TORONTO – Helio Castroneves had reason to smile after his third-place finish in Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto. It moved the Team Penske driver closer to the three drivers in front of him in the Verizon IndyCar Series standings.

By finishing third he was one position closer to Will Power, his Team Penske teammate who is second in the standings, 25 points behind the leader, another Team Penske driver – Juan Pablo Montoya. Third in the standings Scott Dixon finished eighth and Montoya ninth.

Castroneves trimmed his deficit in the standings to just 52 points behind Montoya, 27 behind Power and just seven behind Dixon.

“I gained?” Castroneves asked. “That’s great. It was a great effort. Another podium for us is always great. The qualifying wasn’t supposed to be like that but in the end I guess it wasn’t supposed to be. It was a great job and I had a lot fun.

“We had a yellow on the second pit stop and I didn’t see any car out there. I don’t want to think about the negative – I want to think about the positive and these guys do very well here.”

Castroneves was caught in the pits during a caution period and Team Penske was able to turn that into an advantage. When the other contenders had to pit later in the race Castroneves had built a sizeable 20.8117-second lead over the second place car at the time driven by Rodolfo Gonzalez.

But without another yellow flag, Castroneves could not capitalize on that advantage. He pitted with 20 laps to go and that put him fourth.

The three-time Indianapolis 500 winner would go on to finish third on a track where he has never won.

“What a great job from the Hitachi Boys including Roger Penske – they made a great call, got me up there and I was running really strong laps,” Castroneves said. “That car was on rails. I drove it like I stole it. This is a great event and hopefully next year I get a win.”

Three of the top four drivers in the standings are Castroneves’ teammates at Team Penske. That should make for quite an interesting second half of the season as these three drivers slug it out along with Target/Chip Ganassi Racing’s Dixon – a three-time Verizon IndyCar Series champion.

“We don't look when we are doing that just as a teammate, we look as a competitor,” Castroneves said of the Team Penske battle. “You are just going to go out there and pass whoever is in front of you if you have an opportunity.  Obviously you take a little more ‑‑ you give a little more extra inch, but that's all you need to do. 

“Other than that, you just go for it.”

The next three races for the Verizon IndyCar Series are on ovals tracks. The series doesn’t return to a road course until the August 2 Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio.

“We finished third at Texas and finished third here so hopefully we are getting closer to a win,” Castroneves said. “If not on a street course than hopefully on an oval.”