Team Penske

The cast: Drivers – Helio Castroneves, Will Power, AJ Allmendinger. Chief engineers – Jonathan Diuguid (Castroneves), David Faustino (Power), Ron Ruzewski (Allmendinger). Race strategists – John Erickson (Castroneves), Tim Cindric (Power), Roger Penske (Allmendinger).

Twitter: @h3lio, @12WillPower, @AJDinger, @penskeracing

The cars: No. 2 Chevrolet-powered IZOD Team Penske (Allmendinger), No. 3 Chevrolet-powered Hitachi Team Penske (for St. Petersburg opener) (Castroneves), No. 12 Chevrolet-powered Verizon Team Penske (Power).

Snapshot: Castroneves’ take on the new Pope, from Argentina, being elected this week: “As Catholics, the nationality is not as important as getting a strong Pope in place, but it is great for me to see that the world appreciates how strong the Catholic faith is in South America and I look forward to many good years ahead.”

The stats: Power was the championship runner-up for the third consecutive season in 2012. … He won consecutive road/street course races in the first half of the season and added five pole positions, including three in a row in the second half, to his career total (29 overall and 21 in the past three seasons). … He led 10 of the 15 races for total of 294 laps. … Won the Mario Andretti Road Trophy for third consecutive year based on most points accrued. … Castroneves finished fourth in the standings in 2012, grabbing two victories among 12 top-10 finishes. … Earned his 37th career pole in August at Edmonton – his first since Twin Ring Motegi in 2010. He's fifth on the all-time Indy car list. … He topped the field by completing 1,965 of the 1,968 laps. … His dozen top 10s also were a series high.

The gist: A Team Penske car (Ryan Briscoe, Castroneves and Power) won six of the 15 races in 2012, including the first four. There was some movement within the team with Ruzewski focusing on his role as technical director aside from the races that Allmendinger, who won five Champ Car races in 2004-06, will run (Barber and Indianapolis). That moved Diuguid to Castroneves’ car. Team owner will be a consultant. The Indianapolis 500 victory (Castroneves is seeking his fourth) and the series title (the team last won it in 2006 with Sam Hornish Jr.) are the priorities.

 

They said it: “I just need to score four more points,” said Power, who fell three points short of his first series title in 2012. “It’s not really to change much. We made changes within the team and had a relaxing off-season. I’ve never seen a team work so hard in the offseason really. Me personally as well so all we can do is bring what we’ve got, do our absolute best. My approach to the season is really no different than it’s been the last three years. Just going to keep chipping away and hopefully at some point we can get the thing done.”

Added Castroneves: “We're looking very strong again. The (car) seems to be a little bit better, which I think everybody went through all the phases of learning the car last year. I'm really, really excited for 2013 to start.

“Will is proving the last three, four years how incredible he is on the road course and street course. I would say he's very accurate, especially in qualifying, and he's able to be smart when you switch to race pace. That's his strength right now at this point. Right now, we're doing everything we can to make sure both cars are competitive on ovals and road courses.”