SONOMA, California – Simon Pagenaud fell short of his third straight win at Sonoma Raceway in the Sept. 16 finale to the 2018 Verizon IndyCar Series season, but he left with a smile after finishing fourth in the race and sixth in the championship standings.
The driver of the No. 22 DXC Technology Team Penske Chevrolet felt it was a much-needed shot in the arm after a 2018 campaign that didn’t meet expectations.
“I think it is a huge boost because we haven’t been able to find what was bothering me,” Pagenaud said after the race. “I think we understand now. I feel relieved and it’s good to go into the offseason with that much positive. It’s definitely one of the toughest road courses we go to, so to be competitive here, then we can be better everywhere.”
The 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series champion’s season didn’t go to plan as he struggled adapting to the universal aero kit that debuted this season. Pagenaud admitted that barely missing the mark in car setup led to several uncomfortable drives this season.
“It’s all in the fine-tuning of what you do with your brake, what you do with the throttle and steering,” he said. “It’s a balance. It’s how you dance with the car. If it’s flowing, it’s flowing. It if is hesitating a little bit, it’s not flowing.”
Pagenaud did have a pair of second-place finishes this season – at Texas Motor Speedway and on the streets of Toronto. The team hit its stride at the INDYCAR Grand Prix of Sonoma, as the 34-year-old Frenchman delivered his best performance on a permanent road course in 2018.
A combination of lightning-quick pit stops and hitting fuel mileage numbers elevated Pagenaud to the fourth-place finish at the checkered flag.
“It was a good day, definitely competitive,” Pagenaud said. “We definitely unlocked a lot of secrets this weekend. I think we cracked the code this weekend on the car and what I needed. So much more competitive than we have been on a road course.
“We played the tire strategy, the fuel strategy really well. The team, (strategist) Kyle Moyer and (engineer) Ben Bretzman, they did a fantastic job with that.”
While over the moon with the result, Pagenaud acknowledged that fourth place was probably the best he could hope for on this day.
"My pit crew were phenomenal, as they have been all year long,” he said. “Good fun, good battles. We couldn’t have done much better, honestly, because we had to save fuel from the middle to the end of the race.”
Despite not winning a race or pole position this season – the first time he’s been shut out of both categories since 2012 – the solid run at Sonoma has Pagenaud eager for the 2019 season to begin.
“The work from the whole group, the organization has been behind me all year to find the solutions and we did,” he said. “That is what we should retain from that and stay positive.
“Setting up a race car for a driver is a bit poetic. You have to find what makes the driver comfortable, and when the driver is comfortable, you can find the best way possible with the car. That’s where we needed to be and that’s where we are starting to be now.”
The 2019 IndyCar Series season opens with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 10.