The race win, 3.2423 seconds faster than Graham Rahal, gave the 32-year-old Frenchman his fifth victory this season, his first at Sonoma Raceway and his first individual title. Pagenaud won the 2006 Formula Atlantic title for Walker Racing, graduated with Derrick Walker’s team to Champ Car in 2007 and finshed eighth in the championship. Meanwhile, Pagenaud set a track record of 1 minute, 16.253 seconds in his Dallara-Chevrolet on the way to claiming his series-best seventh pole of the season. “He sat on pole, led laps, won the race – I mean, he did everything he needed to do”.
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Regarding his switch to Team Penske after three years with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda, Pagenaud said the transition had been tough.
“Unbelievable”, Pagenaud said. “There’s so much emotion”.
“Obviously, when you join a team like Team Penske, they deliver the best cars”.
Third Penske auto Helio Castroneves would be the only leader to break to the four-stop strategy Will Power and his team planned on running, and while Castroneves made up plenty of positions (enough to take third in the championship from Josef Newgarden, one of the candidates to replace Juan Pablo Montoya as Penske’s fourth driver next season) on his late charge, his ultimate finish of seventh is likely less than he would have accomplished on the primary strategy. That was a key factor a year ago, when Juan Pablo Montoya seemed poised to claim the title until Ganassi driver Scott Dixon overcame a 34 point deficit to tie him in points and win the championship on a tie breaker.
There is no chance at another collapse on Sunday, and the title will go to Pagenaud with any finish of sixth or higher. That would a resume addition for the Ganassi team, which is parting ways with longtime sponsor Target in IndyCar after the race. Rossi had just one podium all year.
But Dixon had a poor second session of qualifying and failed to advance into the final round.
Power must finish in the top five to have any hope of overtaking Pagenaud.
Although Rahal would use every weapon in his arsenal to get by Pagenaud in the final laps, he was never able to get close enough to make a pass for the lead and was forced to settle for second place 3.25 seconds behind the Pagenaud. I think it’s going to be a race of degradation. The race left a bad taste in my mouth.
But even after showing some promise – he was eighth in the points, four spots behind Team Australia teammate Will Power – Pagenaud couldn’t get a ride in the combined IndyCar-Champ Car series in 2008.
When it was clear Power was out of the race and out of contention for the title, he said he tried to stay calm.
“Whether I’m back here or somewhere else, I’m somewhere”, he said. “I said, ‘sure, that’s where I’m going'”. “We collected a lot of points and we have a bit of a cushion going into Sonoma”. We work so well together.
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“I just think after past year, only winning three (IndyCar) races as a team, we were so determined to come back”, Power said. Former driver and NBC Sports analyst Paul Tracy recently said that Andretti’s job prospects outside of his father’s organization are so low, driving for Uber would be one of his few options.
