Team Penske
The cast: Drivers – Helio Castroneves, Juan Pablo Montoya, Simon Pagenaud, Will Power. Chief engineers – Jonathan Diuguid (Castroneves), Brian Campe (Montoya), Ben Bretzman (Pagenaud), David Faustino (Power)
Twitter: @h3lio, @jpmontoya, @SimonPagenaud, @12WillPower, @Team_Penske
The cars: Nos. 1 (Power), 2 (Montoya), 3 (Castroneves), 22 (Pagenaud) Chevrolet
Snapshot: Team Penske expands from three to four cars for 2015 with the addition of Pagenaud. In 2014, Montoya joined Castroneves and Power. … Bretzman had been Pagenaud’s engineer at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Bretzman’s brother, Eric, who had been Scott Dixon’s longtime engineer at Target Chip Ganassi Racing, also recently transferred to North Carolina to work with the Ganassi stock car program. … Kyle Moyer, who had been director of racing operations at Andretti Autosport, joined Team Penske in November and will be the race strategist for Pagenaud. Bill Vincent, the chief mechanic on the No. 2 car of AJ Allmendinger for six races in 2013, will be the chief mechanic on the No. 22 car. ... Power, the reigning series champion, will drive the No. 1 Verizon Team Penske car. The last title-holder to use No. 1, reserved for the past year’s entrant champion, was Andretti Autosport and Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2013. … Team Penske won its first entrant title since 2006 with Sam Hornish Jr. … Power turned 34 on March 1. … Castroneves is a three-time Indianapolis 500 winner and the series championship runner-up the past two seasons. He turns 40 on May 10 – the day after the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis. … Pagenaud turns 31 on May 18 – the day after Indianapolis 500 qualifications. … Montoya is the only driver to have won the CART championship, the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race and the Rolex 24 At Daytona in his first attempt.
The stats: Power claimed three victories and finished in the top 10 of 15 of the 18 races en route to earning his first championship. He had an average finish of 6.4. … Castroneves won at Belle Isle to complete a Team Penske sweep of the doubleheader weekend (Power won first race) and recorded 10 top-10 finishes. He added three Verizon P1 Awards. … Montoya won at Pocono from the pole and added eight other top-10 finishes to place fourth in the standings. … Pagenaud posted two victories and finished 12 races in the top 10. He was fifth in the championship.
The gist: Castroneves will surpass 300 career Indy car starts and Power will move over 150 starts. Castroneves has been driving for Team Penske since the 2000 CART season. Power enters his seventh season with the team. … Castroneves is fourth (41) on the all-time Indy car poles list. Bobby Unser is third with 49. … Castroneves is tied with team consultant Rick Mears for 11th on the all-time Indy car win list with 29. … Castroneves has recorded at least one win in 14 seasons. … Both Castroneves and Power have won twice on the St. Petersburg street circuit, which will host the season opener March 29.
They said it: “I think we have a very good potential here to do something very strong,” Castroneves said. “Obviously, in racing there is a lot of variables. At this point Team Penske is prepared as much as they can to do what we did last year. I do feel we have a strong team here so we can battle each other for the championship.”
Said Montoya: “At the end of the year I felt I was doing a really good job. Still felt like we were miles off in qualifying. I have to really work at that. I thought our race pace was good. Just need to put it all together. I think the timing of the body kit and the fourth car is really good. I think all four of us understand No. 1 is Team Penske, the team winning, working together.”
Said Pagenaud: “I’m very motivated. I've personally been working hard to get to this in my career. I'm here now and the pressure is off. I want to enjoy it. Technically, I would say that's my strength. It's really going to be an interesting season, and feeding off of each other is going to be an important task.”
Said Power: “The whole series is so competitive. You just see that in the last two years, how many different race winners there were, how many different pole sitters there were. There's nothing worse in a series where the same people win over and over and over, there's no competition. That's what is cool about IndyCar. You can be 22nd one week, then you can be winning a race a next week. I think that keeps the fans interested. That's how a series should be.”