The organization had the positioning to win championships in both IndyCar and NASCAR, but came up empty in both series.
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Simon Pagenaud claimed his maiden Verizon IndyCar Series title on Sunday with victory at Sonoma Raceway as title rival and teammate Will Power hit trouble before half-distance.
American Graham Rahal finished second, followed by Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya.
This season marks Pagenaud’s second with Team Penske and seventh in Indy vehicle racing. “It’s good to be on top, but you don’t get any points for leading practice”.
“To perform to 100 per cent with this pressure, it’s unbelievable”. And maybe it did – Montoya and Castroneves had an up-and-down year, but Pagenaud scored seven poles and five wins, but still seemed nearly to be running under the radar given his success. “We will be better next year”. Pagenaud’s final margin was 127 points, the largest points win since Alex Zanardi defeated teammate Jimmy Vasser by 119 points in 1998.
Pagenaud said that securing the championship represented the realization of a dream that he has had since childhood, although he doesn’t expect his achievement to fully sink in for a few days. He qualified on pole, he led the (most) laps, there wasn’t much we could do. It was really impressive.
The turnaround compared to a year ago could not have been more complete.
The championship success comes in Pagenaud’s second season with Penske and fifth full campaign in IndyCar, having previously been named as the series’ Rookie of the Year back in 2012. We led the charge for them the last couple of years and they did a great job.
A side note to the season-ending race is whether or not Helio Castroneves will win a race in 2016 and snap a long winless string, dating back to 2014.
Describing his feelings afterwards, Pagenaud said: “Unbelievable”. I think it’s going to be a race of degradation.
“One thing I did well this year was that I tried to keep my emotions very steady without going insane on the radio”, he added. I wanted to get Pagenaud for the win but when I would get close, my vehicle would get massively loose. “Was an incredible day”.
Pagenaud, who broke Power’s 2015 track record in Segment 1 of qualifying with a lap of 1:16.2530 (112.599 mph), led a Team Penske sweep of the top four qualifying positions.
Even though he failed to win a race for the second consecutive season, Castroneves was a fixture in the upper echelon of the point standings through much of the season. He would impress at every stop along his sojourn through sports vehicle racing, first as Honda’s ace in their HPD and Acura branded LMP2 and LMP1 racers and later as arguably the best driver in an incredible Peugeot stable in Europe that included the likes of Sebastien Bourdais and Stephane Sarrazin. When pressed, the team owner only said “no comment”. Power has won the pole five of the last six years and is a three time victor in Sonoma, claiming victory in 2010, 2011 and 2013. But he didn’t take this loss as hard as he may have in the past.
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“It was pretty realistic considering it was (worth) double points”, Power said. “We’ve finished second here for the last two years in a row, so we’re really hoping to climb one more step up that podium this weekend”.
