INDIANAPOLIS -- In case it wasn't already obvious, the combination of Simon Pagenaud and Team Penske is really starting to click.
The 31-year-old Frenchman drove to victory Saturday in the Angie's List Grand Prix of Indianapolis by 4.48 seconds, extending his Verizon IndyCar Series win streak to three races. That run came after he started the 2016 campaign with a pair of second-place finishes.
It was the second time in three years that Pagenaud won the Indianapolis GP, and his superiority on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course this year was as blindingly obvious as the neon yellow paint on his Menard's Chevrolet.
Shuffled back in the order after a midrace exchange of pit stops under caution, pole winner Pagenaud bided his time before he produced stunningly fast in and out laps for his final stop under green. That vaulted him ahead of teammate Helio Castroneves, and he was able to cruise home over the final 18 laps.
The remarkable start to the season puts Pagenaud in a commanding position to win the IndyCar Series championship. Heading into the Indianapolis 500, he holds a 79-point lead over defending series champion Scott Dixon, who finished seventh Saturday.
It's a big turnaround from a year ago, when Pagenaud sometimes struggled amid high expectations in his first year with the Penske organization. He failed to win a race and finished 11th in the IndyCar Series standings, far behind his teammates Castroneves, Will Power and Juan Pablo Montoya.
With a year of experience under the No. 22 team's belt, Pagenaud is starting to assert his superiority and could be on the verge of a monster season.
"From my seat it was pretty exciting," he said. "Three in a row is pretty incredible these days in IndyCar.
"But it's not just me. It's the whole team, and this car is magical."
He confirmed that getting the most out of his in and out laps before the final green flag pit stop was the key to his latest victory.
"I went faster than any other lap on the in lap and the pit lane was a bit of rallycross driving," Pagenaud said with a grin. "Kyle Moyer (team manager and strategist) told me that I had to go and I knew it was going to be the chance to get back in the lead.
"I knew this was my chance so I drove as hard as I could and the pit crew did a fantastic job on that stop," he added. "That was an easy last stint."
The person perhaps the least surprised by Pagenaud's sudden success is former Indy car star Gil de Ferran. The 2003 Indianapolis 500 winner (and two-time champion of the CART-sanctioned Indy car series) is a mentor and unofficial manager to Pagenaud.
After he retired from Indy cars, de Ferran ran a Honda prototype team in the American Le Mans Series in 2008 and '09 and chose young Pagenaud as his co-driver. De Ferran maintains links to Honda as a consultant and advisor for Honda Performance Development.
He's also extremely familiar with Penske Racing, having spent the most successful years of his career with the legendary team. So he is well-placed to analyze Pagenaud's emergence in the spotlight.
"Simon is a very capable man in many ways," de Ferran said. "He's talented and he is very self-critical. He works on his craft a lot. At this level it's not just about going fast. To win championships and be consistent, you have to learn how to put a whole weekend together, you have to make good choices in the car and about the car setup with the engineer.
"Simon over the years has developed his craft little by little, and you're seeing the results now. He's making very few mistakes and he's making very good choices. You can tell he's really settling down now."
De Ferran joined Penske in 2000 and helped the Indy car team return to championship form after a barren stretch. He earned his first win in his fifth start for the team, scoring Team Penske's 100th Indy car race win at Nazareth Speedway.
"It can be intimidating for a new driver to arrive at Penske Racing, and I think maybe that was a little bit of the case last year," de Ferran said of Pagenaud. "But to be fair to him, his program was all new. He was the fourth car and it was a new car, the first time Penske ran four cars full time.
"So what you're seeing is a lot of things going on. Operationally, I think they are better than they were last year, Simon is better and everything is coming together."
As a Honda man, de Ferran knew how important a role Pagenaud played as a test driver in the engine development program. But at the same time, he knew from personal experience that an opportunity to drive for Team Penske comes along only once in a career.
"We were very keen to keep him on; there's no way you don't miss a driver like Simon and we were very keen to keep him," de Ferran said of Honda's efforts not to lose him to Chevrolet.
"But despite our friendship, he was very professional throughout the negotiations and I respect him for that."
The sky appears to be the limit for the Penske/Pagenaud package, and with the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 attracting even more attention than usual, the Frenchman has a chance to really put his name in lights in a couple of weeks.
Not that he really cares.
"I'm just going to do my thing," he said. "I don't mind being under the radar, as long as we win races. At this point I'm pretty happy to be where we're at. It's been a great start of the season. Most importantly, I feel like I'm driving really well and the whole team is in a very good dynamic on the [No.] 22 side.
"It's exciting."