Castroneves reiterates Le Mans desire after Daytona 24H win

Castroneves made the remarks after bringing home the #60 Acura ARX-05 he shared with Oliver Jarvis, Tom Blomqvist and Simon Pagenaud for victory, holding off Ricky Taylor's Wayne Taylor Racing Acura in a thrilling climax to the IMSA SportsCar Championship opener.

The Brazilian, who was part of WTR's winning Daytona line-up in 2021, has never tackled Le Mans in a long and illustrious career that has yielded four Indianapolis 500 wins as well as the 2020 IMSA title for Acura Team Penske, but has never made a secret of his desire to one day compete at La Sarthe.

He was linked to a potential LMP2 drive with the RLR Msport team in 2019, but this didn't materialise.

In the winners' press conference at Daytona on Sunday, Castroneves told team owner Mike Shank: "Mike, let's go to Le Mans. Let's go!"

Asked later if racing at Le Mans would be the next item to tick off on his 'bucket list', he said: "I'd love to. I've never been there. I would love to try obviously. Gotta go to those big events.

"Since I moved here [to IMSA], yes, Daytona was my goal to win. And being at Le Mans, we almost did it, almost got it, but unfortunately with the clash of schedules wasn't able to do it.

"I don't think age is a problem. I think I'm not running out of time. I'm just getting more experience. And experiencing in this type of race is the key to be successful."

For his part, Shank expressed enthusiasm about the idea of returning to Le Mans for the first time since 2016, when his eponymous team finished ninth in the LMP2 class with Laurens Vanthoor, John Pew and Ozz Negri sharing a Honda-powered Ligier JS P2.

MSR hasn't competed at Le Mans since 2016

Photo by: Motorsport Images

However, the earliest realistic chance to take part would be in 2023,