Castroneves uses backup car to end 30-race drought
Despite having to drive his backup car, Helio Castroneves finally broke through for a victory Sunday at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., winning for the first time in 30 races.
More important, the Team Penske star, frustrated until now with seven runner-up finishes this season, kept alive his hopes for an IndyCar Series championship as points leader Scott Dixon had one of his worst days of the season, finishing 12th.
Dixon saw his lead shrink from a seemingly comfortable 78 points to 43 heading into next week's race at Detroit's Belle Isle street circuit, the penultimate race of the season.
Castroneves and teammate Ryan Briscoe started 1-2 and finished the same way, completing an amazing weekend after losing their primary cars in a transporter fire in Wyoming on Wednesday and racing in the Grand Prix of Sonoma four days later in hastily prepared backup cars.
Castroneves was almost delirious with joy as he crossed the finish line, screaming and hollering, "Bring it home, baby."
Nicknamed "Spider Man" for his fence-climbing victory celebrations, the Brazilian scrambled out of his No. 3 Dallara Honda and looked for something to climb. The best he could do was a short fence behind the pits that put him into a crowd of fans, who helped Castroneves celebrate.
"There was nothing left out there; that was fun, a lot of fun," Castroneves said. "Oh, my God, this is awesome. We've been close so often. We never lost faith. This is great for Detroit."
Dixon had a frustrating race. "We lost a ton of points," he said. "This is a race that's very tough. Unfortunately, we got the bad end of the stick. Hopefully, we'll turn it around next time."
Castroneves, who started from the pole won his 13th career race with a perfect pit strategy and a very strong car.
He gave up the lead on his first stop on lap 17 of the 80-lap event and regained the top spot when the last of the leaders, rookie E.J. Viso, finally pitted on lap 36. By the time Castroneves pitted again on lap 44, he had built a lead of more than 16.5 seconds over Briscoe.
Tony Kanaan and Den Wheldon, both eliminated from championship contention on Sunday, finished third and fourth, followed by Danica Patrick and Viso.
European Grand Prix: Ferrari's Felipe Massa won the European Grand Prix in Valencia, Spain, for his fourth Formula One victory of the season, leading wire to wire to finish comfortably ahead of championship points leader Lewis Hamilton in second.
Massa easily held onto his lead after starting from the pole position and finished 5.6 seconds ahead of Hamilton's McLaren on the 3.4-mile street circuit. BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica wound up third.