IndyCar: Simon Pagenaud wins 2019 oval championship

By Asher Fair | Aug 24, 2019

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA - MAY 24: Simon Pagenaud of France, driver of the #22 Menards Team Penske Chevrolet (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images) /

For the first time in his IndyCar career, Simon Pagenaud is the oval champion. He secured this title in the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

The A. J. Foyt Oval Trophy is no longer awarded to the IndyCar driver who scores the most points in oval races throughout the course of a season. However, the oval points tally is still maintained, and following the 17-race season’s fifth and final oval race, Team Penske’s Simon Pagenaud is the oval champion for the first time in his career.

Pagenaud entered this race, the Bommarito Automotive Group 500, at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway with a 10-point lead in the oval championship standings over teammate Josef Newgarden (212 to 202).

Newgarden was the only driver aside of Pagenaud who entered this 248-lap race around the four-turn, 1.25-mile (2.012-kilometer) oval in Madison, Illinois still mathematically eligible to win the oval championship.

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Newgarden took the pole position for this race and led laps to secure a total of two bonus points. Running in fourth place on the final lap, he was slated to score 32 additional points. Pagenaud was running in sixth, slated to score 28 points.

Pagenaud was slated to win the oval championship anyway, but he sealed it when Newgarden spun in the final turn. The 35-year-old Frenchman ended up finishing in fifth place to score 30 points while Newgarden coasted across the finish line in seventh to score 26 points in addition to the two bonus points that he had already earned.

As a result, Pagenaud finished the oval championship with 242 points while Newgarden finished with 230. Pagenaud ended the oval part of the 2019 schedule having not finished outside of the top six in an oval race all year long.

He won the 103rd running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the lone double points-paying oval race of the season, before finishing in sixth place in the race at Texas Motor Speedway, fourth in the race at Iowa Speedway, third in the race at Pocono Raceway and now fifth in the race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

Newgarden, meanwhile, finished in fourth place in Indy 500 and won the races at Texas Motor Speedway and Iowa Speedway before finishing in fifth in the race at Pocono Raceway and now an oval season-worst seventh in the race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

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The next oval race on the IndyCar schedule is the 104th running of the Indianapolis 500. This race is the opening oval race on the 2020 calendar, and it is scheduled to take place on Sunday, May 24. It is set to be broadcast live on NBC from Indianapolis Motor Speedway beginning at 11:00 a.m. ET.