INDYCAR: Pagenaud kept cool - and points lead

It might have been the decision that ends up helping Simon Pagenaud earn his first IndyCar championship, or at least allowed him to keep his lead with two races remaining.

When Graham Rahal pulled alongside Pagenaud, James Hinchcliffe and Tony Kanaan going into Turn 3 with six laps left at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday night, two things were looming:

The lead of the Firestone 600 or the wall.

"When my spotter said 'four wide,' I knew that wasn't good and then Graham touched me and I touched James so I was actually loose going into the corner and had to back out of it or there was going to be a big wreck," Pagenaud explained after finishing fourth and extending his points lead over teammate Will Power to 28 heading to Watkins Glen.

"It was wild, it was fun and it was exciting. It reminded me of being chased by the cops as a teenager when I didn't have a license. I don't think I have any breath left."

Related Stories

The Verizon IndyCar series points leader didn't have much wiggle room left going into the rain-delayed Texas event that was stopped in June with 177 laps left. Power has been on a tear and sliced Pagenaud's lead to 20 points heading back to Texas.

But the 32-year-old Frenchman showed he's still got plenty of fight with his performance on the high-banked, 1.5-mile oval.

Restarting 15th, he lost a lap early but kept working with his HP Chevy and, suddenly, he found himself in fifth place on the lead lap with only eight laps to go. He actually got past Rahal and Kanaan and into second place on a Lap 240 restart before being shuffled into decision-making time.

"I really wanted to get that first oval win and after pitting for tires late I thought I had a good chance," continued the only four-time winner in 2016. "It was a helluva race and must have been a great show to watch."

When asked if he realized he was racing three drivers desperate for their first win of the season, Pagenaud smiled and said: "Hey, maybe I'm desperate too for that first oval win. But I think I probably made a good decision. I was proud of how we raced and we gained a few points on Will."

Then his engineer Ben Bretzman came up and gave Simon a good-natured slap on the back and congratulated him on doing the smartest driving of the night.