3 points behind and 5 races to go......
Castroneves inches closer to championship lead
Sunday, 16 July 2017
By Robin Miller / Image by Scott LePage/LAT
Early in Sunday's Honda Indy Toronto, Helio Castroneves was leading after making a bodacious move on the opening lap, Scott Dixon was limping around in 20th place and the Verizon IndyCar series had a new sheriff.
At that point, Castroneves owned a 33-point championship lead over Dixon and was sailing toward his second straight victory. But then the racing gods intervened.
With Castroneves, pole-sitter Simon Pagenaud and Graham Rahal pulling away from the field at about a second a lap, a full-course caution came out when Tony Kanaan plugged it into the tires on lap 23. Josef Newgarden, who had been running fourth and was in pit lane when the caution waved, was the benefactor.
Newgarden inherited the lead and held it to the end while Castroneves could only salvage eighth. Dixon, who tangled with Will Power on the first lap, recovered nicely to take 10th place and left Toronto still leading the championship.
Toronto Highlights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuKbdmj1TQM
"That's just racing," said Castroneves, who trails Dixon by three points with five races remaining in the season. "I had a fantastic car and made a great start and everything was going our way until that yellow.
"So it helped one of my teammates and hurt myself and Simon, but we've all been on both sides of that."
The three-time Indy 500 winner's move at the start when he jumped from third to first with a nifty, late, inside pass of the front row on Pagenaud and Rahal was nothing short of spectacular.
"I did that back in 1997 at the Indy Lights race and it worked again," he said.
But it's pretty obvious the 42-year-old veteran is driving better and smarter than ever before, and he's going to be a handful for Dixon and anybody else down the stretch as he tries for his first title.
"This is a great team and I've had some great cars this year and I feel like we can win anywhere," he said. "We've got five races to go and I can't wait for the next one."