Beyond the Flag
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IndyCar: Way-too-early top 10 drivers for 2020

By Asher Fair

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - JUNE 08: Takuma Sato of Japan, driver of the #30 ABeam Consulting Honda, races Scott Dixon of New Zealand, driver of the #9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, at the start of the NTT IndyCar Series DXC Technology 600 at Texas Motor Speedway on June 08, 2019 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
FORT WORTH, TEXAS - JUNE 08: Takuma Sato of Japan, driver of the #30 ABeam Consulting Honda, races Scott Dixon of New Zealand, driver of the #9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, at the start of the NTT IndyCar Series DXC Technology 600 at Texas Motor Speedway on June 08, 2019 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images) /
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MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 21: Simon Pagenaud #22 of France and DXC Technology Team Penske Chevrolet (Photo by Robert Reiners/Getty Images)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 21: Simon Pagenaud #22 of France and DXC Technology Team Penske Chevrolet (Photo by Robert Reiners/Getty Images) /

No. 5 – Simon Pagenaud

Simon Pagenaud, the driver of the #22 Team Penske Chevrolet, is set to return to Team Penske for the sixth consecutive season next year in what is set to be his ninth full season in IndyCar, as team owner Roger Penske personally confirmed that he would retain his seat after winning this year’s Indianapolis 500.

Pagenaud entered the 2019 season on the hot seat after his second winless season in four years driving for Team Penske, the top team in IndyCar.

Despite the fact that he earned a career-high five victories and won the championship in the 2016 season before a runner-up finish to teammate Josef Newgarden in the 2017 season, he was not considered safe for the 2020 season after his disappointing 2018 campaign.

His start to the 2019 season, which included no top five finishes in the first four races, did not do him any favors.

And then May rolled around, and the 35-year-old Frenchman shut up all of the doubters. He made a late charge to win the race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, and he won the Indy 500 on the track’s oval in epic fashion after a late battle with Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi.

Pagenaud won the Indy 500 after starting from the pole position, becoming the first driver to do so since Helio Castroneves pulled it off in 2009, and he won it after leading 116 laps, the highest laps led total since Dario Franchitti led 155 laps and won the race in 2010.

Pagenaud finished the season in second place in the championship standings with three victories, marking his third top two finish in the last three seasons, and he finished only two races outside of the top nine.

He only ranks fifth in these rankings as a result of the fact that he had only one podium finish outside of his three victories, and the points that he gained in his dominant month of May, specifically from his double points-paying Indy 500 victory, played a huge role in him finishing as high as he did.

If he can’t replicate that performance next year, can he make up for it elsewhere on the schedule, where he has just one win in the last two seasons?