NASCAR insider: Helio Castroneves 'was like a ping pong ball' at Daytona

Helio Castroneves made his foray into NASCAR over the past week, participating in the 2025 Daytona 500, but his performance left a ton to be desired.

While there was a ton of hype behind the four-time Indianapolis 500-winner’s Cup Series debut in The Great American Race, it was disaster after disaster for Castroneves. He wrecked during his qualifying race, and then he wrecked once again during the 500. In the end, he didn’t even make it to halfway.

While it was cool to see him venture into the NASCAR world, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic were disappointed with how it all shook out for Castroneves. During the latest episode of The Teardown Podcast, they examined where it all went wrong for the veteran wheelman.

“Somebody that I think everybody was hoping to see have a good speedweeks, perhaps, but really didn’t — Helio Castroneves,” Gluck prefaced. “In the Duel, he wrecked and then kind of like saved it, but then went down on the apron and then wrecked himself into the wall. So, that was like basically two wrecks in one.

“Then, he wrecks again tonight. Just didn’t even really get the full experience. … He finished 39th. He made 70 laps.”

In addition to the Cup Series side of things, Castroneves also ran the ARCA race on Saturday, where he finished in the top five, but he was then wrecked after the checkered flag came out. Suffice to say he didn’t expect to be in the wall that often over the past few days, but the result had Bianchi compare him to a ping pong ball.

“That dude’s like a ping pong ball. Like, everything bounced everywhere,” Bianchi joked. “… I would have liked to — I wish he could have done the ARCA Race first, and then run the Duel, you know, just to — you could have taken the experience in the ARCA Race, and then he could have seen what he could have done in the Duel, instead of like the other way around.

“… It’s just a little bit of familiarity of navigating a draft and that kind of thing. Maybe in these situations, he would have been able to figure out how to manage it a little bit better.”

Helio Castroneves is still one of the greatest to ever get behind the wheel of a race car, but perhaps he’ll be better suited to get some more practice before trying his hand at NASCAR again in the future. Maybe he’ll return to Daytona in 2026, but he’ll be hoping he doesn’t meet the wall as often if he does try again, that’s for sure.