Over the past dozen years, engineer Ben Bretzman became synonymous with Simon Pagenaud. They first worked together in 2010 at the Highcroft Racing sportscar team, reunited in IndyCar for a three-year spell at what was then Sam Schmidt Motorsports and then moved to Team Penske together for 2015. They won the series title in 2016 and the Indianapolis 500 in 2019. Bretzman race engineered all 15 of Pagenaud’s IndyCar victories.
Yet when Team Penske elected to shrink its IndyCar arm from four cars to three for 2022, and Pagenaud elected to stay in open-wheel by moving to Meyer Shank Racing, Bretzman didn’t face a career dilemma, because he loves working at Penske. But he admits it was “hard not to get emotional because it was the end of an era for both Simon and I”.
In the meantime, he had become very impressed with Scott McLaughlin, who over a four-year-spell in the DJR Team Penske squad in Supercars had earned three championships and 48 wins – including the Bathurst 1000. In…
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