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Hélio Castroneves
Helio at the 2006 Nashville Superspeedway race.
Nationality	Brazil
Date of Birth	May 10, 1975 (1975-05-10) (age 32)
Place of Birth	São Paulo
2007 IRL IndyCar series
Debut season	2001
Current team	Penske Racing
Car No.	3
Starts	95
Wins	12
Poles	23
Best finish	2nd in 2002
Previous series
1996-1997 1998-2001	Indy Lights CART
Awards
2001 & 2002 2001	Indianapolis 500 Winner Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year

Hélio Castroneves (born Hélio Castro Neves on May 10, 1975 in São Paulo, Brazil) is one of the top drivers in North American open-wheel racing, first in the CART series and now in the IndyCar Series. He won the Indianapolis 500 in both 2001 and 2002, becoming the fifth driver to do so in consecutive years, and finished second to teammate and countryman Gil de Ferran in 2003. He is a two-time winner of the pole position for the race, including 2007.

After being occasionally misidentified by U.S. media as "Helio Neves" he at first changed the spelling to Helio Castro-Neves and then to the current spelling. He has one sister, Katiucia. After showing potential but lacking reliability while with the Bettenhausen and Hogan teams, Helio was signed by Penske Racing in CART in 2000 following the death of Greg Moore who was killed during the last race of the 1999 season in California. Moore had signed on with Penske but never had the opportunity to race with the team. Castroneves immediately became a regular front-runner. He switched with the team to the rival IRL for 2002, and has remained there ever since, now teamed with American Sam Hornish Jr.

Racing fans have given Castroneves the nickname "Spider-Man" because of the form of victory celebration he introduced, in which he climbs the track-side debris fence, a practice since adopted by NASCAR driver Tony Stewart in the 2005 Nextel Cup season.

Announced on August 29, 2007, Castroneves will compete as a contestant on ABC's Dancing With the Stars television program. He will be paired with season 4 champion, Julianne Hough. Castroneves' performances have been mentioned on SPEED TV's The Speed Report since Dancing With the Stars began their fifth season to viewers of the ABC show.

Helio has been engaged to a jewlery designer from Florida since November 2006.

Contents 1 Career Results 1.1 IndyCar 1.2 CART Champ Car career results 1.3 Indianapolis 500 results 2 External links

[edit] Career Results

[edit] IndyCar

(key) (Races in Bold indicate pole position)

Yr	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Rank	Points
2001	Penske	PHX Ret	HMS	ATL	IND 1	TXS	PPIR	RIR	KAN	NSH	KTY	STL	CHI	TX2					24th	64
2002	Penske	HMS 3	PHX 1	CAL 5	NZR 5	IND 1	TXS 4	PPIR 2	RIR 17	KAN 3	NSH 9	MIS 6	KTY 5	STL 2	CHI 4	TX2 2			2nd	511
2003	Penske	HMS 3	PHX 2	JPN Ret	IND 2	TXS 7	PPIR 12	RIR 2	KAN 2	NSH 3	MIS Ret	STL 1	KTY 5	NZR 1	CHI Ret	CAL 6	TX2 9		3rd	484
2004	Penske	HMS 2	PHX 6	JPN 3	IND 9	TXS 12	RIR 3	KAN 7	NSH 3	MIL 12	MIS 10	KTY 12	PPIR 6	NZR 5	CHI 10	CAL 7	TX2 1		4th	446
2005	Penske	HMS 5	PHX 2	STP Ret	JPN Ret	IND 9	TXS 5	RIR 1	KAN 8	NSH 5	MIL 16	MIS Ret	KTY 5	PPIR 4	SNM Ret	CHI 2	WGL Ret	CAL 9	6th	440
2006	Penske	HMS 2	STP 1	JPN 1	IND Ret	WGL 7	TXS 1	RIR 10	KAN 6	NSH 5	MIL 14	MIS 1	KTY 3	SNM 5	CHI 4				3rd	473
2007	Penske	HMS 9	STP 1	JPN 7	KAN 3	IND 3	MIL Ret	TXS Ret	IOW 8	RIR 11	WGL Ret	NSH 6	MDO 3	MIS Ret	KEN 9	SNM 2	DET Ret	CHI 4	6th	446

Years	Teams	Races	Poles	Wins	Podiums (Non-win)	Top 10s (Non-podium)	Indianapolis 500 Wins	Championships
7	1	95	23	12	23	39	2 (2001, 2002)	0

[edit] CART Champ Car career results

Year	Team	Wins	Points	Championship Finish
1998	Bettenhausen Racing	0	36	17th
1999	Hogan Racing	0	48	15th
2000	Penske Racing	3	129	7th
2001	Penske Racing	3	141	4th

Best championship: 4th (6 series victories)

[edit] Indianapolis 500 results

Year	Chassis	Engine	Start	Finish
2001	Dallara	Oldsmobile	11th	1st
2002	Dallara	Chevrolet	13th	1st
2003	Dallara	Toyota	1st	2nd
2004	Dallara	Toyota	8th	9th
2005	Dallara	Toyota	5th	9th
2006	Dallara	Honda	2nd	25th
2007	Dallara	Honda	1st	3rd

Castroneves's finishes for 2001 to 2003 is currently the best 3 race finishing streak in Indianapolis history. It is equal to the streak posted by Al Unser from 1970 through 1972.

[edit] External links

• Hélio Castroneves Official Website
• Hélio Castroneves Official MySpace Profile Updated by Helio and CastronevesRacing
• Photos

Sporting positions
Preceded by Juan Pablo Montoya	Indianapolis 500 Winner 2001-02	Succeeded by Gil de Ferran
Awards
Preceded by Buddy Lazier	Scott Brayton Award 2004	Succeeded by Kenny Bräck

Penske Racing
Nextel Cup drivers	Kurt Busch (#2) | Ryan Newman (#12)
IRL Mobil 1 Team Penske drivers	Hélio Castroneves (#3)| Sam Hornish, Jr. (#6)
American Le Mans Series DHL drivers	Sascha Maassen/Ryan Briscoe/Emmanuel Collard (#6) | Romain Dumas/Timo Bernhard (#7)
Driver development program	Billy Wease
Partnerships and Affiliations	Rusty Wallace, Inc.
Other	Roger Penske

v • d • e Indianapolis 500 winners
Four-time	Foyt · Al Unser, Sr. · Mears
Three-time	Meyer · Shaw · Rose · Rutherford · B. Unser
Two-time	Milton · Vukovich · Ward · Johncock · Fittipaldi · Luyendyk · Al Unser, Jr. · Castroneves
One-time	Harroun · Dawson · Goux · Thomas · DePalma · Resta · Wilcox · Chevrolet · Murphy · Corum · Boyer · DePaolo · Lockhart · Souders · Keech · Arnold · Schneider · Frame · Cummings · Petillo · Roberts · Davis · Robson · Holland · Parsons · Wallard · Ruttman · Sweikert · Flaherty · Hanks · Bryan · Rathmann · Jones · Clark · Hill · Andretti · Donohue · Sneva · Sullivan · Rahal · J. Villeneuve · Lazier · Cheever · Bräck · Montoya · de Ferran · Rice · Wheldon · Hornish · Franchitti