Yahoo Autos Simon Pagenaud Holds Off Rahal, Goes Back-To-Back With Barber Win
If not for Graham Rahal and Conor Daly, today's Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama would have been a quietly forgettable dominant day for Simon Pagenaud and Penske Racing. Thanks in no small part to the two American Honda drivers, it was a very memorable dominant day for Simon Pagenaud and Penske Racing.
For the vast majority of the 90-lap race, Pagenaud was completely clear of the rest of the field. In his final stint, however, he found himself fighting hard with the lap traffic of rookie Daly, who thanks in no small part to dirty air issues that made passing difficult all race long stayed ahead of Pagenaud just long enough to slow him while Rahal (who had previously had a moved up the field. With 10 to go, Rahal had caught Pagenaud, and though Rahal needed a few laps to do it, once he had an opening, he took it.
The window of opportunity, which wasn't so much a window of opportunity as it was Rahal's only chance to get between Pagenaud and the apex of a corner, ended with Pagenaud briefly flying on track, rejoining in second without significant damage. The incident looked fairly questionable, but was reviewed, found to be clean, and accepted with little fanfare. Rahal's lead wouldn't last long, however; Just four laps later, Pagenaud was back to the front, where he'd stay and go on to win.
After all of that, it's not too unexpected that the race ended in controversy involving Graham Rahal. Somehow, however, the anger would be directed towards him by Daly, not Pagenaud. Taking umbrage with Rahal's reaction to what he viewed as a legitimate attempt to stay on the lead lap, Daly briefly started a new IndyCar rivalry, drew a response from Rahal's legendary father and team owner Bobby, and eventually deleted a tweet calling out his fortunate upbringing all in the span of about 20 minutes:
Rahal eventually weighed in, and he seemed to have no interest in Daly's antics or apologizing for his own:
Whether or not the end of a wild race being overshadowed by a brief Twitter kerfuffle is something that interests a fan is up to the fan themselves, but as IndyCar enters its second season of an Indy Rivals promotional strategy built almost entirely around drivers hating one another, spats like this are only encouraged. The next opportunity for one is IndyCar's last race before the all-important 100th Indianapolis 500, the third annual race run on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway infield.
