Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Pagenaud breaks through for first oval win in Phoenix

AVONDALE, Ariz. - Simon Pagenaud parlayed a combination of pace and longer fuel stints to win his first career Verizon IndyCar Series race on an oval, in the next logical career step for the 2016 series champion.

After starting fifth, Pagenaud advanced to the lead and led 116 of 250 laps in Saturday night’s Desert Diamond West Valley Phoenix Grand Prix in the fourth race of the 2017 season in his No. 1 Menards Team Penske Chevrolet.

He’s the fourth winner in as many races, has four top-five finishes to kick off the year, and has now moved into the points lead. It’s his 10th career win.

In a Chevrolet-dominated affair, Pagenaud led teammate Will Power, who finally broke his duck of five straight races outside the top 10, JR Hildebrand, who finished on the podium in his return to action, and Helio Castroneves, who again lost the win from pole position but banked his fourth straight top-10 finish.

Team Penske dominated, leading all 250 laps themselves. Pagenaud, at one point, had more than a one lap lead on the field after stretching a run in the middle portion of the race - but that was negated following a wave-by during a yellow flag caused when Takuma Sato had a strange incident off of Turn 4.

Power tried to carve his way back from there but with too many lapped cars in-between him and Pagenaud following the wave-by, he was never able to get much closer than a few seconds. Ultimately, he ended 9.1028 seconds behind and did well to hold back Hildebrand’s late charge.

Scott Dixon completed the top five finishers, the top Honda. The Hondas were on the back foot all weekend, and seemed unable to break the stranglehold Chevrolet and Penske had on the top of the charts.

In an attrition-filled race, only 13 of 21 starters finished, with five cars going out in a first-lap accident, including prior points leader Sebastien Bourdais.

WHO HAD A GOOD RACE: For the second straight race, Team Penske got three of its four cars into the top four. It was a 1-3-4 at Barber, and a 1-2-4 tonight.... Ed Carpenter broke a rough patch of results with a seventh place finish after starting 21st and last, his first top-10 since coming sixth at Iowa after his memorable scrap with Sage Karam.... like Power and Carpenter, Charlie Kimball also got his first top-10 of the year with a run to eighth.... Ed Jones finished 11th more by default, but a finish in his first IndyCar oval start was a good one.... the result won’t show it but Conor Daly had his best run of the year, running as high as second before gearbox issues cost him a shot at his first top-10. He ended 14th.

WHO HAD A BAD RACE: Andretti Autosport wore the collar of four DNFs with all four of its cars for the second time in three races. Both Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi had lighter wall contact that eventually led to retirements, Takuma Sato had slightly heavier wall contact in Turn 3 and Marco Andretti was caught up in the Turn 1, Lap 1 mess. Another forgettable, and expensive evening.... James Hinchcliffe was a season-worst 12th with his car struggling with fuel mileage... Mikhail Aleshin’s incident streak continued after the first lap mess that also took out Andretti, Bourdais, Max Chilton and the luckless Graham Rahal.

NOTABLE: All four Penske drivers combined to lead all 250 laps.... with teams from Penske, Carpenter and Ganassi locking down the first nine spots, AJ Foyt Racing’s Carlos Munoz in 10th was “best of the rest,” as Dale Coyne Racing hit its first race of the year outside the top 10 with both cars, on an expensive evening for the small team.

QUOTABLE: From a very happy race winner, Pagenaud: “Those were the longest 50 laps of my life. I have a button on the steering wheel to check the lap count, ever lap I was pressing the button. It was the most stressful end of the race I’ve ever lived, but the car was just phenomenal. It was an incredible day for the Menards car, Chevy, incredible job with the aero package for these kinds of tracks and on the engine as well. Since the beginning of the season we worked so closely it’s been fun, I have to say. Obviously, thanks to Verizon as well for all the support that they give us. I’ve got to tell you, this is just incredible. For me, this is my best win because it’s so strategic to win on an oval. You have to really study what the others are doing, how your car is responding adjust it during the race to be good at the end and today was just exactly a perfect day. I couldn’t be any happier.”

RESULTS

AVONDALE, Arizona - Results Saturday of the Desert Diamond West Valley Phoenix Grand Prix Verizon IndyCar Series event on the 1.022-mile Phoenix Raceway, with order of finish, starting position in parentheses, driver, aero kit-engine, laps completed and reason out (if any):

1. (5) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 250, Running
2. (2) Will Power, Chevrolet, 250, Running
3. (3) JR Hildebrand, Chevrolet, 250, Running
4. (1) Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 250, Running
5. (8) Scott Dixon, Honda, 249, Running
6. (6) Tony Kanaan, Honda, 249, Running
7. (21) Ed Carpenter, Chevrolet, 248, Running
8. (14) Charlie Kimball, Honda, 248, Running
9. (4) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 248, Running
10. (19) Carlos Munoz, Chevrolet, 247, Running
11. (16) Ed Jones, Honda, 247, Running
12. (11) James Hinchcliffe, Honda, 246, Running
13. (12) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 220, Mechanical
14. (20) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 180, Running
15. (15) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 141, Contact
16. (18) Takuma Sato, Honda, 135, Contact
17. (7) Mikhail Aleshin, Honda, 0, Contact
18. (9) Marco Andretti, Honda, 0, Contact
19. (10) Sebastien Bourdais, Honda, 0, Contact
20. (13) Max Chilton, Honda, 0, Contact
21. (17) Graham Rahal, Honda, 0, Contact

Race Statistics:
Winner’s average speed: 144.058
Time of Race: 1:46:24.9473
Margin of victory: 9.1028 seconds
Cautions: 2 for 32 laps
Lead changes: 4 among 4 drivers

Lap Leaders:
Castroneves 1-73
Newgarden 74-75
Pagenaud 76-77
Power 78-136
Pagenaud 137-250

Verizon IndyCar Series point standings: Pagenaud 159, Dixon 141, Newgarden 133, Bourdais 128, Hinchcliffe 120, Castroneves 118, Power 91, Kanaan 87, Hunter-Reay 82, Jones 81.