Simon Pagenaud finishes his first real day of testing for Meyer Shank Racing fastest just ahead of teammate Helio Castroneves – season opener coming up
The second and final day of IndyCar winter testing at Sebring, Florida, has ended with fastest time for Simon Pagenaud (Shank-Honda). The Frenchman has made the move from Team Penske to Meyer Shank Racing following the end of the 2021 season. Apart from a brief private test in January (also at Sebring), Tuesday was now Pagenaud’s first outing for his new employer.
With a best time of 52.113 seconds on the short circuit of Sebring International Raceway, Pagenaud was slower than Andretti driver Colton Herta with his best time on Monday. However, this was not least due to the outside conditions. On the second day of testing, the wind was much stronger than on the previous day.
In the end, Michael Shank’s team even finished the day with both drivers in the top two positions on the timesheet. Team-mate Helio Castroneves lined up directly behind Pagenaud. The four-time Indy 500 winner’s gap to the new addition to the team was 0.081 seconds.
Third fastest was Marcus Ericsson, leading the Chip Ganassi Racing quartet. After Kevin Magnussen was unceremoniously allowed to test the 10 Ganassi Honda of defending champion Alex Palou for a day on Monday, the four regular drivers were in action on Tuesday. Palou finished sixth, Scott Dixon eighth and Jimmie Johnson twelfth, less than 0.9 seconds off the lead.
Between Ganassi drivers Ericsson and Palou, Rinus VeeKay (Carpenter-Chevrolet) moved into P4 and Indy Lights champion Kyle Kirkwood (Foyt-Chevrolet) into P5. The latter drove on both days. The same goes for Callum Ilott, who cracked the top 10 on Tuesday with the Juncos Chevrolet and finished P9 directly behind Dixon.
Also in action on both days was David Malukas (Coyne-Honda). With P10 on Tuesday, he left his teammate Takuma Sato (11th) just behind. For Sato it was his debut in the Dale Coyne team. The last two places on the time list of the second day of testing were occupied by Dalton Kellett and Tatiana Calderon (both Foyt-Chevrolet). Calderon is also part of the group of drivers who tested both Monday and Tuesday.
This concludes the only IndyCar winter test with all teams. The next session for all will be the first Free Practice session for the season opener in St Petersburg, Florida, on Friday 25 February (2022 IndyCar calendar).
Result IndyCar test at Sebring (Tuesday)
01st Simon Pagenaud (Shank-Honda) – 52.113 seconds
02nd Helio Castroneves (Shank-Honda) – 52.194
03 Marcus Ericsson (Ganassi-Honda) – 52.210
04th Rinus VeeKay (Carpenter-Chevrolet) – 52,269
05th Kyle Kirkwood (Foyt-Chevrolet) – 52,338
06th Alex Palou (Ganassi-Honda) – 52,377
07th Conor Daly (Carpenter-Chevrolet) – 52,414
08 Scott Dixon (Ganassi-Honda) – 52.422
09th Callum Ilott (Juncos-Chevrolet) – 52,529
10th David Malukas (Coyne-Honda) – 52,723
11th Takuma Sato (Coyne-Honda) – 52,802
12th Jimmie Johnson (Ganassi-Honda) – 52,947
13th Dalton Kellett (Foyt-Chevrolet) – 53,025
14th Tatiana Calderon (Foyt-Chevrolet) – 53.047
