Pagenaud Plays His Cards Right To Win Inaugural Indy GP

A combination of canny strategy and expert fuel saving allowed Simon Pagenaud to start the Month of May in the best possible fashion by wining the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis. The Frenchman was the first of those to have pitted under the final caution and inherited the lead when Oriol Servia was forced stop with three laps to go. Thereafter, Pagenaud kept his head and coaxed his Schmidt/ Peterson Honda to the finish, just ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay and a charging Helio Castroneves.

Simon Pagenaud saved enough fuel to hold onto victory in the
closing stages from Ryan Hunter-Reay. (Credit: Michael Conroy)

The IndyCar Series’ first visit to the Indianapolis road course was full of incident from start to finish. Hunter-Reay’s crash at the end of a soaking wet qualifying - when he had already done enough for pole - cost him his two best lap times and promoted Sebastien Saavedra to a shock first career pole position, but the Columbian’s dreams weren't to last for long. The KV Racing Chevrolet failed to get off the line at the standing start and was hit hard by both Carlos Munoz and Mikhail Aleshin, the Russian submarining under Saavedra’s car, which fortunately didn’t clear the pitwall. Thankfully, all three were able to walk away from the wreckage, and after a lengthy stoppage, rookie Jack Hawksworth set about building a small gap over Pagenaud and Hunter-Reay, with Scott Dixon and Will Power rounding out the top five.

The order was unchanged after the first pitstops, with Hawksworth staying on the softer, red compound tyres and pulling away from Pagenaud on the harder, black tyres, before the race turned on lap 43. Having just lost fourth to Power, Dixon was perhaps over-eager to try and regain the place, diving up the inside into turn four and making side-to-side contact – not the first time the two have come to blows in the last 12 months – spinning the reigning champion in the gravel and out of contention. Power was able to continue, but running over an air-hose at his next pitstop earned him a penalty that would consign him to a disappointing eighth place finish.

Castroneves was the chief beneficiary of the caution, as he had just pitted prior and was able to stay out. While Pagenaud took Hawksworth in the pits, Hunter-Reay gambled on staying out, but it wasn’t long before the next caution. Making his first IndyCar start since Baltimore 2011, Martin Plowman lost the rear-end under breaking for turn seven and was launched into a wild airborne spin over the top of Franck Montagny’s Andretti Autosport entry, before coming to rest in the grass. Miraculously, the Brit was able to rejoin and finished eighteenth, although Montagny’s day was done, leaving the team with a lot of work to ready the car for Kurt Bush ahead of his planned assault on the 500 later this month.

Another caution with 28 laps to go to recover Graham Rahal’s car – having been bundled into the wall by an unsighted Juan Pablo Montoya in a carbon copy of the restart crash at St. Pete – was the cue for Pagenaud to come in again and top off with fuel in the hope of making it to the end. It was to prove the decisive, race-winning call, as race-long rival Hawksworth was left out on track behind Castroneves and Charlie Kimball on the blacks, unable to build a gap over the cars going to the end and had fallen too far behind to utilise the reds in his final stint. The BHA driver would eventually finish an unrepresentative seventh.

When it became clear that no further cautions were forthcoming, Castroneves admitted defeat in his attempts to pull off a miraculous one-stop strategy and pulled in for fresh tyres and fuel, setting off in pursuit of the fuel saving trio ahead. Fourth became third once Servia’s quest for a first win since Montreal 2005 fell three laps short, but there simply weren’t enough laps for Castroneves to catch Pagenaud and Hunter-Reay for his fourth win at Indianapolis. Sebastien Bourdais mirrored Team Penske’s strategy and finished fourth, ahead of Ganassi team-mates Kimball and Ryan Briscoe.

Elsewhere, James Hinchcliffe was taken to hospital with a concussion after being struck on the helmet by debris from Justin Wilson’s front-wing on the final restart. The Canadian immediately pulled off the circuit and was seen holding his head in his hands as he was carried away on a stretcher. He will be re-assessed by medical staff before he is allowed to drive again, with Indy 500 testing set to begin tomorrow.