The first oval of the year was full of thrills and early spills; as Simon Pagenaud recorded his first-ever oval race win at Phoenix International Raceway.
Twitter: Congratulations @simonpagenaud & @Team_Penske! #DesertDiamondPGP #IndyCar https://t.co/gKwBPdAovK (@IndyCaronNBCSN)
The IndyCar Series reigning champion overtook Team Penske team-mate Will Power just before the last round of pit stops and held on for the win. Pagenaud was aided by a late Full Course Yellow caused by Andretti Autosport’s Takuma Sato; going hard into the wall after coming out from his pitstop.
The FCY closed the pits with Pagenaud’s Penske team-mates Power and Helio Castroneves and Ed Carpenter Racing’s JR Hildebrand already in for their last stops. The resulting chaos after the field cycled through, meant that the Frenchman was a lap up on the field, but at the back of pack. Eventually race control would wave him, Power, Castroneves, ECR’s Hildebrand, and the final Penske car of Josef Newgarden who pitted a lap before the FCY, onto the lead lap.
Newgarden would pit under yellow to change a broken front wing, but retained position. The 26 year-old would make a charge through the field and go as high as P3, before damage from contact with Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay caused him to pit and go a lap down. Newgarden would finish P9.
Pagenaud created a gap of as much as 18 seconds before the Newgarden/Hunter-Reay incident. It was trimmed to nine seconds by Power in P2 with Hildebrand in-tow after the latter passed Castroneves for P3. That was how the Top-3 would take the checkered flag.
While Team Penske and Chevrolet dominated the race; early on—at the start—in fact, a number of the Honda-powered cars were involved in a five-car accident, after Schmidt Peterson Motorsport’s Mikail Aleshin lost the backend of his #7 Honda machine coming out of T4, locked up, went into the wall and took four other cars with him as they tried to avoid the Russian.
The crash spelled the end for: Aleshin, Marco Andretti, Sebastien Bourdais, Max Chilton, and Graham Rahal. No injuries were reported after all involved were examined in the medical center.
While Pagenaud won the race, Hildebrand was the star of the Desert Diamond Phoenix Grand Prix. Starting P3, Hildebrand’s best start position of his IndyCar Series career. Hildebrand made a series of early passes after the first restart to close up on the leaders. The 29 year-old’s aggressive driving kept him in contention throughout the 250 lap night race. The California native would battle Power for P2 until the checkered flag, eventually coming home P3.
Twitter: RT @ECRIndy: Third place for @JRHildebrand at @PhoenixRaceway! #DesertDiamondPGP https://t.co/6VL3x6UNqy (@IndyCar)
The podium finish is his best in his career. The remarkable bit about Hildebrand’s achievement is it was done with a broken left hand, suffered at Long Beach after contact with Aleshin.
Desert Diamond Phoenix Grand Prix Notes:
– Chip Ganassi Racing team-mates, Scott Dixon (P5), Tony Kanaan (P6), and Charlie Kimball (P8) were the only Hondas in the Top-10.
– All four Andretti Autosport cars suffered damage at Phoenix and DNF’d. Similar to Long Beach. Hunter-Reay was the last of the Andretti cars to retire, with 25 to go.
– With the victory, Pagenaud is the new points leader.
