INDIANAPOLIS – Simon Pagenaud entered Saturday’s IndyCar Grand Prix winless in his last 22 races and his future with Team Penske was as cloudy as the oncoming rain storm that was about to hit Indianapolis.
By the time the checkered flag waved, Pagenaud became a three-time winner of the IndyCar Grand Prix and by winning for the first time in 23 races, his outlook at Team Penske and in the NTT IndyCar Series appears a whole lot brighter.
Pagenaud won his third IndyCar Grand Prix with a brilliant drive in the rain, tracking down Scott Dixon with two laps to go and passing him in turn eight on the 2.439-mile, 14-turn Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. Pagenaud joins Team Penske teammate Will Power as a three-time winner of the IndyCar Grand Prix.
Power and Pagenaud are the only drivers to win this event in the six times it has been held. Pagenaud won the inaugural race in 2014 with Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports, then drove to victory in 2016 with Team Penske and again on Saturday.
This win was vitally important to the driver from France because it snapped a 22-race winless streak and restored him back to competitiveness in the NTT IndyCar Series.
“We’ve had amazing seasons, if you think about 2016, the domination we had, 2017, which was as good quite frankly,” Pagenaud said afterwards. “We actually scored more points that year. We had a really, really good season in 2017, and then last year was about understanding this new car.
“I think we saw that my teammates and myself all struggled a little bit to understand it as well. But that’s where Team Penske comes as a strong entity with my teammates, with also my crew and my engineers where we all gathered together to try to fix the issues in a very smart way, without being too smart. We went back to basics. We tried to figure it out, and the car is just getting better and better every race.
“Now slowly I’m definitely gaining the confidence that I’ve had, been able to achieve in the past, and right now I’m driving better than I did in ’16, so the results will come, but you’ve got to be patient.”
Pagenaud led just five laps in the race, including the final two. Dixon started second and led 39 laps before the handling on his car started to fail in the closing laps on the wet track.
Dixon had a six-second lead with five laps to go before Pagenaud was able to track him down and pass him in Turn 8.
“The rain with about 10 laps to go, I’m like, ‘we’re going to get hosed here,’” Dixon said. “The front tires we just didn’t have the grip. I don’t know if we changed the front wing or whatever we did in that pit stop, but we just had no front grip and had to stop the car too much to really keep time, and we were hoping — we were talking a lot about whether it was going to be a time race or it was going to run the full distance, and obviously it went the full distance.
“A lap or two shorter would have helped.
“But congrats to Pagenaud. It’s great to see him back in victory circle, and they did a great job today and had great speed at the end of the race.
“Bummer leading that many laps and coming up second.”
Harvey, who is competing in a 10-race schedule for Michael Shank Racing this season, had the best NTT IndyCar Series race of his career and finished third. Matheus Leist of A.J. Foyt Racing was fourth with Spencer Pigot of Ed Carpenter Racing rounding out the top five.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway is closed for Mother’s Day and Gasoline Alley reopens on Monday so teams can change their cars from road course setup to oval configuration.
Practice for the 103rd Indianapolis 500 begins Tuesday.
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