Two-time IndyCar Championship contender Simon Pagenaud is set to join Team Penske in 2015, according to a team statement.
The 30-year-old has won on four occasions in his IndyCar career and fought for the title in 2013 and again in 2014 but missed out on both occasions, both times he drove for Schmidt Peterson Hamilton, not regarded as one of the top IndyCar teams.
Pagenaud joins Penske’s highly successful line-up from the 2014 season, Champion Will Power, three-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, and former F1 Monaco winner and Indy 500 champion Juan Pablo Montoya as the team will field a four-car team, just as rivals Andretti Autosport and Chip Ganassi Racing has done in recent years.
Pagenaud has raced full-time in just three IndyCar seasons, taking fifth in his rookie year in 2012, as well as rookie of the year honours, finishing third in the 2013 season, taking his first and second wins, and he finished fifth in this year’s tightly contested joust, winning the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Pagenaud famously fell out with new team mate Will Power, his former friend during the course of this season, as the two argued over the same piece of road on more than one occasion, although now the two will have to work together as Penske hopes to assert an era of dominance in IndyCar, which will feature aero-kits in 2015, which looks to benefit the top teams more than anybody else.
Not all of the top teams have confirmed drivers for 2015, although the newly formed CFH Racing has Josef Newgarden and Ed Carpenter as confirmed drivers, Andretti Autosport have the same line-up but are yet to confirm James Hinchcliffe, and Ganassi only have Scott Dixon confirmed as a driver so far. 2014 race winner Sebastien Bourdais is also confirmed at KVSH Racing.
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