The Penske-Chevrolet driver was at PIR as part of a test for both IndyCar and Firestone, along with Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti and Carlos Munoz, as well as Ed Carpenter in his eponymous team.

Although IndyCar was welcomed back this year by race fans in Phoenix, Az., the consensus was that IndyCar needed to improve the racing on short tracks. As a result, Castroneves and Penske were among the contingent asked to help give direction to the series’ technical body.

Castroneves told Motorsport.com: “Man, I did 320 laps – that’s more than the race is [250]. But it was great fun, good to be back behind the wheel of a racecar, although I always say that, however long it’s been!

“We were testing different downforce levels, different power levels, reducing regular boost but adding push to pass. And Firestone came up with a very good tire.

“So now IndyCar is collecting everyone’s thoughts and coming up with a solution.”

“I will speculate – and I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do – but I feel push-to-pass on ovals is something they might be considering. They did the same at Gateway, and I think they’re heading very strongly in that direction.”

Castroneves, who finished third in this year’s championship said that the series competition department’s next hurdle would be balancing the wishes of both Chevrolet and Honda.

“The good thing is that they’re testing and trying all the little things that need checking, but I think IndyCar’s biggest challenge is to make both manufacturers happy,” he commented. “Both companies have put a lot of money into this, so they don’t want to make one side happy and the other unhappy and they’re always going to have this challenge, right?”

Firestone improvements

Castroneves said there had been no repeat of the problems that afflicted both himself and then-teammate Juan Pablo Montoya during the race at Phoenix this year. Both drivers, who were running in the top three in the early portion of April’s Phoenix Grand Prix, suffered deflating right-front tires.

“They thought my tire got a puncture, not a tire failure,” said the Brazilian who started from pole, “and they didn’t know if Juan’s was just a tire failure.

“So yesterday we tried both my setup and Juan’s setup so we could cover all the areas. And we did not have an issue at all. Well, we did have some vibration as the tires degraded, but no deflation.

“It was good having Firestone onboard to investigate these kinds of things. And like I said, it’s a really good tire for this track. It would definitely give teams more options to maybe look after tires and run more downforce, or use tires a little bit quicker by having the car on low downforce – fast on straights, but sliding on the corners.”

Castroneves said that he doesn’t expect any more testing for the Penske drivers this year.

“I think we’ve run out of mileage on all the engines,” he said. “Certainly, that’s true on the #3 team. I have two-and-a-half months off. It sounds nice but I want to be testing.”