He was so close.
One position was all Helio Castroneves needed to become the first driver to win the Indianapolis 500 three times in a row.
But his dear friend and teammate Gil de Ferran beat him out.
The finish for the 2003 Indianapolis 500 had little in the form of splash and intensity. With new cars and engines, the race had melted down into a follow-the-leader affair as Toyota power took hold before mid-race.
None of that mattered to Castroneves, who vainly tried to cement his name into the history books alone, as the only man ever to win a three-peat.
His noble effort was one of the talking points, but the downward slope of a destructive civil war dominated the conversations heading into the 87th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. At the beginning of the year, with the organizational direction in the rival Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) not looking great, several stalwarts on the other side of the Split jumped ship.
In 2002, Team Penske led the way when they committed full-time to the Indy Racing League. The revolt was on. When haulers rolled into Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Month of May, four CART teams had joined the party — Andretti Green Racing, Chip Ganassi (who had run full-time entries in both series in 2002), Team Rahal and Fernandez Racing.
With the increased teams, it was thought that the fields would grow in size as well.
The exact opposite happened. Along with those teams came new engines, but with a greater cost than the previous Chevrolet and Nissan Infiniti production horsepower. Now, leases were involved as Honda and Toyota kept their hands on their intellectual property. Costs jumped. And former IRL teams jumped as well, out of the series.
Prior to qualifying, and after Mario Andretti almost lit the entire IndyCar world on fire with a test in one of his son’s Michael’s team cars that ended in an end-over-end crash, the entry list was a bit thin. There weren’t 33 cars entered in the Indy 500.
Uh-oh.
Back-door deals were struck with A. J. Foyt Enterprises, Sam Schmidt Motorsports, and Panther Racing either entering or adding cars, joining IRL string-bean budget squad PDM Racing. The sacred 33-car field was saved.
Elsewhere in the paddock, Michael Andretti prepared for his last Indy 500. With the move to an all-oval series, the 1991 IndyCar champion decided to hang it up and focus on his new endeavor, running Andretti Green Racing. Young Briton Dan Wheldon, who ran at the end of the 2002 season with Panther, was going to take over the seat, as well as run at Indy.
Castroneves’ focus was all on the track while all the anti-bumping and media contingent followed Andretti. He qualified on pole, his first, and led the field to the green flag.
From there, the race settled down with very little green flag passing for the lead, except when circumstances provided it, such as restarts and driver errors. The new engine formula mixed with updated chassis — Dallara and G-Force — created a lot of team equipment parity, but not great racing.
Of note was the early showing of Andretti in his No. 7 Honda. He took the lead from Scott Dixon while the Indy 500 rookie was out front saving fuel. It was the first laps Dixon led at IMS, and he’d later add over 650 more.
Andretti was well in control of the first half, while Castroneves dipped into his sage advice from team mentor Rick Mears: let the race come to him.
That proved a reliable tactic as the halfway point neared, and Andretti made a scheduled pitstop. However, the infamous “Andretti Curse” slithered through the bricks and snatched the possible victory from the car owner. Andretti’s car broke. Just like that, another opportunity to win the Indy 500 was gone.
Tomas Scheckter, a second-year driver from South Africa driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, took over with Andretti dropping out. Like Penske, he had Toyota power, and just like Castroneves, he knew how to get around the two an2.5-mile track. Just last year, as a rookie, Scheckter was well onto becoming the third rookie in a row, a different three-peat, to win the Indy 500. However, he ended up in the wall, a consistent result for him during his early days in the series.
With a new team and a better power plant than Honda’s at the time, Scheckter was looking to take advantage. But like in 2002, things swung into Castroneves’ favor when he beat out the South African during a yellow flag exchange. On the ensuing restart, Scheckter fell back to fourth and didn’t make any further charge to the front.
It was Castroneves’ race to lose.
And he did.
While Castroneves took the media attention with the two straight Indy 500 wins, de Ferran had just as many achievements, but lacked the spotlight. Before Team Penske switched to the IRL, De Ferran had helped lead the Marlboro colors back to championship form. In the IRL chassis, he hadn’t quite found as much success — only two wins — but was in the hunt for Indianapolis glory.
In 2002, de Ferran was going to cycle out in front of Castroneves during the same cycle that won him the race. But a wheel fell off, ending those hopes.
A year later, de Ferran sought to burn that memory away. On the last green flag stop on lap 170, de Ferran exited behind Castroneves but was able to overtake his fellow Brazilian in traffic. With 30 laps to go, there seemed to be time for Castroneves to regain the lead, as multiple cautions bunched the field, including a wreck for rookie Wheldon, who flipped over. Each restart, de Ferran pulled away.
As the laps ticked down, de Ferran was able to calmly cruise to victory, Castroneves coming in right behind him.
It was a close finish, and to date, the closest a driver came to locking up the three-peat. But his team accomplished what Castroneves couldn’t. Since crossing the picket line in 2001, the team had swept all three of the Indy 500s they had raced. The Captain’s squad found itself right at home after missing the race in 1995, their last time attempting the race before the Split.
Castroneves had a shot at history, but was writing a different chapter in the legacy of the Indy 500. He’d become one of the greatest to ever circle the track, winning two more times in 2009 and 2021, while adding two more runner-ups in 2014 and 2017. If he had cashed in on one of the three second-place runs, he’d be immortalized in Indy 500 glory as the only five-time winner.
Andretti was the big story heading into the race. But he wasn’t done for good. He’d return in 2006 and 2007 so he could race against his son Marco. Michael never won the Indy 500, but he racked up five Baby Borgs as an owner. Unfortunately, he still holds the record for most laps led by a driver without a victory.
Scheckter never showed more promise at Indianapolis like he did in 2002 and 2003. What started out so well for him ended up fading, as he was fired by Ganassi and moved to Panther Racing and later Vision Racing, before losing out on full-time rides in 2008. In his first two starts, he led 148 laps, but never kissed the bricks.
The most vicious wreck in the event belonged to Wheldon, who skidded on the roll hoop for half of the north short chute. Two years later, he’d return victorious in one of the best championship seasons in IndyCar history.
De Ferran’s Indy 500 win was the rare exception of drivers left out of Brickyard glory due to the Split. In 1995, he was involved in the opening lap crash with Stan Fox. He didn’t get another shot until Team Penske’s return in 2001. That’s right – it took four tries for him to win. Others weren’t so lucky, like Alex Zanardi, Jimmy Vasser and Adrian Fernandez.
That was good for him. At the end of the season, de Ferran hung up his helmet, making history that Castroneves couldn’t touch. He became the fourth driver to retire as an Indy 500 winner and never defend his title. Even better for him, he won the last race of his career at Texas Motor Speedway.
It didn’t matter if he never raced again or never came close to going back-to-back like his teammate had. One Indy 500 triumph was good enough for him.
Tom is an IndyCar writer at Frontstretch, joining in March 2023. Besides writing the IndyCar Previews and frequent editions of Inside IndyCar, he will hop on as a fill-in guest on the Open Wheel podcast The Pit Straight. A native Hoosier, he calls Fort Wayne home. Follow Tom on Twitter @TomBlackburn42.