{"id":6493,"date":"2023-09-10T18:53:32","date_gmt":"2023-09-10T22:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=6493"},"modified":"2023-09-10T18:53:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-10T22:53:32","slug":"helio-castroneves-paces-meyer-shank-racing-in-season-ending-laguna-seca-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/10\/helio-castroneves-paces-meyer-shank-racing-in-season-ending-laguna-seca-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"Helio Castroneves Paces Meyer Shank Racing In Season-Ending Laguna Seca Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monterey, Calif. – (10 September\u00a0 2023) \u2013 Four-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves (No. 06 AutoNation \/ SiriusXM Honda) ended his career as a full-time NTT INDYCAR SERIES driver in high style Sunday, making up a season-high 14 positions to finish 13th<\/sup> in the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey.
\nCastroneves was 27th<\/sup> and last in the field at the start of the 95-lap event, but the Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) veteran needed less than a lap to turn his fortunes around. Deft avoidance of a multi-car incident on the opening lap allowed the Brazilian to gain 10 spots before making a full lap around the 2.238-mile WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
\nThe incident was a harbinger of things to come as Castroneves survived multiple setbacks, including a 720-degree spin on Lap 26, nose contact on a Lap 36 restart and another in a two-car spin on Lap 74, but avoided major damage and kept his MSR team in the hunt.
\nAs he did through 391 series starts \u2013 a number that is second in series history \u2013 Castroneves fought all the way to the end, making up a spot on the last circuit of the day to finish on the lead lap in 13th<\/sup>.
\nMSR rookie Tom Blomqvist (No. 60 AutoNation \/ SiriusXM Honda), also improved\u00a010 spots in the first-lap melee and gained more valuable experience with the team ahead of his full-season INDYCAR debut in 2024.
\nBlomqvist worked his way to to run a race-high of sixth by the time the race surpassed the halfway mark. He continued to keep that pace and manage several additional restarts.\u00a0Unfortunately, lap 61 contact on one of the final restarts caused enough damage to send the No. 60 Honda back to\u00a0the garage with the day ending early.
\nMeyer Shank Racing is eager to turn the page and look ahead to next season which will see the team continue to grow in the INDYCAR SERIES. Felix Rosenqvist and Tom Blomqvist are tabbed to run the full-season with MSR. Castroneves will continue his Drive for 5 in 2024 and be MSR’s third car in the Indianapolis 500. In addition, Castroneves will play several important roles behind the scenes, serving as driver coach,\u00a0team ambassador as well as minority partner to the team.
\nDriver Quotes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Helio Castroneves:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“You know what everything happened in this race. That’s\u00a0the way it should be, right. We had spinning out, crashing, reverse, coming back, and we still finished 13th – which is my daughters volleyball T-shirt number, so that’s\u00a0perfect. But at the end of the day it was a great team effort. What an honor to work with these guys and I\u2019m looking forward continuing with them in 2024 for the Indy 500. Now let\u2019s see what we can make happen with Tom and Felix representing the team next season. Thank you everyone for everything and wishing you all an incredible off season. I also want to send a big \u2018Hi\u2019 to my friend Simon Pagenaud as well, I\u2019m always praying for you, my friend, all the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tom Blomqvist:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a pretty wild race. I\u2019m disappointed in how our race had to end – I got caught up in one of those restarts and it unfortunately ended our day early. I thought we had some good pace and the guys on the stand were making good strategy calls. We definitely got lucky a few times, but this race was also about being lucky to a point. It\u2019s tough to end out the season like this, but it\u2019s been great to get a head start on my full-season effort for next year. I can\u2019t thank Mike and Jim enough for giving me this opportunity to fill in this year, and I\u2019m looking forward to \u201924.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monterey, Calif. – (10 September\u00a0 2023) \u2013 Four-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves (No. 06 AutoNation \/ SiriusXM Honda) ended his career as a full-time NTT [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-meyer-shank-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6495,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6493\/revisions\/6495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}