the lead in the VERIZON IndyCar Series points standings for the first time in his career. Unofficially, Pagenaud has 83 points and leads Dixon by four.
“ That’ s good news,” Pagenaud said.“ That’ s exactly what we want to do. This is not our strong suit, short ovals, but if we can be strong, that’ s a good sign.” podium. We have to improve a couple of things. … It was tough racing.” Added Rahal,“ It was tough to pass. I felt like I had a really good race car. Unfortunately, our competition had about a 5 mph advantage on us, I feel like. I was just doing everything I could to get it.”
Pagenaud gave credit where it was due.“ I was loose, loose, loose at the beginning of the race,” he said.“ But my engineer( Ben Bretzman) made an adjustment and my car woke up.”
Will Power, who missed the season opener two weeks ago at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg due to an inner ear infection, finished a strong third in the No. 12 VERIZON Team Penske Chevrolet.
The highest-finishing rookie was Max Chilton, who placed seventh in his first VERIZON IndyCar Series race on an oval in the No. 8 Gallagher Chip Ganassi Racing Chevy.
“ I’ m really happy to finish third. Missing the first race and dealing with a few health issues, I was just happy to complete the race in a great position,” Power said.“ I got more energy as I went along. I was worried about this being my first race and how physical it was, but have to give it to the VERIZON guys and pit crew tonight. They were awesome and I had a lot of fun tonight. Congrats to Dixon.”
Tony Kanaan finished fourth in the No. 10 GE LED Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Graham Rahal was the top-finishing Honda driver, placing fifth in the No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
“ We charged at the end and at the end it was fun,” Kanaan said.“ We missed an opportunity to be on the
“ Chip Ganassi gave me a fantastic car,” Chilton said.“ Obviously, Scott won this event, TK( Kanaan) flew past me with about 10-15 to go, so maybe I didn’ t have necessarily the fastest car, but I think as a team we had a very, very strong car.
“ I think there was a few mistakes I made as a rookie, just because I hadn’ t experienced it before, where we could have been top two or three. I’ m really happy with what we came away with this evening.”
A couple early front-runners had issues in the first half of the race. Team Penske pilots Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya both cut right-front tires that forced them to pit from the lead.
The race saw five caution periods for a total of 56 laps.
12 | American Racing News | Volume 1, Issue 2