Heading into last month’s Indianapolis 500, Simon Pagenaud was coming off of a race weekend at Iowa to where he won Race 1 from a last place starting spot (23rd) and was fourth in the other. He had four top four finishes, three of which podiums, in his first six races to the season. He was Scott Dixon’s chief rival for this year’s championship. He was 54 points down to Dixon going to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to where Pagenaud won last year.

Unfortunately, it’s been all downhill since. Over a span of seven days (3 races), Pagenaud lost 125 points to Dixon in the standings. He went from second to sixth in points.

For the ‘500, Pagenaud just never had it. His car was great in traffic but not good enough to win. He qualified 25th and finished 22nd. A week later in the doubleheader at World Wide Technology Raceway in Gateway, he was involved in an opening lap crash in Race 1 and finished 19th as a result. That ended his series leading 38 race streak of running at the finish too. On Sunday’s race, he was only 16th.

Dixon finished second, first and fifth respectively himself — hence the big gap in points between the two now.

So, Pagenaud needs to get going this weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. He won this race in 2016 and was fourth, eighth and sixth respectively since. He does have eight straight top 10 finishes there but only two podiums since 2014. If he wants to make up any ground, he needs a podium badly in both races this weekend.

“I’m so excited to have DXC Technology back on my Chevrolet for Mid-Ohio,”Pagenaud said. “For the rest of the season, we’ll be racing on road courses or a street course, so we have had to shift our thinking from the last few races that were all on ovals.

“Whatever we learn between the two races at Mid-Ohio can be really valuable for the rest of the season. In that case and my crew has been working really hard with that in mind. We are ready for the fight and aiming for race wins.”

Then, it’s to a doubleheader at Indy on the road course. He won on the 2.439-mile layout in 2019 and was on the podium on July 4. He has two more chances to close the gap at Indy before heading to St. Pete at the end of October.