Penske is guaranteed a championship by Sunday evening, as both drivers left in contention – Simon Pagenaud and Will Power – are members of that organization.
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With Sunday’s 85-lap race on the 2.385-mile, 11-turn permanent road course paying double points, Pagenaud needs to finish fifth or better in the #22 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Chevrolet to clinch his first career championship.
“What I’m thinking about right now is, it’s been a long career”, Pagenaud said.
Wanting to win may not be unique, but consider this: Castroneves is riding a 42-race winless drought dating back to Belle Isle in June 2014.
Power, the 2013 IndyCar season champion, had been second behind Pagenaud but was towed into the pits and returned five laps down.
“It was obviously frustrating to have that gearbox problem, but Simon would have been extremely hard to catch even if things went well”, said Power.
“We had good balance on the vehicle”.
Jones passed Elliott Sadler with nine laps to go and held off Kyle Larson to win the NASCAR Xfinity race at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill., allowing Ryan Sieg and Blake Koch to claim the final two spots in the Chase for the championship. It marked the first time the same team took the top three championship positions since Penske also accomplished the feat in 1994 with Al Unser Jr., Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy.
“Man, that was so close.” said Castroneves “The Hitachi Chevy has been fast all weekend and we showed it again today in qualifying”. It’s going to be really interesting the way the tyres go. Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull was second by just 0.488 seconds with Hamilton third. Congratulations to Simon – that is good for him in the championship – and what a great job by Team Penske to qualify 1-2-3-4. We work so well together. With radio issues plaguing 2015 champion Scott Dixon in what was sponsor Target’s final race of a 27-year run with Chip Ganassi Racing, Graham Rahal’s strong late season run would be enough to move him fifth in the championship, making him Honda’s highest finisher for the second straight year. And obviously when you’re against Will Power, Helio Castroneves, Juan Pablo Montoya, these guys are pretty much the benchmark in the world, so it’s about pushing yourself, finding more out of yourself as we all have the same cars.
“It was a good run for our hum by Verizon auto.” said Montoya “We had a really good day today and we knew we had a shot at it”.
“I just enjoyed driving today”. I thought, ‘Now we can finally unleash the beast inside and go for the win’. “It’s neat to be a part of”.
“Throughout the entire season, he was not only an unbelievable driver but a champion”, Castroneves said of teammate Pagenaud.
Power, the 2014 IndyCar Series champion, is a three-time victor at Sonoma, but he and his crew have been unable to get the handling and braking of the Verizon Chevrolet to his liking this weekend. I think it’s going to be a race of degradation. It’s going to be really interesting the way the tires go.
“I just think after previous year, only winning three (IndyCar) races as a team, we were so determined to come back”, Power said. “Honestly, I need to win the race to win the championship, and he has to have a bad day”.
This year, as Roger Penske celebrates his 50th season in racing, there was a dedication toward giving The Captain a title.
Without factoring in the bonus points, if Power wins, he’d need Pagenaud to finish sixth or lower.
“I had been watching him for a while, all the way back to Atlantics (a developmental series) and his year in Champ Car”, Schmidt said. It was nice to beat them out there.
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“All four of us, we have qualities, we have weaknesses”.
