Pagenaud returns for Mid-Ohio sim race

As the official Verizon IndyCar Sim-Racing League powered by iRacing.com and RACER arrived at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Tuesday night, so too did Team Penske driver Simon Pagenaud along with Indy Lights driver Kyle Kaiser.

As qualifying for the 45-lap sim race got underway, it was Alex Simpson who took pole position with a time of 1:06.237. Further back in the grid, the 19-year old Kaiser was able to outpace the 31-year old Pagenaud by less than .04s; the pro drivers starting ninth and 10th respectively. However, Kaiser’s luck came to an end when the green flag dropped as he was out-gunned to Turn 1 by Pagenaud, who made the pass for position on the outside.

With the 25-car field hustling through the 13-turn road course, Kaiser fell back into the pack, and then spun in Turn 1 on lap six while battling for 12th. By the time he was able to rejoin, he'd dropped to 20th.

Meanwhile, Pagenaud was showing his pace as he continued battling inside the top 10. He was running in eighth when a brave passing attempt while entering The Carousel sent him into a spin. Despite not conceding any positions, Pagenaud lost an abundance of time as he gathered himself up and continued on.

Further back, Kaiser was busy recovering from his earlier incident and had recovered to 16th when a spin near China Beach sent him hard into the wall and ended his race.

As the laps ticked away, race leaders Matt Pawelski, Simpson and Tim Holgate were in a fierce battle for the win with less than a second between the three of them. With four to go, however, Pawelski buckled under the pressure and spun coming out of the final turn. This handed the race lead to Simpson, who went on to win ahead of Holgate by just under .15s.

Pawelski recovered from his late-race incident to finish on the podium in third ahead of Brandon Traino and Michael de Jonge.

Despite another spin for Pagenaud with five laps to go, the Frenchman maintained his position to finish in eighth as the final car on the lead lap.

Next Tuesday night, the series switches back to oval racing for 150 laps around the Milwaukee Mile.