Indy 500: Helio Castroneves made an insane jump in points

With just one start through six races on the 2021 IndyCar schedule, four-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves is ahead of eight full-time drivers in the championship standings.

Prior to this afternoon’s 105th running of the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Helio Castroneves had never competed in an IndyCar race for Meyer Shank Racing.

In fact, his only starts for a team other than Team Penske since 1999 came late last season when he was called upon to replace the injured Oliver Askew at Arrow McLaren SP in two races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

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In two of the last three years, Castroneves, who hasn’t competed full-time in IndyCar since 2017, competed for Team Penske in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course race leading up to the Indy 500.

This year, he did not get the chance to compete in the road course race.

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He signed a six-race deal with Meyer Shank Racing last November, and the first of those six races was this year’s running of the 200-lap “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) oval in Speedway, Indiana.

The 46-year-old Brazilian, who hadn’t been to victory lane in IndyCar since 2017, took the checkered flag to become the fourth driver to win the Indy 500 four times.

A.J. Foyt was the first driver to pull it off, winning in 1961, 1964, 1967 and 1977, before Al Unser pulled it off by winning in 1970, 1971, 1978 and 1987. Rick Mears pulled it off by winning in 1979, 1984, 1988 and 1991.

Thirty years later, in his 12th attempt as a three-time winner, Castroneves joined the exclusive club. He won the race as a rookie in 2001 before winning controversially in 2002 and then winning again in 2009.

Because of the double points awarded in this race, Castroneves, who has competed in just one of the season’s first six races, has jumped ahead of nearly 40% of the full-time field in the championship standings.

He went 0 to 100 — in this case, 103 — real quick. And now, of the 21 full-time drivers, only 13 have scored more points through six races than Castroneves scored in his Indy 500 win.

Take a look.

NOTE: Bold = full-time driver.

Rank – Driver: Points (Behind)
1 – Alex Palou – 248 (0)
2 – Scott Dixon – 212 (-36)
3 – Pato O’Ward – 211 (-37)
4 – Simon Pagenaud – 201 (-47)
5 – Rinus VeeKay – 191 (-57)
6 – Josef Newgarden – 184 (-64)
7 – Colton Herta – 154 (-94)
8 – Graham Rahal – 148 (-100)
9 – Scott McLaughlin – 143 (-105)
10 – Marcus Ericsson – 138 (-110)
11 – Takuma Sato – 131 (-117)
12 – Will Power – 128 (-120)
13 – Jack Harvey – 121 (-127)
14 – Helio Castroneves – 103 (-145)
15 – Alexander Rossi – 101 (-147)
16 – Ed Carpenter – 99 (-149)
17 – Ryan Hunter-Reay – 94 (-154)
18 – Sebastien Bourdais – 89 (-159)
19 – Conor Daly – 85 (-163)
20 – Felix Rosenqvist – 82 (-166)
21 – Romain Grosjean – 81 (-167)
22 – Tony Kanaan – 79 (-169)
23 – Ed Jones – 77 (-171)
24 – James Hinchcliffe – 74 (-174)
25 – Dalton Kellett – 62 (-186)

Interestingly, that eight-driver group of full-timers who trail Castroneves includes three of the four Andretti Autosport drivers.

Meyer Shank Racing have a technical alliance with Andretti Autosport, but Andretti Autosport have struggled throughout the 2021 season, save for Colton Herta’s dominant victory on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida last month. Herta has scored just 100 points in the other five races.

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Castroneves’s next scheduled start is slated to take place on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee in the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on Sunday, August 8. This race is the 11th race of what is currently a 16-race calendar that should see a 17th race added as a result of the cancellation of the Honda Indy Toronto on the streets of Toronto, Ontario for the second consecutive season.