Yahoo Autos Will Power, Simon Pagenaud Prepare For Final Showdown
in 2015, Juan Pablo Montoya came into IndyCar's double points finale at Sonoma with a comfortable championship lead over Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon. The veteran driver needed to finish just fourth or better to clinch another American Open Wheel championship, a full, successful career in Formula 1 and NASCAR after his first, even if Dixon won the race. Unfortunately for Montoya, Dixon would do just that, and a combination of an incident with a teammate and some late-race strategy left the Indianapolis 500 winner without his first championship under the united IndyCar banner.
A full year later, Simon Pagenaud finds himself in a similar position. All he needs to do to win what would be his first major open wheel championship is finish fifth, regardless of what happens around him. After leading every session and setting a track record en route to his series-leading seventh pole of 2016, he has more than enough reason to believe he'll be able to cap off what would be his first championship season with a win. However, with a tire-eating Sonoma Raceway leaving many (including fellow championship contender Will Power) projecting a four-stop race, he knows that the race, as with most IndyCar races, is just as likely to be decided by who plays the tires and the yellows best as it is by who runs the fastest laps.
Teammate and fellow championship contender Will Power knows the same thing, and with Pagenaud comfortably outpacing both his Penske teammates and the field throughout the weekend, he'll likely need to take advantage of an alternate strategy to equal his 2014 IndyCar title. His #12 team's commitment to outfoxing Pagenaud and his #22 program began in qualifying when, upon noticing that the softer-compound red Firestone tires were struggling (James Hinchcliffe went as far as to say that they couldn't make it through a full qualifying lap), they sent Power out on the harder blacks. The result wasn't what the team had hoped for, the #12 starts fourth on the grid behind three other Penske Racing entries, but a message was sent, and with Pagenaud likely to be running at or near the lead early, Power will have ample opportunities to diverge from the primary strategy and do what his teammate doesn't.
While 2007 Team Australia teammates Power and Pagenaud compete for the championship, front row starter Helio Castroneves will have the opportunity to give Penske Racing a rare 1-2-3 in IndyCar's final standings. He's tied for the position with reigning champion Scott Dixon going into the race, but with Dixon starting seventh after failing to make the final round of qualifying, Castroneves has the early advantage over both the Ganassi driver and Josef Newgarden, who at just five points behind the duo tied for third has the opportunity to finish his best season yet as the field's strongest non-Penske driver. A victory would surely be sweet for any of the three, but Dixon and Newgarden have some extra motivation, with the former saying goodbye to 27-year Chip Ganassi Racing sponsor Target and the latter rumored to be saying goodbye to his Ed Carpenter Racing team.
Graham Rahal and Ryan Hunter-Reay lead the Honda contingent in fifth and sixth on the grid, while rookie Alexander Rossi claims his top road course qualifying position yet in eighth. Notable disappointments in the session include James Hinchcliffe in 20th, who came into the day with high expectations only to be mystified by struggles in turn 7 on his fastest lap, and Marco Andretti in 14th, making him the only Andretti Autosport driver to not make the second round of qualifying on what has been a strong weekend for the team.
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