Not long after the calendar flips to March at the end of next week, 2016 IndyCar Series champion Simon Pagenaud is going to be a pretty busy race car driver.

Pagenaud will kick off his IndyCar season in St. Petersburg on March 11 in the No. 22 Team Penske Chevrolet.

Six days later, he’s back in the cockpit of the No. 6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 DPi with co-drivers Dane Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya, and eight days after that, he’ll be back in the IndyCar for the second round of the season at Circuit of The Americas on March 24.

Thursday at Sebring, Pagenaud joined his Acura Team Penske cohorts in the second of two days of testing the DPi machine.

“It’s different than IndyCar,” Pagenaud said. “It’s very much about having a fast average among the three drivers throughout the entire race in every condition. It’s a lot of fun and I really enjoy it.

“This always helps me because I love driving, first of all.

“Whatever the car, if it’s got four wheels, and engine and a steering wheel, I just want to drive it.

“Obviously, with my ties to Acura and now with Team Penske, it’s phenomenal for me, this opportunity to race in sports cars, as I’ve been doing for many, many years.

“Remember, I come from sports car racing, originally, so that’s my background.

“Being able to race the IndyCar and a sports car is very great, because it keeps my mind open on how a car could behave differently and I believe it helps my skills also with adjusting to different cars quickly.”