Simon Pagenaud

Simon Pagenaud
Pagenaud at the 2011 24 Hours of Le Mans driver parade
Nationality	French
Born	(1984-05-18) 18 May 1984 Poitiers, France
2014 IndyCar Series
Debut season	2011
Current team	Sam Schmidt Motorsports
Car no.	77
Former teams	HVM Racing Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
Starts	37
Wins	2
Poles	0
Fastest laps	0
Best finish	3rd in 2013
Previous series
2010–2011 2009–2011 2008–2011 2007 2006 2005 2002, 2004 2002–2003	Intercontinental Le Mans Cup Le Mans Series American Le Mans Series Champ Car World Series Atlantic Championship Formula Renault 3.5 Series Formula Renault 2000 Eurocup French Formula Renault
Championship titles
2010 2006	American Le Mans Series (LMP1) Atlantic Championship
Awards
2012	Indycar Rookie of the Year

Simon Pagenaud (born 18 May 1984) is a French race car driver born in Poitiers. He currently races in the IndyCar Series with Sam Schmidt Motorsports.

Career

In 2002 and 2003 he competed in French Formula Renault and in 2002 and 2004 competed in Formula Renault Eurocup. He then moved up to the Formula Renault 3.5 Series in 2005 where he finished 16th. In 2006 he went to the United States and won the Champ Car Atlantic Championship with Team Australia in his rookie season by just a few points over Graham Rahal.

With his Atlantic championship, Simon won $2 Million (USD) to apply towards a ride in Champ Car in 2007. On 13 February 2007 Pagenaud and Team Australia confirmed that Simon would be staying with the team, moving up to the Champ Car program. Pagenaud finished 8th in points in what was a very consistent debut season, with 3 consecutive 4th place finishes in the Canadian rounds of the championship.

After the demise of the Champ Car World Series, Pagenaud in 2008 moved to the American Le Mans Series co-driving the De Ferran Motorsports Acura ARX-01b LMP2 with former CART champion Gil de Ferran. He finished 14th in the drivers standings.

2009

In 2009, Pagenaud and de Ferran Motorsports took huge steps forward, with the duo taking second place overall in the American Le Mans Series LMP1 class only 17 points behind drivers David Brabham and Scott Sharp of champions Highcroft Racing. The duo of Pagenaud and de Ferran drove the ARX-01 to 5 wins in 10 total races and 3 pole positions, turning the fastest lap of the ALMS weekend 6 times.

Also during 2009, Pagenaud drove in the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans in LMP1 for the privateer Pescarolo Sport team in the Peugeot FAP 908. The team did not finish the race, completing 210 laps. The race was won by David Brabham, driving in the factory Peugeot Sport Total #9 FAP 908 along with former Formula 1 drivers Alexander Wurz and Marc Gene.

2010

For the 2010 ALMS season, Pagenaud moved over to the Patrón Highcroft racing team, replacing Scott Sharp to co-drive with Brabham in the ARX-01c in LMP1 after Sharp vacated the seat to jump to the ALMS GT2 class with his own Ferrari team. Through four rounds in the 2010 ALMS series, the team of Pagenaud and Brabham lead the LMP1 class with three wins and 91 points.

Pagenaud also earned a seat driving for the 2010 factory French Peugeot team in the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans on the renown Circuit de la Sarthe in the Peugeot FAP 908 #3 with Pedro Lamy and Sébastien Bourdais.

While the #3 Peugeot started from pole, it retired early before nightfall after a mere 38 laps when a suspension mount sheared from the car’s tub. The same fate eventually befell the no.1 Peugeot car of Anthony Davidson/Gene/Wurz while in second place with mere hours left to go in the race, as Audi reclaimed the 24 Hours of Le Mans title it had retained for five years prior to Peugeot's 2009 win.

During the race, Pagenaud found himself competing against his Highcroft Racing team which travelled to Le Mans for the first time in its history. With Brabham driving the Acura in LMP2 alongside Marino Franchitti and Marco Werner, Highcroft maintained second through most of the race until a cooling issue sidelined the car for much of the race's final four hours.

Motorsports career results

Career summary

Formula Renault 3.5 Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

American Open-Wheel racing results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest race lap)

Champ Car Atlantic

Champ Car

IndyCar Series

* Season still in progress

** Podium (Non-win) indicates 2nd or 3rd place finishes.

*** Top 10s (Non-podium) indicates 4th through 10th place finishes.

Indianapolis 500

Sports car racing

Le Mans 24 Hours results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2008	Team Oreca-Matmut	Marcel Fässler Olivier Panis	Courage-Oreca LC70-Judd	LMP1	147	DNF	DNF
2009	Pescarolo Sport	Jean-Christophe Boullion Benoît Tréluyer	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	LMP1	210	DNF	DNF
2010	Team Peugeot Total	Sébastien Bourdais Pedro Lamy	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	LMP1	38	DNF	DNF
2011	Team Peugeot Total	Sébastien Bourdais Pedro Lamy	Peugeot 908	LMP1	355	2nd	2nd

American Le Mans Series results

¹ Driver run for the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, no points awarded for the American Le Mans Series.

Le Mans Series Results

¹ Driver run for the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, no points awarded for the Le Mans Series.

Intercontinental Le Mans Cup results

¹ Driver did not run for the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.

Touring Car Racing

Complete V8 Supercar results

+ Not Eligible for points

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Simon Pagenaud.

• Simon Pagenaud – official page
• IndyCar Driver Page
• Simon Pagenaud career statistics at Driver Database
• Simon Pagenaud career statistics at Racing Reference
• IndyCar 36: Simon Pagenaud – IndyCar documentary