USA TODAY International Edition
Pagenaud achieves Indy 500 immortality
INDIANAPOLIS – Simon Pagenaud never doubted himself. Not once. Not when his racing career was hanging by a thread 13 years ago. Not when his open-wheel dreams nearly died a couple of years later. And not when the racing world was writing him off after a winless 2018 campaign.
Each and every time he could have faded away, he refused. He persevered, envisioned success, then swiftly attained it.
His historic victory at Sunday’s 103rd running of the Indianapolis 500 was no different. Perhaps the rest of the world expected him to back down to the hard-charging daredevil, Alexander Rossi. Maybe they agreed with the Andretti Autosport driver when he swiped the lead just ahead of the final restart and told his team, “There are a bunch of hungry, angry cars behind me. Little do they know I’m angrier!”
If they did, Pagenaud said, they were wrong. No one wanted the wreath, the milk, all of it more than he did.
Pagenaud chuckled when he heard what Rossi said. “Was he (angrier and hungrier)?” The Penske star grinned. “I don’t think he was.”
Late in the race, Pagenaud harbored no doubts he was going to walk away from Indianapolis Motor Speedway with immortality in hand. For years he had envisioned it, dreamed about it, and Sunday was unfolding almost exactly how he’d imagined.
After leading the majority of the race with relative ease, Pagenaud knew he was in possession of a near-perfect car. “I think we had the perfect amount of downforce on the car, all the right decisions were made. The car was just fantastic, and I realized that I could run second as long as I wanted and pass people when I wanted.”
After a late five-car crash that drew a red flag, Pagenaud and Rossi unleashed a 14-lap duel that will go down as one of the greatest in 500 history. They exchanged the lead five times. While the racing world held it’s collective breath to see who’d cross the yard of bricks first on the last lap, Pagenaud had known for some time it was going to be him. He just had to make sure he got the timing right.
“I wasn’t really worried about getting him back,” said Pagenaud, who passed Rossi during the 198th lap and fended off three more attempts by the young Californian star. “I was just worried about the rhythm, when to get him back to finish first.”