Simon Pagenaud Narrowly Misses Podium At Petit Le Mans

Fresh off winning the Verizon IndyCar Series championship, Simon Pagenaud helped his team come fourth overall at this weekend’s IMSA Petit Le Mans.

Apparently all Simon Pagenaud does right now is score. Just weeks after winning the 2016 IndyCar championship, the Frenchman helped propel Action Express Racing to a near podium finish at this weekend’s Petit Le Mans sportscar race.

Pagenaud, Dane Cameron and Eric Curran teamed up to take the No. 31 AER Chevrolet Corvette DP to a fourth overall and fourth in class result at Road America. They were one of only four teams to complete 412 laps.

The veteran Michael Shank Racing team of Oswaldo Negri Jr., Olivier Pla and John Pew won the race after starting from the pole, but the IndyCar drivers within the sportscar race field did fairly well for themselves.

Ed Carpenter Racing’s rookie Spencer Pigot came eighth overall and sixth in the Prototype class for Mazda Motorsports.

Also within the Top 10 was KVSH Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais in his second job partnering with Joey Hand and Dirk Muller in the No. 66 Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT, which finished second in the GT Le Mans class.

Its sister entry, the No. 67 CGR Ford GT co-piloted by four-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon and IndyCar veteran Ryan Briscoe along with Richard Westbrook, had a rougher day at 26th overall and seventh in class.

Two teams found themselves near the bottom of the Road Atlanta leaderboard. Ryan Hunter-Reay’s VisitFlorida.com Racing team came in 35th out of 38 entries in the Petit Le Mans while former IndyCar driver Katherine Legge helped bring the Delta Wing home 36th.

If you’re a Simon Pagenaud fan, or an IndyCar fan overall, results like this are just more positives. One of the joys of sportscar racing is that drivers from other leagues – particularly IndyCar – get the chance to participate and can show off their talents against different competition. Clearly the No. 22 Team Penske pilot is on a hot streak and it’s not limited just to his day job.

Full results from the IMSA Petit Le Mans can be found here. The complete race can also be viewed on the IMSA chanel on YouTube.