USA TODAY International Edition
Pagenaud claims IndyCar title
Driver covered all bases along path
Simon Pagenaud’s dog was yipping mightily from the edge of victory circle Sunday as Pagenaud and his race car were rolled through the gathered crowd and bathed in red, black and white confetti.
It had been a long wait in the carrier, and even the Jack Russell terrier seemed to sense the inevitability of it all. The race, the season.
Pagenaud’s cruise to his first IndyCar championship was like his journey to Sonoma Raceway for the finale: relatively uneventful. Needing only to finish fifth Sunday to claim Team Penske’s 14th openwheel title in its 50th year of existence, he closed the deal more emphatically, winning from the pole for his series- best fifth win of the season. Teammate Will Power finished second in points, 127 behind.
“It was just Simon’s year through and through,” Power said.
Team owner Roger Penske shook his hand before Pagenaud, who took a few minutes in the car to swig a drink and wipe his brow, climbed out to embrace his mother and sisters in victory circle.
“My whole career has been about today and getting to this point,” Pagenaud said. “When you can perform 100% under pressure like this, it’s a great feeling.”
It didn’t have the drama of Scott Dixon vaulting Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya with a win in the finale last season. But it was a result more representative of the campaign as a whole. Sometimes excellence is mundane in real time, and most of Pagenaud’s ride through the Northern California wine country proved that Sunday. But as with his season, the intrigue was in the details unseen.
“I think the fact he came here in this last race,” Penske observed,
“won the pole and went out and executed the way he did — I think he led almost every single lap in the race but a few — he certainly was the class of the field today, and that just shows the kind of winner we have in him and the series champion and he sure deserves.”
Pagenaud, 32, began the season with a flourish, finishing second in the first two races before winning three consecutive races and assuming the points lead for 15 of the final 16 races.
His massive early points advantage was enough to hold off Power, who was handicapped from the outset of the season by missing the opener after being misdiagnosed with a concussion. Pagenaud’s one blip was at Pocono Raceway, where he crashed after Power took the lead, en route to winning for the fourth time in a six- race span.
Penske suggested Pagenaud had finally pressed. Pagenaud asserted he was due a bad break. Whatever it was, he went back to methodically seeing the landscape of the entire campaign.
Pagenaud seemed determined to finish this without getting beyond his comfort zone at Sonoma.
A last- ditch lap earned him the top starting spot — much to the dismay of teammate and provisional pole- sitter Helio Castroneves — and a bonus point that was more symbolic than mathematically necessary. He tore off into the 2.3- mile permanent road course alone at the start, building a five- second lead on Castroneves and 7.5 seconds on third- place Power by lap 10. It was 10 seconds by lap 33. It was over by lap 36, when Power had a clutch control unit failure while running inside the top five.
After having titles slip from his grasp in the final race four times — three with Power — since 2010, this was gratifying for Penske, a man used to finishing the deal in business. And especially rewarding since Penske created a fourth program for Pagenaud when he became available as a free agent before the 2015 season.
“We’ve had, if you look, how many times in the last five years we’ve come into the last race, you know leading and we didn’t execute,” Penske told USA TODAY Sports. “That’s on your mind, believe me.”