ABC Supply Wisconsin 250 at Milwaukee IndyFest box score
WEST ALLIS, Wis. -- Helio Castroneves wasn't about to allow a little thing such as starting from the rear of the 24-car field dim his prospects in the ABC Supply Wisconsin 250 at Milwaukee IndyFest presented by the Metro Milwaukee Honda Dealers.
The way pit strategies and circumstances played out, Castroneves came up 2.2366 seconds short of winning. Runner-up in the 250-lap race at the historic Milwaukee Mile is a welcome consolation after the No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet violated a qualifying rule and did not make a qualifications attempt.
"It was very frustrating unfortunately," he said. "It was a miscue on that situation. We were 10 minutes late on showing up to the line for the field. The race certainly was a tough one and was very difficult to pass.
"I was trying, I was forcing, I was pushing and doing anything I could. But, at the end of the day, it was a great race and my No. 3 Chevrolet was great, but the 11 car seemed to be really fast. I heard that he lapped everyone in the field, but at one point I said, ‘man, those guys in front of me don’t have the tires and I have got to push,’ and I pushed as hard as I could. Disappointing, but at the end of the day we got a few points toward the championship and we should probably move up a little bit.”
Castroneves holds the Indy car record of winning from the furthest starting position on an oval -- 28th at Chicagoland Speedway in 2008.
CFH Racing co-owner/driver Ed Carpenter advanced 12 positions relative to his starting spot to finish 10th in the No. 20 Fuzzy's Vodka Chevrolet, and race winner Sebastien Bourdais gained 10 positions in the No. 11 Team Hydroxycut - KVSH Racing Chevrolet.
“Our finish was a good recovery from where we started," said Carpenter, teammate of pole winner and fifth-place finisher Josef Newgarden. "It was a long, tough day. We had a decent shot with the way the pit stops cycled through. We were running third on the last restart, but we were the last car in line on old tires. At the end of the day, from what happened in qualifying to get a top 10 and finally finish a race, I’ll take it as a positive. To have one top five and one top 10, all in all it was a good weekend for the entire team.”