IndyCar: Will Helio Castroneves win his fourth Indy 500 in 2019?

Helio Castroneves is set to compete in IndyCar’s most prestigious race, the Indianapolis 500, for the 19th consecutive year this year, and he is set to attempt to win it for the fourth time for the 10th consecutive year.

Helio Castroneves has competed in each of the last 18 Indianapolis 500 races going all the way back to the 2001 IndyCar season. He has driven for Team Penske in each of these 18 races.

The Indy 500 streak of the 43-year-old Brazilian is set to extend to 19 consecutive Indy 500 appearances this season, and it is set to extend to 19 consecutive Indy 500 appearances driving for Team Penske as well.

Since winning the 93rd running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” back in 2009, Castroneves has been a three-time winner of the race, meaning his Indy 500 win total trails only the Indy 500 win totals of four-time Indy 500 winners A.J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr. and Rick Mears.

Castroneves also won the race in his first two attempts, as he won it as a rookie in 2001 before winning it again in 2002.

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In his 18 career Indy 500 starts, Castroneves has earned three victories, three second place finishes, one third place finish and one fourth place finish. He has earned six other top 10 finishes, and he has finished outside of the top 10 just four times. He crashed in two of the Indy 500 races that did not result in him finishing in the top 10. His average finish in these 18 starts is 8.11.

In the nine Indy 500 starts that Castroneves has made since winning the race for the third time, he has earned two second place finishes and four other top 10 finishes. He has finished outside of the top 10 three times, and he crashed in one of the three Indy 500 races that did not result in him finishing in the top 10. His average finish in these nine starts is 10.11.

In his 10th Indy 500 start as a three-time Indy 500 winner, will Castroneves finally become the fourth member of the four-time winners’ club?

Castroneves has shown in recent years that he is still competitive in the Indy 500 despite the fact that he has not won the race since 2009. His two second place finishes since 2009 came in 2014 and 2017. In 2014, he was beaten by just 0.0600 seconds by Ryan Hunter-Reay, and in 2017, he was beaten by just 0.2011 seconds by Takuma Sato.

However, two of Castroneves’ Indy 500 victories came in a 12-month span. In his 16 Indy 500 starts since then, he has won the race just once. In the same span, 12 other drivers have won the race at least once, with one doing so twice and another doing so three times. Five of the last six Indy 500 winners have been first-time winners as well. In other words, he hasn’t really “stood out” in recent years like he did when he first arrived on the scene nearly two decades ago.

Also, Castroneves’s limited experience with the new UAK18 aero kit could be a disadvantage for him. In last year’s Indy 500, everyone was on fairly even ground having never competed in a superspeedway race using this aero kit before. A number of drivers crashed as a result of it, and Castroneves was one of them, as he crashed on the race’s 146th lap.

This year, many of the drivers who are set to compete in the race have driven in additional superspeedway races with the UAK18 aero kit whereas Castroneves has driven in only one superspeedway race and two road course races. With this in mind and given how deep the field is, it is hard to picture a part-time driver winning this year’s Indy 500, even if that part-time driver is a three-time winner of the race.

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Will Helio Castroneves become the fourth four-time Indianapolis 500 winner by winning the 103rd running of the event this year? NBC is scheduled to broadcast this year’s running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” live from Indianapolis Motor Speedway beginning at 11:00 a.m. ET on Sunday, May 26, so be sure not to miss it.

This race, which isn’t scheduled to begin until later that afternoon at around 12:45 p.m. ET, is the sixth race on the 17-race 2019 IndyCar schedule.