Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves crashed into the wall in qualifying and will start last on the 20-car grid in the AJ Foyt 225.
Castroneves spent the past few days celebrating his third Indianapolis 500 win and talking about his next challenge — hanging onto the momentum from Indy and going after his first IndyCar Series championship.
The concrete wall in turn two at the Milwaukee Mile on Saturday took the edge off the celebration and was certain to make things a little more difficult for the Penske Racing driver in yesterday’s race.
PHOTO: AFP
“We tried something different out there in qualifying from what we ran in practice,” Castroneves said. “I just went for it and the car wiggled a little bit. I thought I saved it but, unfortunately, I ended up brushing the wall and couldn’t qualify.”
But Castroneves remained optimistic.
“The good news is that Ryan [Briscoe] is starting on the pole tomorrow, which shows that the Team Penske cars are strong,” he said. “Tomorrow, we’re going to look to have good pit stops and score some solid points.”
If Castroneves has a good car, it may not be that tough for him to challenge Briscoe and the rest of the top qualifiers.
Last autumn at Chicagoland Speedway, he started 28th after his qualifying effort was disallowed for driving below the white out-of-bounds line. Castroneves charged through the field to win, giving series champion Scott Dixon of New Zealand a scare as the Brazilian came within 17 points of last year’s title.
At Kansas last month, it was more of the same.
Castroneves started from the back of a 21-car field after again being disqualified again for a white-line violation during qualifying. This time, he wound up second to Dixon.
But traffic on the flat Milwaukee track is always a hazard.
“This is a very difficult place because you’re always in traffic,” said Castroneves, who has qualified well here in the past, but has yet to win on the suburban Milwaukee track. “Things happen very fast and you have to have a good car and be a little lucky, too.”
Teammate Briscoe, whose victory at the Milwaukee Mile last year put his IndyCar career into high gear, had no problems on Saturday. His four-lap average of 270.97kph gave the Australian driver his fifth career pole and first this year.
“We won from 11th last year so, hopefully, starting on the front row can get me away from the chaos that always happens in the first couple of laps,” Briscoe said. “I had a good race car last year so, hopefully, we can replicate that tomorrow.”
Asked about the ill fortune that befell his teammate, Briscoe said: “He always seems to win the race when they put him in the back, so I’ll be looking in my mirrors, for sure.”
Graham Rahal, the 20-year-old second-year driver for Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, added a second-place start to two poles earlier in the season. His 6.4km qualifying run of 270.537kph was only 0.437kph slower than Briscoe.
Tony Kanaan, still hurting from a hard crash on May 24, was able to ignore the pain long enough to qualify third.
“Everything hurts,” Kanaan said. “But my mother told me before I came here just to suck it up and go. So I’m taking her advice.”
Dixon qualified fourth, followed by Mario Moraes, Hideki Mutoh, Danica Patrick and Dario Franchitti — leading Castroneves by five points in the season standings.
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