Pagenaud, Bretzman upbeat for 2019
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2018 16:21:26 +0000
Simon Pagenaud did not expect his 2018 IndyCar finish to fall short of the championship or at least a top three finish, especially when viewed through his successful stints in 2016 and 2017. But Pagenaud sees the good in 2018 and plans to apply it to the near future.
“I wouldn’t say 2018 was disappointing,” Pagenaud said during a recent test at Sebring International Raceway. “It wasn’t up to my expectation or the team’s expectation, for sure, but at the end of the day we had a strong second half of the year. We finished sixth in the championship after a really tough start. Going over the whole season in detail, it wasn’t as bad as it looked. We raced very well, the guys did a fantastic job in the pits, and we basically tried to understand this new car. We’re still learning it.”
Pagenaud was the 2016 IndyCar champion and runner-up in 2017.
Pagenaud and his Team Penske crew also made measurable improvements as the new aero kit was introduced this year and the season progressed. After two discouraging races at Detroit in June, Pagenaud and his No. 22 Chevrolet turned competitive, finishing among the top eight in each of the remaining nine races.
“We now know where to focus better,” Pagenaud said. “It’s just been a tough acclimation to this new car, and that’s it. It’s very competitive, and we had a bad start to the season. Once you have a bad start, it’s hard to recover. From Detroit on, we actually scored well. There were quite a few races I should have won, but I made mistakes. Overall, we showed improvement.”
Included in the second half of the season were runner-up finishes at Texas and Toronto, along with fourth-place finishes at Gateway and Sonoma. For lead engineer Ben Bretzman, the recovery offered hope.
“There were some good things that happened near the end of the season,” Bretzman said. “We sort of sat back and tried to collect what that was over the past few months and make sure that we understood it. We’re trying to take the things we learned between Toronto and Sonoma and a couple of other tracks. We’re trying to do things a little more scientifically and make sure we understand it and try to improve it even further.”
Although he failed to make it to the top three in 2018, Pagenaud only had one race where he did not finish, demonstrating how he and Bretzman have worked hard to make his No. 22 Chevrolet more reliable.
Getting up to speed is the short-term goal; Pagenaud and Bretzman see the first five races of 2019, all road and street races, as crucial elements in the goal of returning to a championship.
“It’s super competitive right now,” Pagenaud said. “One bad step in your march toward the weekend, and you’re going backward. It’s a really tough situation for everybody, but that’s what IndyCar is all about.”
THE TIMES
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