Castroneves wins the Iowa Corn 300 in full day of IndyCar racing

Helio Castroneves has competed in all 11 Verizon IndyCar Series races at Iowa Speedway. He is one of four active series drivers to do so.

Castroneves finally reached the Speedway’s Casey’s General Stores Victory Lane on Sunday. He won the 2017 Iowa Corn 300. He moved into the lead for good late in the race following a pit stop by most of the field, driving the Team Penske No. 3 Chevrolet.

“It’s great,” Castroneves said after breaking a 54-race drought in the IndyCar Series. “The car was fantastic. Finally, everything came together.”

Sunday’s win was his first win of the 2017 season. It was the first IndyCar win at Iowa Speedway by Team Penske.

“I always come here believing this is the year I was going to win here. I always wanted this trophy,” he said about winning at Iowa Speedway.

JR Hildebrand was driving last year’s winning car — the Ed Carpenter Racing’s No. 21 Chevrolet — claiming second. Three-time Iowa Speedway race champion Ryan Hunter-Reay was on Sunday’s podium in third place.

Pole winner Will Power of Team Penske ran fourth. The 2016 race winner Josef Newgarden finished sixth, also of Team Penske.

Castroneves is fourth all-time in laps led, passing Al Unser. With the 217 laps led of Sunday’s 300-lap race, Castroneves has 5,947 career laps led. It was his 30th career victory on the circuit.

On a hot summer day in Iowa, there were 13 lead changes as the main leaders Power, Castroneves, Hildebrand traded off and on throughout the race. Power used his pole position to lead the first 19 laps, but Castroneves took over then Hildebrand, Power, Castroneves and that’s how it went.

Several others led a few laps, but those three were the big contenders of the afternoon. Hunter-Reay powered his way through the laps, coming from the 15th starting spot to finish third.

There were three cautions in the race and a 13-lap stoppage under a red flag because of a rain shower. Castroneves said it smelled like rain and his helmet visor was picking up a lot of rain drops. The stoppage was the right thing to do, he said.

Race fans witnessed Castroneves climbing the Iowa Speedway fence after his win.

In the Indy Lights Series Mazda 100 Sunday, Matheus Leist went to the front of the field on a restart after 31 laps and stayed there. Leist won the race, but the battle for second was intense.

Indy Lights Series points leader Kyle Kaiser was in second then Dalton Kellett made the pass to take over the second-place spot. In the final stages of the race, Santi Urrutia charged past cars to get in a side-by-side battle with Kellett.

Urrutia went high then made his move to get past Kellett. He finished second because no driver was going to catch Leist. Kellett found himself in third on the podium. Leist stays at No. 2 in the points standings behind Kaiser, who finished fifth.

Three rookies finished on the USF2000 Championship Mazda Iowa 60 on Sunday. Oliver Askew maintained his points lead in the series with a wire-to-wire victory in the only oval race for the USF2000 series. The race took a little more than 24 minutes on the Iowa Speedway track.

It was the first oval race for most of the drivers. It was for Askew, second-place finisher Rinus VeeKay and third-place finisher Calvin Ming. Askew won by 3.8 seconds ahead of VeeKay.

Askew claimed his sixth victory in nine races this season.

More on all three races in Monday’s Newton Daily News sports pages.