Will Power has thrown some good wobblys over the years. Saturday night’s at World Wide Technology Raceway was one of the Team Penske veteran’s better eruptions, but it didn’t take long for him to cool down, process the incidents that caused a caution, another that caused the end of his race, and get to work on making amends.
The introspection began with the lap 239 clash with David Malukas, who fired to the inside of Power in Turn 1, held his place at the bottom of the track as he drew alongside the No. 12 Penske Chevy with the No. 66 Meyer Shank Racing Honda, and was hit by Power who turned down, made contact, and sent Malukas spinning into the wall.
Convinced it was the MSR driver’s fault, Power circulated in fourth place during the caution he triggered and was then caught in a multi-car pileup on the restart led by Penske teammate Josef Newgarden. In pursuit of his third NTT IndyCar Series title, the unnecessary and premature end to his race after behind hit from behind by Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi — with concerns that Newgarden slowed the field, which caused an accordion effect and the ensuing pileup — only added to his mounting anger.
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From there, yelling at Malukas in the infield after the restart crash left Power with some calls and visits to make, starting with the MSR driver.
“I thought he understeered up into me until I saw the replay,” Power told RACER. “I called him and said, ‘Man, I actually did squeeze you. I didn’t think I did that. My fault.’”
Malukas says there are no hard feelings with Power, who he’ll work with next year at A.J. Foyt Racing through the technical alliance between the Penske and Foyt teams.
“He reached out and it was really funny, sarcastic Will,” Malukas said. “We’re definitely all good. And it was a nice message. He said, ‘I was a d***. I’m sorry.’ My [social media] audience was saying some crazy and awful things about him. So I was talking with Will that when we show up to Portland, let’s go and take a picture with each other, and I can actually tell my audience that everything’s peachy and there’s no fighting going on.”
With Newgarden, everything was back to normal by Monday when the two spent the afternoon together.
“I was on the boat with him, wake surfing with him,” Power said. “Myself and Josef are absolutely fine. I’ve been around too long. I don’t stay mad long.”
In hindsight, Power places the blame on the restart crash on the dynamics of a last-second return to green, rather than Newgarden playing tricks to slow the cars immediately behind him before accelerating.
“He doesn’t brake-check anybody,” he said. “What made that all so bad is that all the restarts had been between Turn 3 and 4, and he was on the front straight, but he did maintain pace. It’s just all the little gaps that people try to use to jump close up when you wait so long to go. So the guys, the further back you go, the more they think you’re going the later it gets. I knew I was going to get drilled in the back because I thought they were going there for a second. And I went a little bit, and you’ll hear me go, and then I’m not, and I actually hit the back of Herta. Then Rossi would have thought the same thing, because I was going, and he just kept going and went over the back of me.”
IndyCar reviewed Newgarden’s throttle data and cleared him of any wrongdoing on the restart.
“It’s what happens when you go very late,” Power continued. “[Newgarden] didn’t take me out. I was just mad at the restart, that’s all. The leader actually doesn’t have to go when it goes green. It sucks if you’re back in the pack and that happens because the guy behind you thinks it’s going green, and people start hitting each other.
“He just went so late, which is his right, and everyone’s so desperate on the last restart, all the ingredients for what happened was there. I was obviously disappointed after the race. Threw a good result away on that. But you’ve got to always review what you could have done better yourself, and if I hadn’t created the yellow with Malukas, I wouldn’t have been in the position I was in on the restart.”