some of them are aggressive enough to make a movement. I like it. I enjoy it. I just hope they understand how this race is not just a sprint race,” Castroneves said. “ It’s more than that. They have to be patient, more patient than actually just taking unnecessary risks. That’s not me to teach them. Hopefully they learn themselves about that.”
