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De Ferran on why Pagenaud is in his prime

Last year, Simon Pagenaud had the pace to prove worthy of a Team Penske seat, but didn’t have the results. Now he’s at the top of his game and the top of the championship table. Gil de Ferran told David Malsher why.

Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet race winner

Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet race winner

General Motors

Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet race winner
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet race winner
Gil de Ferran
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet
Gil de Ferran
Bill Pappas, Gil de Ferran
Gil de Ferran
Acura podium: P1 and overall winners Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud, P1 second place and 2009 P1 champions David Brabham and Scott Sharp, P2 winners and 2009 P2 champions Adrian Fernandez and Luis Diaz
Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Gil de Ferran with Simon Pagenaud and his tribute helmet to Ayrton Senna
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet pole winner
Gil de Ferran
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet race winner
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet
Podium: race winner Juan Pablo Montoya, Team Penske Chevrolet, second place Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet
Podium: Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet, Helio Castroneves, Team Penske Chevrolet
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet race winner

Only a fool would have dismissed Simon Pagenaud’s chances of long-term success on the strength of his first season with Team Penske. Six times last year he started from the front row of the grid, and one of those was a pole position, so he was clearly fast enough.

He also had his own short IndyCar heritage to back up the arguments of his believers. In 2012, Pagenaud finished fifth in the championship with Schmidt Peterson Motorsport in his and the team’s first full season in the series, despite being a single-car entry for most of the year. Over the next two seasons, he scored four wins, despite each year being teamed with a rookie who was naturally of limited value as a feedback provider.

The avid statisticians would (and did) still point out that Simon finished only 11th in the championship in 2015, two third-place finishes his highlights, whereas Penske teammates Juan Montoya, Will Power and Helio Castroneves had taken second, third and fifth in the points table. Plus there had been races when Pagenaud was quite anonymous, despite bringing with him Ben Bretzman, his race engineer for his three years at Schmidt Peterson, and therefore a man who knew how to set up a car for him.

But Simon’s defenders can reasonably point out that occasional anonymity was a hallmark of all the Penske drivers in 2015, and generally went hand in hand with the team’s tendency to dominate qualifying and then fall back in the race, particularly on ovals.

Pagenaud also appeared to be the quickest of the Penske drivers at the Indianapolis 500 – a point noted by Roger Penske, incidentally – and he was also unlucky to be part of the multi-car collision at NOLA and to suffer an electrical failure at GP Indy.

To get a better insight into how Pagenaud has turned that form around and bloomed in 2016, it's worth talking to the guy who has been, in Simon's own words, "my Yoda."

The perfect mentor 

The man who kept the faith in 2015, and has done for many years before that, is Gil de Ferran. The two-time Indy car champion and ex-Penske legend has mentored  Pagenaud since they first worked together in 2008. While it was aggravating to all open-wheel fans that Simon – the 2006 Atlantic champion and highly promising Champ Car rookie in 2007 – should have been left without a seat following the Indy Racing League/Champ Car merger at the start of ’07, those three years he spent in the American Le Mans Series have indirectly led to his current status – as the Verizon IndyCar Series points leader.

It’s hard to quantify how much Pagenaud learned from de Ferran in the Brazilian’s final two years of driving, 2008-’09. But the work ethic, the self-analysis, the embracing of the technical side of the sport, the relationships with engineers – all were vital to de Ferran’s success, and Simon swiftly understood and emulated Gil.

He also gained a career advisor and a semi-agent. It’s no coincidence that Pagenaud went on to join the late Dan Wheldon and Dario Franchitti in the ranks of Honda’s favorite American-based racers: De Ferran’s links with HPD stretch back to the turn of the century.

Yet when Pagenaud felt it was time to break those ties with Honda at the end of 2014 and sign for Chevrolet-powered Team Penske, that too came as an indirect result of de Ferran, in particular his relationship with Roger Penske. 

Current form “no surprise” says de Ferran

This writer has long believed that Pagenaud’s various talents would allow him to take full advantage of the facilities on offer at any given team and could therefore form him into a Franchitti-like IndyCar driver. Yet even four-time champion Franchitti never started a season with two runner-up positions followed by two wins, as Pagenaud has done in 2016.

The man least startled by this brilliant run – and 180 degree turnaround in fortunes compared with last year – is ‘Yoda’.

No, I’m not surprised,” says de Ferran. “I first spoke to Roger and Tim [Cindric, Penske Racing president] about Simon’s potential back in 2010, and said, ‘You should consider this guy.’ 

“He’s an intelligent man, very introspective and self-critical, which to me are key ingredients for you to develop your craft as a racecar driver.

“At the highest level there is not a huge amount of difference in skill between drivers. Some guys are better than others at different aspects of their job, but talent-wise, they're not massively different. So to be the best of the best, it’s about improving your craft and filling in those chinks in your armor.

“Even back then, I felt that Simon had those key ingredients to go through that journey. And ever since he’s got into IndyCar he’s proven that.”

De Ferran’s faith remained strong despite that shaky first season with Penske.

“Yeah, well the results weren’t there, but he had some pretty impressive highlights, not least of which was his performance in the Indy 500, which a lot of people seem to forget,” says Gil. “He was unfortunate to clip Justin Wilson, I think it was, and break his front wing.

“But these things happen. And Simon, in typical Simon fashion, was self-critical and analytical and came out this year as a better driver.”

Improvements even from race to race

The evolution of Simon Pagenaud, racecar driver, did not stop there. At St. Petersburg in the season-opener, I’d have bet fifty bucks on Montoya passing him for the lead at the crucial restart; wheel-to-wheel aggression has not traditionally been Pagenaud’s forte. Yet at Barber Motorsports Park, just three races later, he didn’t throw a tantrum when Graham Rahal nudged him off track and into the sand. Instead, with masterful piece of control, Pagenaud steered the #22 Penske back on track, hunted down his assailant and retook the lead. Sure, Rahal’s car was damaged by then, but I’m not sure it made a whole lot of difference to the outcome.

Equally impressive has been Pagenaud’s unflappability. Through much of practice at Long Beach, he looked like the odd man out in the Penske quartet, unable to make his car work. But by the time qualifying rolled around, he was on it and had Power not disrupted Q3 with his trip down the escape road, the Aussie would likely have been sharing the front row with his French teammate.

“Yeah, he keeps improving,” says de Ferran. “If you don’t recognize the weaknesses in your own driving, you can’t get any better. But Simon is quite good at seeing where he needs to up his game.

“You often get drivers who are experienced but they’re the same as they were five years ago or even 10 years ago, so their experience has not improved their performance. But Simon will continue to evolve and become more effective.

“He makes a lot of good decisions, about what he needs from the car, about how to set up the car so it’s consistent and gives him what he needs. And he makes good choices in the races, too – about when to attack, when to be conservative, how to defend. And that was crucial at Barber. The guy who made the greatest number of good choices is the guy who won.”  

Championship chances

It’s notable that Team Penske, in the first four races of the year, has scored three wins – the same as its tally across all 16 events in 2015. But it’s not as if Pagenaud is uncatchable in the championship by any means.

The driver he controversially beat in Long Beach, Scott Dixon, is 48 points behind but can be relied upon to be strong throughout the season. Montoya and Castroneves have the same equipment as Pagenaud and lie third and fourth. Power, despite missing the first race, can be relied upon to be a title contender long before season’s end. Tony Kanaan and Josef Newgarden are strong on a reasonably consistent basis. And Rahal looks set for another season of proving the exception to the understanding that Honda is struggling.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of water to pass under the bridge in the championship,” says de Ferran, “and I’m absolutely sure there are worse days to come for Simon. That’s the way the game is.

“But on his side – Simon’s weapons, if you like – are all those things he brings to the table. Like being able to zero in on a car issue, learning how to prioritize what needs fixing first, knowing that if you fix this it may also make that better… or worse. Knowledge like that comes from experience, and Simon is very good at remembering those things and applying them when he needs to.

“Like I say, we’re very early in the year and who knows what is to come? But it’s been a hell of a start to his season, hasn’t it?”

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