Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach - Pagenaud claims controversial first win for Team Penske
- Col Dixon (@ColDixon78)
- Apr 25, 2016
- 4 min read
Frenchman Simon Pagenaud took the chequered flag in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday evening to secure his first victory since joining Team Penske in 2015. But the victory was tinged with controversy.
Brazilian Helio Castroneves began the race on the pole with Scott Dixon alongside him on the front row. Pagenaud qualified in third.
The man from Poitiers in Western France showed his intentions in the opening laps with a strong passing move on Scott Dixon to gain second place. After that there was very little on-track over-taking during the race particularly in the top ten positions.
This was partly due to the slightly heavier downforce aero packages this year, but also due to the lack of any full-course cautions during the race – the 80-lap race around the streets of Long Beach stayed green for its entirety for only the fourth time in its illustrious history.
With Castroneves comfortably leading the first half of the race from pole, the main action at the front – and subsequent controversy – occurred during the second round of green-flag pitstops.
2015 Long Beach winner Scott Dixon managed to get ahead of Castroneves by pitting a lap earlier and took the effective lead of the race on lap 53. Pagenaud pitted two laps later than them both and just managed to slide back onto the circuit ahead of Dixon to take the lead on lap 56.
The controversy occurred when Pagenaud exited the pit-lane. Desperate to get ahead of Dixon the replay shows that Pagenaud cut across the double yellow pit exit lines with all 4 wheels of his #22 PPG Automotive Refinish Team Penske car.
It’s debatable whether Pagenaud gained any significant advantage with the manoeuvre, but the rule states that at least 2 of the wheels must be fully past the end of the double yellow lines before taking the sharp left turn back onto the circuit.
The race officials reviewed the incident and deemed Pagenaud to be in the wrong. But then controversially only decided to dish out the minimum penalty of only a warning.
After a valiant effort by Scott Dixon, the Target Chip Ganassi driver couldn’t quite make the final pass on Pagenaud who won the race by only 0.3 seconds which created an exciting end to the Grand Prix and was the closest ever finish to a Long Beach race.
Scott Dixon did his best to try and hide his frustration at the end of the race, but still voiced his annoyance at the lack of consistency when giving out penalties in the series.
Apparently in the drivers’ pre-race briefing the race officials had explained the pit exit rule, and how it would be strictly penalised if not adhered too. They also said they planned to phase out the use of the ‘warning’ as a penalty for such violations. This marks another in a long-line of inconsistent penalties given out during races over recent years.
In View From Pit Lane’s (VFPL) race preview we predicted a dominant race for the Chevrolet powered cars, which turned out to be the case, as eight of the top ten cars were Chevrolets.
2013 Long Beach winner Takuma Sato was the highest place Honda, with a very strong fifth placed finish. It has been a tough couple of seasons for the AJ Foyt pairing of Sato and Yorkshireman Jack Hawksworth who have consistently been running in the midfield at best for the last two years.
VFPL also predicted that Will Power would be the ‘one-to-watch’ this weekend. Initially this looked like it would come to fruition with Power dominating the early practice sessions, but a mistake in qualifying and a high downforce package on his #12 Verizon Team Penske car meant he struggled to pass and ended up a slightly disappointing seventh.
The British contingent of Max Chilton and Hawksworth had mixed weekends. Hawksworth looked very strong in early practice sessions, looking like a potential top-ten runner, but his car balance deserted him and he struggled for the remainder of the weekend finishing 21st.
Chilton struggled in practice and qualifying but faired slightly better in the race with a plucky performance ending up with a 14th place finish.
Pagenaud was the points leader going into the race after consecutive second place finishes in the first two races of the season, with this win helping him to stretch his lead.
Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves joined him on the podium at Long Beach, with Montoya and Sato rounding out the top five.
A final note about James Hinchcliffe. The Canadian self-proclaimed ‘Mayor of Hinchtown’ has had a difficult last 12 months when he suffered a serious leg injury during practice at the 2015 Indy 500. It was good to see ‘Hinch’ returning to form with a very solid eighth place finish in his #5 Arrow Schmidt Peterson Honda powered car.
The series moves to Barber next Sunday for the Honda Grand Prix of Alabama.
Comments