Simon Pagenaud has never really been all that great at Indy. He’s been able to string together 4 good laps and start on the front row before, but his best finish was a 6th in 2018. For whatever reason, Pagenaud could just never quite get a handle on Indy’s blend of patience, speed, endurance, and luck. In 2019, that changed. First, Pagenaud took pole position, blocking an ECR sweep of the front row. Ironically, the last time team to sweep the entire front row was Team Penske in 1988…7 months before I was born.Fast as Rossi, Power, Newgarden, Sato, and Carpenter were, nobody could touch Simon Pagenaud. The man found his mojo, grabbed Indianapolis by the throat, and refused to let go. He lead from Pole and never looked back.The leader chart really says it all: of the 200 laps, Sinon lead 116 of them. The next closest driver was Rossi who lead a mere 22. And the only reason Newgarden lead 21 laps was because Pagenaud let his teammate past so he could see how his car handled in traffic. That right there is confidence and smarts: knowing your car is THAT good that you’ll let someone else lead because you can retake it at any time. That play turned out to be smart as the late red flag for the Bourdais/Rahal crash meant Pagenaud’s lead was wiped out and he would have to defend his lead at the end.Rossi made sure Pagenaud didn’t have it easy, but Pagenaud was just too quick. After being spat out by Indianapolis so many times it was going to be checkers or wreckers for the Frenchman. And checkers it was, with Pagenaud taking his first Indy 500 win and sweeping the Month of May.Helio Castroneves is well known for climbing the catch fence after winning a race. Simon did his own variation, hopping out of his car on the front straight after the cooldown lap so he could thank the crowd.
I don’t think anti-lag is allowed, but they may be using some other method of keeping the turbos spooled. Anti-lag wouldn’t really help at Indy anyway since they’re full throttle through the entire lap. Might be more to do with boost control, which is heavily restricted by IndyCar.
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Some interesting stuff going on with the compressor housing of the turbo…. looks like it has two outlets. Indycar running anti-lag these days?
I don’t think anti-lag is allowed, but they may be using some other method of keeping the turbos spooled. Anti-lag wouldn’t really help at Indy anyway since they’re full throttle through the entire lap. Might be more to do with boost control, which is heavily restricted by IndyCar.