NEWTON, Iowa – (July 23, 2023) – Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) drivers Helio Castroneves and Conor Daly chased each other home Sunday, wrapping up the NTT INDYCAR SERIES weekend doubleheader at Iowa Speedway with a pair of top-20 finishes at the .875-mile oval in Newton, Iowa.
Castroneves (No. 06 AutoNation / SiriusXM Honda) started a season-best eighth for the second of the weekend’s 250-lap races that made up the Hy-Vee One Step 250, marking his best qualifying result since he gridded sixth at Mid-Ohio a year ago. Daly (No. 60 AutoNation / SiriusXM Honda) earned the 15th position on the 28-car Iowa grid, giving MSR its best combined qualifying result of the 2023 season.
The Brazilian fell back four positions in a swarming start, but ran in the top half of the grid for the first half of the race. Castroneves lost a lap to the leaders after his first pit stop, but gained it back after a Lap 88 caution period and restarted from the 14th spot. From there, Castroneves was able to hold serve in the middle of the pack throughout the final 100 laps and finished 16th. The result, when paired with his 14th-place run Saturday, gives the four-time Indianapolis 500 winner his best back-to-back finishes of the campaign.
Daly – who made his third start for the injured Simon Pagenaud in the MSR No. 60 machine – also lost a lap early but got his lap during the early caution as his teammate did. Daly was 19th at the race’s halfway mark but made a pair of late-race passes to climb into 17th at the checkered flag.
After back-to-back race weekends, the MSR squad will get a week off before heading to Nashville, Tennessee for the August 6, Big Machine Music City Grand Prix. Sunday’s race will air live on NBC, beginning at Noon Eastern Time. Qualifying will take place Saturday at 2:45 and can be followed live on Peacock and Sirius XM Channel 160.
Driver Quotes:
Helio Castroneves:
“Tough day, both days. But there wasn’t really much we could do. The car just couldn’t hold the rear tires very well. We tried to make some changes to improve on the entry. But the apex to entry just wasn’t good. Traffic was very difficult for me. To be honest this second race was more about survival then yesterday’s race. I know we can do better, but this is not going to knock us down. We’ll look at areas to improve for the next race.”
Conor Daly:
“We struggled a little in the middle of the first stint and that kind of put us back. Towards the end we were super fast. We passed guys that were running in the top 10. We just lost a bit too much ground in the beginning and we had to tune the car. Every stop we made the car get better and by the end of the race – just like yesterday – it kept getting better and better. It’s nice to feel as you go, you are making moves. We were never on the defensive, we were always moving forward. With a day where there weren’t a lot of DNFs and a lot of really fast cars running around, we were right in the fight and finished right with our teammate.”
