MOORESVILLE, North Carolina –Behind every great driver is a great engineer. In Simon Pagenaud’s case at Team Penske that engineer is Ben Bretzman.

He was Pagenaud’s race engineer at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and moved over to Team Penske last September. That when the driver from France joined the team that already includes defending Verizon IndyCar Series champion Will Power, three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves and 1999 CART champion, 2000 Indianapolis 500 winner, former Formula One star and former NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya.

“I’m very excited to be here after spending a lot of time chasing Team Penske and now I’m glad to be part of the organization,” Bretzman said. “Simon and I have a history together and we’ve had success in sports cars and IndyCars together and looking forward to bringing that relationship to Team Penske and advancing our relationship and progress even further.”

In a sense, it was a package deal in some ways when Pagenaud encouraged Team Penske to sign his longtime engineer.

“We try to be nice in the racing community and respect all the other teams but it was really a situation where Simon’s contract was up and my contract was up,” Bretzman said. “We have the working relationship together and it was an opportunity for us to go to another situation we thought would be successful and have a chance to win a championship.

“There was a little bit of a time lag there but not long before I came over to Team Penske.”

With Bretzman as his engineer, Pagenaud was able to achieve success with the intermediate-sized Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team. Now, he is at a team that has the best resources and history of any team in the Verizon IndyCar Series.

“This place is like the Taj Mahal of racing,” Bretzman said. “It’s an engineer’s dream come true. It’s got everything you ever want. All the resources and people that work here it’s a powerhouse team. I’m kind of amazed by it. I’m still drinking from a fire hose with the horsepower this team has to advance our program of what Simon can do. There is really a lot to take in.

“The biggest thing is we go from a two-car team to a four-car team with all four cars championship contenders. The knowledge base of those engineers and drivers is really going to be powerful for us. It’s where we needed the most help and we have a strong background to draw from.”

At Team Penske, success is expected. Just winning isn’t enough – a driver has to contend for a championship. So the expectation level has increased for both Pagenaud and Bretzman.

“I think those expectations are pretty accurate, to be honest,” Bretzman said. “We have four drivers that have finished in the top five in points in the last three years – Simon being one of them. Now, three of the four drivers are Penske drivers. I fully expect to go out and win the championship in 2015.

“You can look at it from where we were before – always the underdog – everyone was surprised we were there and now we are expected to win. We always think we can win the championship no matter who we are racing against or who we are racing with or which team we are on.

“I don’t think there is any added pressure. In fact, I hope it should be easier because of all we have to work with now.”

Some of the best competition on the track will come from inside this team with four of the top drivers in the Verizon IndyCar Series. And behind each of these drivers is an engineering staff. The engineer-driver relationship is very important.

“It’s trust and communication,” Bretzman said. “A lot of engineers get focused on whatever they think is right for the race cars and a lot of drivers want to just drive the car. We put that aside, meld together and trust each other’s judgments. It’s a great relationship.”