Castroneves’ runner-up finish was the third of his career at Indianapolis, following on from his equally-heartbreaking defeat at Hunter-Reay’s hands in the 2014 photo finish.
For the happy-go-lucky Brazilian, however, he left his Team Penske-prepared car on Sunday with life perspective and a smile despite coming so close to tying the historic mark held by A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and his mentor, Rick Mears.
“This place is unbelievable, but I want to get my fourth!” Castroneves lamented. “Don’t get me wrong, I am trying, but unfortunately it was a little too hard with the power we had today. Chevy did a great job of lasting in the Indianapolis 500 … we just came up a little short.”
“Congratulations to Taku; he drove a phenomenal race. He bumped me a couple of times and I was like, ‘Man, his car is not breakable’ but I really thought we had it,” Castroneves added. “Even when I tried and I planned well and my car gained momentum again, I couldn’t quite do it.”
“I tell you what, I think I bent the throttle because I was trying so hard. Just a great team effort today. … We worked together, we fight together, and I thought today was my day … but unfortunately Taku had the better end.””
Ed Jones gave Dale Coyne Racing something to smile about after a hard month and the injuries to his teammate Sebastien Bourdais, coming home a thrilling third and notching his best-career Indy car finish.
“I ran over debris that actually put a hole in the floor and damaged the front wing, so we came in to replace that and it sent us to the back of the field and made the race a lot more difficult,” Jones explained. “We kept pushing on though, and kept making up positions. We were really fortunate with the cautions and the yellow at the end kept us at the front.”
“Today was really tough. … I didn’t have the pace for (Sato) like I did Helio at the end there, but we did the best we could. I think those guys were trimmed out just a little more than we did, because even in the draft I was struggling to stay up with him and they were pulling away.”
Ganassi teammates Chilton and Kanaan completed the top five, followed by two-time 500 champion Juan Pablo Montoya, who was never a factor all day but snuck through the late race chaos to come home sixth.
Defending race winner Alexander Rossi was seventh, ahead of Marco Andretti, Gabby Chaves and Carlos Munoz.
After their motor failures, Alonso and Hunter-Reay were credited with 24th and 27th, respectively.
Sunday’s race featured a record 15 different leaders and 35 lead changes, at an average race pace of 155.395 mph, with 871 passes for position during the 500 miles.
The Verizon IndyCar Series season continues June 3-4 with the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix from Belle Isle Park.
Full race results can be viewed on the next page…
