For the first time in his Verizon IndyCar Series career, Simon Pagenaud is a winner on an oval track. His maiden oval win came at Phoenix International Raceway.
Team Penske’s Simon Pagenaud came into the Desert Diamond West Valley Grand Prix of Phoenix at the 4-turn, 1-mile dogleg Phoenix International Raceway oval with eight wins in his IndyCar career. None, however, were on oval tracks.
After starting the first oval race and fourth overall race of the season in 5th place, Pagenaud ended that winless streak on oval tracks in his Chevrolet machine. The win at Phoenix was the first of his career on an oval and ninth overall. He finished the race in 2nd place last season, his previous career-high result on an oval.
Pagenaud became the fourth different winner in as many races this season, joining Sebastien Bourdais, James Hinchcliffe, and Josef Newgarden as race winners in the 2017 season.
Last season, Pagenaud took the championship lead after the Phoenix race, which was the second race on the schedule. He never looked back and won last year’s championship by a record 127-point margin. His win today propelled him to the championship lead for the first time this season, taking a 159-141 advantage over Scott Dixon, last year’s Phoenix winner.
Will Power finished the race in 2nd place a whole 9.1028 seconds behind Pagenaud. The 2nd place finish for Power was his first top 12 finish of the season. JR Hildebrand came home in 3rd place in his return from a hand injury, and race polesitter Helio Castroneves finished in 4th. No other drivers finished the race on the lead lap.
Dixon was the highest-finishing Honda driver in the field in 5th place, remarkably his lowest finish of the season. Chevrolet drivers took seven of the top 10 spots, with the only Chevrolet driver not finishing in the top 10 being Conor Daly, who finished in 14th.
Other Notable Statistics
The race featured a total of four lead changes among four different drivers and had two caution flag periods for a total of 32 laps. Simon Pagenaud led the most laps, leading 118 of the race’s 250. Each of Team Penske’s other three drivers, Helio Castroneves, Will Power, and Josef Newgarden also led laps.
The first caution flag of the race flew on lap 1 when a five-car crash occurred in turn 2 involving Mikhail Aleshin, Marco Andretti, Sebastien Bourdais, Max Chilton, and Graham Rahal. The second caution flag of the race flew on lap 138 when Takuma Sato hit the wall in turn 4.
Individual Ups and Downs
In his first race of the season, Ed Carpenter started in last place and finished 7th, his highest finish since Iowa in 2015. The series lone full-time rookie, Ed Jones, finished in 11th place in his first IndyCar oval race.
Marco Andretti, who was involved in the lap 1 crash, finished the race in 18th. That 18th place finish is his second best finish of the season, which says a lot about how his year has been. Sebastien Bourdais, who was also involved in the lap 1 crash, lost his championship lead for the first time this season. He dropped all the way down to 4th in the standings.
Scott Dixon and Simon Pagenaud have still yet to finish outside of the top 5 in any race this season, which is pretty impressive through four races at four extremely different venues.
See full race results from the fourth race of the 2017 season at IndyCar.com.
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Next Race
The series takes a two-week break before it returns to action on Saturday, May 13th, 2017. Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in Speedway, Indiana hosts the Grand Prix of Indianapolis to kick off the month of May festivities that ultimately culminate with the 101st running of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 28th, 2017.