Photo Credit: Chris Owens/IndyCar
Simon Pagenaud, driver of the No. 22 PPG Automotive finishes Chevrolet, is looking to carry his momentum from the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach into this weekend at Barber Motorsports Park.
Pagenaud has had a pretty decent season so far. He finished on the podium in both the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg as well as the Diamond Desert Valley West Grand Prix of Phoenix and won last weekend in Long Beach.
In hopes of another strong run, Pagenaud said him and his team mostly worked on race set up during the first practice.
“Yeah, this morning was interesting,” Pagenaud said. ” We worked mostly on race setup. We had a few things we wanted to try from the open test here. The car was behaving pretty well on the tires, actually. It was a very interesting session. The track changed a lot, as well, which it always does at that time of the day between 11:00 and 12:00. It was certainly interesting.”
Pagenaud is proud of his season thus far as it is the strongest so far since he came into the IndyCar series.
“Yeah, it feels great. I mean, I just want to continue that trend,” Pagenaud said. “We worked really well over the winter, really hard actually, to get the 22 group perfectly in sync. It’s so enjoyable when it actually works out, when you actually get everybody to be on the same page and when things flow so well so easily. I’m so excited to see what’s more to come. We still have more in our pocket, so it feels really good. Obviously there will be tough days, and those tough days when we do well, that’s going to be the key. We already have a win in our bank, so we just need to keep going like this and score a lot of points, and we’ll see where we end up, but so far I’m really, really proud of everybody and really pleased with the progress.”
There’s hope of continuing the progress due to his fondness for Barber for its beauty and its kind of racing.
“I like the racing here because especially on restarts, you get a lot of opportunities to run side by side in Turn 1, Turn 2, Turn 5, even entry of Turn 8, so the first lap is very exciting,” Pagenaud said. ” You can make a move. The weather every year is playing a card, as well, and I kind of like that. That’s racing. You’ve got to play with the elements, and I remember I think it was 2014 when it rained at the beginning of the race and then it was dry at the end. I just love that kind of racing. I wouldn’t mind a weekend like that.”
Passing is the key to winning the race at Barber, and Pagenaud feels he needs a good qualifying spot to help as well.
:”Yeah, especially with the way the racing is right now with IndyCars,” Pagenaud said. “I mean, I’ll tell you, this is the most fun I’ve ever had driving the IndyCars. It’s really, really fast. The racing is a little bit more difficult because of all the aerodynamic we have on it, but the nature of IndyCar racing is still there. We can still be very aggressive. We have a lot of Push-to-Pass. We can make passes like I did in Long Beach, for example.
“Here it’s important to qualify up front because of how fast we run around the racetrack. If, like I said, it depends what’s going to happen, if there are any incidents, that will create a lot of actions with safety car.”
Pagenaud feels you need three key things to win the race other than just qualifying.
“I think what’s difficult here is all the elevation changes makes it very difficult on us because it’s a lot of corners are blinded, and at the speed we’re traveling, you have to be inches perfect,” Pagenaud said. “It certainly makes it very difficult. The G-forces are really high in the IndyCars, so it’s another component. The physical aspect is pretty much a very important one. And then confidence, I think, because you have to throw yourself through the corner with full confidence in yourself and your machine.”
Knowing what they need to accomplish, he and his team are focusing on doing what they have been doing to keep getting the results that they desire like they have in the last three races.
“Yeah, we come off three strong results with two seconds and a first place, so we’re just going to keep focusing on the task, on the job like we’ve been doing, and just try to execute,” Pagenaud said. ” I mean, qualifying is very important, but then the race car has to suit me for me to extract the best out of it, and then it’s all down to strategy, me getting the fuel save that the guys need for good strategy. When I’m comfortable, we can do that pretty easily. We just need to stay focused and do the same thing, don’t get too excited, and just have fun.”
With the new rules that IndyCar released that will take effect starting this weekend on qualifications, Pagenaud says it won’t really affect how the teams run during the qualifying session.
‘Well, it doesn’t really change much because at the end of the day, it’s a six-minute guarantee, where before it could have been only two minutes of running, considering the rules, so it’s fine,” Pagenaud said. “I mean, it doesn’t really change the whole game. At the end of the day, you still have to do your fast lap, and now the difference is strategy like Helio and Roger had last weekend paid off for them. That’s not going to be the case anymore because now everybody is going to get a chance to do his lap. For example, we were on the other side of the deal last weekend. It could have been really bad for us because we didn’t have a lap in before the red. Now it’s not going to be the case anymore. Everybody is going to have a chance.”
Last season Pagenaud said he felt like things didn’t fall into place and he didn’t connect to his team. He said this year he feels a difference.
“I think it’s more knowing each other,” Pagenaud said. “We basically brought people from outside last year to start this new team. Again, it’s a fourth car. It’s the first time the team fielded a fourth car for us, so we had to bring people over. They took people from the other cars, as well, to build that 22 team. Took us a while to hit the ground running and understand each other really well.
“Now engineering strategy, the data guys, the mechanics, they all get along really well, so things are easy. It’s just like when you start a new job at a new place. It takes time to understand how to get things flowing. That’s exactly what we’re doing right now. I would say that’s the main difference, because quite frankly, we had the pace last year, we just didn’t execute completely.”
