Will Power – Page 2 – Syndication Server

Tire life gave Power the edge in Portland showdown

The ongoing volley between Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing at Portland International Raceway went in favor of Penske drivers for the third time in the last five years at the circuit, breaking the tie between the NTT IndyCar Series’ two dominant …

In 2019 it was Penske’s Will Power, and upon the race’s 2021 return from a COVID-affected 2020, it was Ganassi’s Alex Palou who stood atop the podium. In 2022, it was Penske’s Scott McLaughlin, and in 2023, it was Palou again for Ganassi. And with Power’s romp to a demonstrative win on Sunday at the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland, the deciding factor in his 9.8-second victory over Palou was tire longevity.

Whether it was new or used Firestone primaries or alternates, Power’s No. 12 Chevy had better traction in all phases of the lap – accelerating, braking, and turning – for the entirety of his four stints. Palou wasn’t as fortunate as his tires, new or used, and of either compound, lacked the chassis setup to match Power’s pace as the stints continued.

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The knockout punch came on the final pit stop, when Power’s race strategist Ron Ruzewski saved a fresh set of the faster alternates while Palou, who’d used his on the third stint to no avail, spent the race’s final stanza on slower used primaries. Power drove off into the horizon and left his main championship rival to settle for a distant second.

“I think we didn’t really pick the right choices on tires,” Palou said. “But it comes from qualifying. We didn’t really think that the used alternates were going to last. Used both of them in qualifying. Yeah, a shame that we couldn’t really battle much. At the beginning I thought we had a lot of pace when the 12 [was] on primaries. I was really comfortable.

“But as soon as Will went on [alternates], I just couldn’t really follow him. I had a chance on the back straight when he had a little bit of traffic, but couldn’t really make it. So yeah, happy, but obviously a little bit frustrating that we couldn’t really get there. It was tough. Like, our pace was not at his level today. I think he had a seventh gear today. Couldn’t really catch him.”

Power had Palou draw near on a couple occasions when they were about to lap tailenders, but other than those moments, the Penske veteran was able to reestablish a safe margin over the Ganassi ace.

“I had traffic; I was at the mercy of the pace of the car in front,” Power said. “I saw that gap just shrink really quickly. I think he pulled into the pits or I passed. However that played out. As soon as I got clear track, I knew I could put quite a bit of time into him. Especially at the end of the stint, it seemed like his car used the tire more than ours.

“On [alternates] we were simply better. Our car was really good on [alternate] tires. Yeah, kind of equal, I’d say, [on primaries]. He even looked like he dropped off on [primaries]. It was really a lot to do with traffic management. If it was a clear track for me, I always felt I could pull a gap on him.”

Power trounces Palou in Portland to keep title fight burning

The 14th race of the NTT IndyCar Series Season is over and an angry Will Power turned his frustration from last weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway into a flag-to-flag display of dominance at the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland. Furious at …

Furious at the circumstances that led to the crash and loss of a fourth-place finish or better at WWTR, the Team Penske driver channeled that disappointment as he so often does and rebounded with total mastery of the 110-lap contest in Oregon, beating championship leader Alex Palou with relative ease while leading more than 100 laps along the way.

“He’s a good teammate,” Power said of AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci, who started from pole in a car that receives technical support from Penske and didn’t put up a big fight when Power took the lead later in the first lap.

“Very fair. I have to thank him for helping out there. We definitely had a better car on [Firestone’s alternate tires over Palou]. A good day.”

Palou kept Power in sight, and even came close to making a pass when they hit traffic, but the driver of the No. 12 Chevy kept Palou anywhere from 1-3s behind on most laps, to over 10s in the closing laps of the contest. Other than the brief moments where he pitted and others inherited the lead until they stopped, Power was in command the entire time.

With his win, Power vaulted from fourth in the Drivers’ standings to second. Palou arrived at Portland with 59 points over Colton Herta in the championship; with the victory, Power demoted Herta and sits 54 points back from the driver of the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.

“I thought the primary and the alternates were going to be closer, and they were not,” said Palou, who leaves with a full race of maximum points ahead of the field. “Hopefully we can pick up a little more points in Milwaukee. I like where we’re sitting. I like the opportunity in front of us.”

Penske’s Josef Newgarden continued his late-season surge with a run to third, one position ahead of Herta. Ganassi’s Marcus Armstrong sealed his third straight top 10 finish with a strong performance to take fifth, and the often-unlucky Marcus Ericsson had a clean day on the way to sixth.

“From where we started, I’m pleased with the progress we made,” Newgarden said.

The biggest mover was Penske’s Scott McLaughlin who fired from 20th to seventh, and after running in the top three early in the day, polesitter Santino Ferrucci from AJ Foyt Racing held on to claim eighth.

It wasn’t terribly exciting to watch, but Portland delivered everything Power and Penske needed to keep themselves in the title fight. The championship battle reconvenes next weekend in a doubleheader on the Milwaukee Mile.

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Ferrucci led the field to the green flag and lost the lead to second-place Power and championship leader Palou slotted in behind in third. The opening lap was clean through the Turn 1 chicane, thanks to the green being thrown early, but the lap ended under caution as title contender Scott Dixon was hit by Pietro Fittipaldi entering the back straight and shot across the track into the barrier, which folded his left-front suspension. Dixon, third in the championship entering Portland, was done for the day, 28th and last.

Five drivers starting at the back of the field used the caution to pit for fuel and move to an alternate strategy.

The lap five restart saw Power lead Ferrucci and Palou. Fittipaldi was ordered to pit lane for a drive-through. Lap eight and Palou took second from Ferrucci, 0.8s behind Power. McLaughlin was up from 20th to 15th.

Lap 10 and Romain Grosjean ran fourth, Herta in fifth. Lap 18 and Christian Luandgaard dropped down to P12 after locking up at the chicane and Linus Lundqvist fell to P25 after overshooting the final corner and needing to return via the drag strip. Power held 1.3s over Palou and 3.8s over Ferrucci.

At lap 21, Kyle Kirkwood pitted from P6, the first of the leaders to stop. Three laps later Fittipaldi tried to pass Conor Daly into Turn 1, locked up on the inside, and speared Daly into a spin. Both continued.

The next lap, Power’s lead was down to 0.6s over Palou while Ferrucci was down by 4.6s.

Lap 26 and a slow Fittipaldi in front of Power nearly allowed Palou to get by; he pitted at the end of the lap to serve a penalty for the Daly hit. Lap 30 saw Power’s lead over Palou stretch up to 1.0s. Ferrucci was 3.4s back as the first pit stop loomed. Grosjean was 4.7s behind; Herta, 5.3s down; Josef Newgarden in sixth was 6.5s arrears; Marcus Armstrong was 7.8s back in seventh. Lap 32 and Ferrucci pitted. McLaughlin following him in.

Power pitted at the start of lap 33 as did Grosjean, Herta and Armstrong. Palou followed on Lap 34 and it wasn’t overly fast; Power returned to the lead with Palou in second. Herta was forced off of Turn 2 by Grosjean and rode through the dirt as Ferrucci made the pass and took P6 from the No. 26, right behind Grosjean. No action taken by race control on Grosjean.

In two more laps, Power was 1.6s clear of Palou. By lap 44, not much changed, barring Power taking greater command of the race with 2.5s over Palou and 7.5s over Kirkwood.

Lap 50 and the gap extended to 3.5s between Power and Palou. Kirkwood got to within 4.5s of Power, and in fourth Newgarden was 8.1s back. Lap 51 and Kirkwood ducked in for his second stop. Lap 52 and Palou cut the lead to 2.1s. Lap 56 and Christian Rasmussen went off at the last turn and used the drag strip to resume his race. A blocky Kirkwood got the call from race control to give up two positions.

One lap later, Palou pitted first; Newgarden joined him as Power and Ferrucci stayed out. The two finally pitted at the end of the lap. Power’s lead was about 2.0s before Palou stopped. Returning after his stop, Power increased it to 3.1s.

Lap 62 and Herta pitted from the lead. Grosjean spun at Turn 1, got going again, but pulled in front of Rasmussen at the apex, was hit and got his left-rear tire flattened. Rasmussen, who wasn’t at fault, has his race ruined and pitted to replace his broken front wings.

: #PortlandGP on USA and Peacock pic.twitter.com/AEya59O2H8

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) August 25, 2024

Power was back in the lead and had 1.6s over Palou. Newgarden was 7.0s behind in third, then it was Herta at 12.7s down, and Ferrucci in fifth with 16.8s to Power.

Lap 67 and Palou ran 0.6s back and was charging as they got into traffic. Grosjean received a drive-through. Free of traffic, Power was stretching the lead again, at 1.4s after 71 laps.

Ten laps later, Ferrucci made his final stop. Power ran 2.0s clear of Palou and 2.5 from Newgarden. Lap 86 and Herta stalled leaving his pit box, but resumed quickly after re-firing the car on his own.

Lap 87 and Power and Newgarden pit as Palou stayed out. One lap later, Palou was in. He returned in second, setting up a straight lap time battle to the finish.

By lap 89, Power had lead 79 laps. Lap 91 and he was up by 3.4s on Palou and 9.1s on Newgarden. Unless something drastic happened, it was his race.

Power stretched the lead to 4.9s over Palou and 18.5 to Newgarden. Turn out the lights, the party was over.

RESULTS

Newgarden on Power: ‘I get that he’s upset’

Josef Newgarden said he intended to clear the air with Team Penske teammate Will Power as soon as he had an opportunity after a chain reaction that followed a late restart on Newgarden’s behalf resulted in Power crashing out of Saturday night’s NTT …

Newgarden led as the field lined up for a restart with 10 laps remaining but launched for the green later than the cars behind him expected, resulting in several cars checking up and Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi slamming into the rear of Power’s car.

Power was clearly incensed as he returned to the pits, and while he took care not to name Newgarden specifically while describing the incident during the race broadcast, he emphasized that he believed that the blame lay with “whoever was leading.”

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“I’ll go talk to him immediately once I get done with you guys,” Newgarden said during the post-race press conference. “As soon as I see him, I’ll talk to him.

“I know Will pretty well. I get that he’s upset. He got wrecked out of the race. He’s a championship contender. When you get run into, especially after the night he had — he had a great night, a fast car, he drove super-well – he led two-thirds of this thing. Imagine how he feels. I get it. I get that he’s upset.

“I think he’s going to try to place blame wherever he directly sees it right off the bat. He gets hot quick. I think when you calm down and look at it, it’s probably not going to be exactly what he thought it was in the moment.

“But the point is, he’s going to be upset because this is not good for his championship. Believe me, the last thing I want to happen is for Will to get hit. I can tell you that right now.

“If I go and sit with my boss tonight, he’s going to look at me and say, ‘Did you do a good job tonight?’ I want him to think I did a good job every single night that I see him.

“I wouldn’t change much from my procedure. It’s not that different than what I’ve done in the past. I hate that Will got caught out in a situation tonight, someone running into him. It’s not fun.”

Newgarden admitted that he went late on the final restart. “It was definitely late,” he said. “I was trying to go as late as I could. It’s not that different of a restart than I’ve done before.” But he denied accusations made by Power in the immediate aftermath of the incident that he had been repeatedly speeding up and then slowing down.

“If anyone, especially on our team, wants to look at the data, you’re going to see a very consistent speed,” he said. This was verified by the series, which said that Newgarden’s speed remained at 80mph in the moments immediately prior to the incident.

Race control manages restarts by using the lead driver’s throttle data as the cue for when to return to green flag conditions. Newgarden admitted that he was waiting until as late in the restart zone as he possibly could before taking off, as he is free to do within the rules, but suggested that the green flag might have been shown early, which would have signaled to drivers in the line that it was time to accelerate even though Newgarden had yet to return to racing speed up at the front.

“What looked like happened is that it went green momentarily before I went, just momentarily,” Newgarden said. “I’m talking like half a second or a second.

“If it’s just that slight difference in timing, if race control goes green and I haven’t gone yet for just a second… I think people were trying to jump, which we’ve had a problem with, to be honest. We’ve had a problem with jump-starts the last two years. It’s a constant topic in the driver meetings.

“If there’s just a slight miscue there, I think people are very on edge on these restarts trying to get the run. It looked like it mistimed in the back, at least with one individual, and that’s what caused a problem.

“From my side, it’s the last thing you want to happen at the end. I don’t want to create a wreck. I was not trying to do that. That was not my intention. I don’t know that I’d do much different because it’s how I would do a restart.”

Solid Toronto day for Team Penske goes up in smoke in one corner

A look at the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto lap chart shows Team Penske held fourth, fifth, and seventh positions on the 76th lap of the 85-lap NTT IndyCar Series race. Come lap 77, the race went from green to yellow due to Penske’s fifth-place …

A look at the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto lap chart shows Team Penske held fourth, fifth, and seventh positions on the 76th lap of the 85-lap NTT IndyCar Series race.

Come lap 77, the race went from green to yellow due to Penske’s fifth-place Will Power making an overly ambitious passing attempt at Turn 5 on teammate Scott McLaughlin. The lunging maneuver crashed McLaughlin out of fourth, and the team’s day began to spiral.

Lapping in his ill-gotten fourth under caution, Power circulated around and found McLaughlin, who waited at the corner, giving him a salty round of applause as he drove by. McLaughlin would see a near-podium turn into 16th.

The next entry on the lap chart is found on lap 81 when Power was invited by race control to perform a drive-through penalty for the race-ending hit on McLaughlin, which turned his fourth into a 12th as the last car on the lead lap.

Penske’s Josef Newgarden was the team’s final hope and had seventh in hand—likely sixth with Power’s penalty—but in the Turn 5 panic to avoid the crashing McLaughlin, cars slowed in front of Newgarden, who slowed as well, and he was hit from behind by David Malukas, which punctured a rear tire.

Forced to pit lane for a fresh set of Firestones, Newgarden returned to finish 11th, best among the misfortune-riddled Penske trio. From having three cars headed for a top seven to all three relegated to 11th through 16th, a good day turned bad for three of IndyCar’s best.

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“I never want to run into a teammate,” Power said. “That is not something I ever set out to do and I apologize to Scott and his team for knocking them out of the race. We were both in a position to have a solid day against the two Andretti cars and I knew I had a better tire situation than Scott. Unfortunately, we got together and gifted (championship leader Alex) Palou too many points.”

McLaughlin was understandably unamused.

“It’s a low-percentage move when probably we’re both going to have a pretty good day,” he said. “He’s come from a long way back, and it’s just hard to stop, isn’t it? Do you do that to a teammate? I don’t know. I get we’re racing for a championship, but when we’re both ahead of Palou, it’s just a low percentage move. It’s contact with a teammate. You never want to see that.”

Newgarden’s season of extreme highs and lows continued, starting with a loose wheel on his first stop that took him out of podium contention.

“That’s just kind of how our year has gone, unfortunately,” he said. “This crew has been so solid all year long but we just had a communication issue on the first stop. Happens to everyone, but we managed it well and fought back to get in position for a top-five finish before the late-race issue. Our Chevy had been really good all weekend long. We’ll bounce back in St. Louis next month and push strong to the end of the season.”

Power makes lucky and good a winning combination

While it might hardly rank as an upset for Team Penske to sweep IndyCar’s Iowa Speedway doubleheader, having Will Power as the front man for Sunday’s second half might looked a tall order from the Australian’s 22nd-place starting spot, the result of a brush with the wall on his second qualifying lap. Given the challenges most drivers experienced with passing on the 0.875-mile oval this weekend, even a car with winning potential wasn’t going to be enough to overcome that. But Power figured out how to make the most of whatever breaks fate offered up, and made the most of them when they appeared,

“Yeah, I had a very good car. My plan from the beginning was to sit back and save a lot of fuel, just get the best possible number using the speed, lifting,” explained Power. “In that gap, prayed for a yellow because I knew there would be out-laps. That would be when people would be prone to mistakes. That’s exactly what happened.

“Even if it didn’t, we were just going to jump people by staying out. They come in, you’re just faster. Jump a few people to a sequence, as well. Either way we were going to go forward. But that was the big one, getting that yellow.”

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That yellow, following a spin from Augustin Canapino, enabled Power to pit from the lead and still emerge in second place behind Alex Palou — a massive gain in track position for the Verizon Chevy but still not quite enough. Power wasn’t done, though.

“I felt like we had a better car than Alex. Set back, saved fuel again,” the Penske driver related. “Went long. Jumped him over in that sequence. Good in-, out-laps. Amazing stops as usual by my guys. They’re the best in pit lane. Don’t have to take my word for it — just look at the times every time. I’m lucky with that.”

Lucky, but also taking full advantage. Power held off Palou over the final phase of the race to claim his 43rd career win, lifting him out of a tie with Michael Andretti for fourth on the all-time list.

“Fast in-lap, fast out-lap, fast pit stop. Good strategy, good car. That’s how you get to win in this series — and every now and then catch a Scott Dixon yellow,” Power said with a grin. “I need another 15 of them to catch up over the years. Colton Herta said to me, ‘Dude, if you didn’t get caught out by yellows early in your career, you would have another 15 wins or something.’ I’ll take them every time and not feel bad. I’ll be like, ‘Yep, I deserve that!'”

The win was all the sweeter for coming at an oval — his first on one since 2019 — and particularly at a track he’d never won on.

“It’s funny because I was trying to win this for so long. Even last year I finished second. I think I finished second a few times before the repave,” Power mused. “I didn’t really think I’d win today.

“You know how life goes, it just happens like that. Yeah, been trying to win this one for a long time. Stoked to tick that box. I’ve won a lot of races at a lot of tracks. When you tick a box at a track you haven’t won on, it feels pretty good.”

Tactical run takes Power from 22nd to victory in Iowa Race 2

Passing came at a premium during the second Hy-Vee doubleheader at Iowa Speedway, and thanks to a masterful strategy that saw Will Power saving fuel in the No. 12 Team Penske Chevy to shorten his final pit stop, Power overtook Alex Palou exiting the …

Other than A.J. Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci passing everything in sight in the middle of the 250-lap contest, it was a processional race where fuel strategy and pit stops made the difference, and when it mattered Team Penske got the job done and swept both races.

SANTINO FERRUCCI JUST NEWGARDENED NEWGARDEN!

What a move around the outside. #INDYCAR pic.twitter.com/EdPgBYhCtH

— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) July 14, 2024

“Massive fuel save, honestly,” Power said of his secret to victory. “Just sitting in the pack and had a really good car, really fast car, so just sat back and use that pace to save fuel to get a massive number. I knew once all those guys pulled in, I could go hard. Then we caught a yellow, because that was the thing we were hoping for — to get one of those yellows — [to] put us to the front. I’ve been trying to win this race for years, so over the moon. The guys did a great job.”

Team Chevy also dominated the event with all three podium spots on Saturday and two of the three on Sunday.

Palou looked primed to get his first oval win, but settled for second.

“It was a good weekend,” he said. “Yesterday, it was a terrible day for us. Just made too many mistakes, but rebounded today, almost got the win, and it was really tough to pass. I think nobody could pass. It was a very boring race to drive. They got us in the pits because they had a little more fuel, same as what we did to [McLaughlin]. Solid P2 moving forward to Toronto next week.”

McLaughlin made major headway in the championship in Iowa jumping to fifth in the standings and slashing his deficit to Palou almost in half.

“We could have easily got two wins, but we got two podiums, and that’s a great day,” he said. “I come into some tracks now — Toronto, Gateway, Portland — that I’ve won before. I feel really strong. It’s the end of the season, so yeah, it’s anyone’s game.”

The only significant drama from the race occurred on the final lap — after Power and his pursuers took the checkered flag — as Sting Ray Robb crashed into the slowing Alexander Rossi which sent Robb airborne and upside down and Rossi, Kyle Kirkwood and Ed Carpenter into each other, with Carpenter vaulting over Rossi onto the top of Kirkwood’s cockpit. All barring Robb were seen and released by IndyCar Medical. Robb, who was announced by the series as awake, alert, and in good condition, was dispatched to a local hospital for further evaluation.

The fourth race in three straight weekends is up next in Toronto before IndyCar heads into a long Olympic break.

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The closer at Iowa had polesitter Scott McLaughlin lead the opening laps ahead of Alex Palou and Scott Dixon. Josef Newgarden moved up to P10 from P14 and Conor Daly, starting P27, was up to P24 by lap 5.

Lap 25 and the race was following Saturday’s 250-lap run where passes at the start and restarts were where moves were made, and a few laps later, the field was largely locked into position until pit stops or a caution occurred. McLaughlin led Palou by 0.7s and Dixon by 1.4s.

Santino Ferrucci, who started P19, was holding P15 by lap 30 and was searching for a way past Linus Lundqvist in P14.

On lap 42, McLaughlin’s lead over Herta was the same 0.7s and 1.3s on Dixon. Twenty four laps later, the Penske driver’s lead over Herta was the same 0.7s and 1.2s. Newgarden was stuck in P10 and Ferrucci was stuck in P15. Nothing was happening.

Conor Daly pitted on lap 88. His right-front tire changer didn’t get the wheel tight, had to retrieve the wheel gun to hit it again, and lost many laps.

Lap 92 and McLaughlin’s lead over Herta was still 0.7s and 1.3s on Dixon.

The first round of pit stops proper began at lap 95. McLaughlin came in the next lap from the lead. Herta follows.

Palou was lapping in the lead at lap 100 and pitted just as Agustin Canapino spun in Turn 2 exiting the pits. The first yellow flew on lap 101 as Palou completed his stop and left the pits. Championship contender Will Power had yet to pit when the pits closed and took the lead on fumes.

Lap 105 and Palou was second; McLaughlin, third; Dixon, fourth and Herta, fifth.

Power resumed in second after pitting on lap 108, with the field ready to get back to racing. The series first needed to move some cars around before the restart. Newgarden sat P10 and Ferrucci, P16. Green flew again at lap 114.

Lap 118 and Daly overtakes teammate Katherine Legge for P24. Lap 119 and Ferrucci was up to P13; Newgarden was still P10. Ferrucci took P12 from Felix Rosenqvist on lap 121, then P11 from Newgarden two laps later. In another two laps, he takes P10 from Romain Grosjean.

By lap 150 the no-passing phase has been in effect for a while. Palou led Power by 0.25s and McLaughlin by 1.2s. Daly retires.

Lap 166 and Palou leads Power by 0.4s and McLaughlin by 1.1s. Lap 177 and Palou leads Power by 0.4s and McLaughlin by 1.1s. Lap 187 and Palou leads Power by 0.4s and McLaughlin by 1.1s. You see the pattern… Rosenqvist pits with some form of right-rear suspension issue.

McLaughlin and Ferrucci pit on lap 198 as more start to head in.

Herta pits on lap 203. Dixon came in one lap later. On lap 205, Palou ducked in while Power stayed out. He brought the No. 2 in a lap later.

What a charge into the lead for @12WillPower!

Will it be the pass for the win?

: #INDYCARatIowa on NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/NfCBxBJhkc

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) July 14, 2024

Thanks to “Penske Perfect” pit work, Power came out the lead in front of Palou on lap 208.

No-passing came back over the next 10 laps. Power led Palou by 0.4s and McLaughlin by 2.6s. Newgarden was up to P8. Ferrucci was back to P14.

Lap 232 and Power led Palou by 0.4s and McLaughlin by 2.5s. Without a caution, this is how it was expected to finish.

Power crossed the line ahead of Palou and McLaughlin on lap 250 as a huge crash occurred coming out of Turn 2, with Ed Carpenter’s car sitting on top of Kyle Kirkwood’s cockpit. Alexander Rossi was also involved, and even worse, Sting Ray Robb slid past upside down.

Rossi looked slow coming out of Turn 2, and while Robb attempted to take avoiding action, he drove over Rossi’s left-rear tire and shot into the air before crashing down and barrel rolling.

The AMR Safety Team got to Robb’s car quickly in Turn 3 and turned it over. All drivers appeared to be OK, but Robb was placed on a stretcher—he was moving his limbs and smiling while talking to the EMTs—and taken for observation.

RESULTS

Lack of tire degradation could make passing hard at Iowa

Team Penske’s Will Power experienced a right-front tire failure at the recent Iowa Speedway test where a buildup of heat in the hard carcass proved to be a problem on the new high-grip track surface. In reaction to the situation, Firestone brought softer right-side tires for this weekend’s race and IndyCar took 450 pounds of downforce off the cars to reduce the load. After 90 minutes of running at Iowa for the Hy-Vee Doubleheader, no issues were reported.

“They’re quite forgiving. They’re nice tires. I like them,” Power told RACER. “I didn’t think there was any blistering. Taking downforce off helps that. I did 60 laps on one set. Bit of vibration, but I was going just as fast with them on the last lap. Zero deg[redation]; zero passing. It’s just going to be a day of pit stop sequences, in and out, and hoping for a lucky yellow situation.”

Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi shared Power’s views on the tires and in his concern for what kind of racing the Firestone rubber might produce. The hope with the revised tire package was for higher degradation to occur, which would present passing opportunities for those on newer rubber. Alas, high durability was the primary attribute on display during Friday’s practice.

“There’s no deg,” Rossi said. “I think that’s what you would expect with a new surface. I don’t know if any tire is gonna deg. I do think the lighter downforce makes it a little bit more challenging on heavy fuel and behind cars, so the car is moving around more than at the test. But as the fuel comes off, any sort of tire wear you have is for the tire’s life.”

Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin, who was fastest on Friday, offered a bit of hope on the degradation topic, but also pointed to the new track surface as the main cause of the situation.

“There’s some tire deg,” he said. “Not as much as we’ve seen in the past. I think that’s more track specific than tires.”

Track walk with Will Power at IndyCar’s Firestone GP of Monterey

The eighth round of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season is at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Current points leader, Verizon Business Team Penske-Chevrolet driver Will Power, and his longtime race engineer Dave Faustino, provided RACER’s David …

RACER’s Trackside Report at the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey is presented by Radical Motorsport. As one of the world’s most prolific sports car manufacturers, Radical Motorsport sets out to create a race-bred thrill-a-minute driving experience on the racetrack. Radical Cup North America is the continent’s premier Radical championship offering exhilarating multi-class Le Mans style racing for a fraction of the price. Click to learn more.

Will and Liz Power celebrate much more than a win at Road America

Will Power knows the worst fears a spouse can face. His wife Liz, struck with a blood infection last year, spent the follow-up season to his 2022 NTT IndyCar Series championship won for Roger Penske with his mind and heart thousands of miles away …

While wanting to be with her — and their young son Beau — as the sepsis nearly turned fatal, Power was gripped with fear and dealt with the distractions at home to the best of his ability. But his focus was often elsewhere, as it should have been, which led to a disappointing championship run that was devoid of his familiar wins and poles.

In breaking that winless streak on Sunday at Road America, Power released more than 12 months of pent-up pressure and professional disappointment, and in an unusually frank conversation, the Australian ace spoke openly about the challenges he and Liz faced throughout her long and life-threatening ordeal.

“It was very special,” Power said of her getting to join him in victory lane after earning a victory of her own that exceeded anything her husband won. “She was in tears. So was her mother. Had Beau there. Yeah, been a rough trot. It was last year we didn’t get a win. She wasn’t at a lot of the races.

“In the off-season (leading into 2023) when my wife is sitting in hospital, we’re just wondering what’s going to happen here. She almost died. You start thinking, “Yeah, I’m going to have to stop now, take care of my son.’

“Then after that also, it’s a long process. Once they put the metal plates and all that, you have that infection in the blood, it can stick to the metal, come back. It’s like what’s going to happen. Continual blood tests. You just got to be on top of it. If it comes, you have to be very quick to have the antibiotics reduce it, I guess. The doc said it can come back anytime. You got to be quick to catch it.”

Liz Power’s situation worsened coming into last year’s Road America race. Her husband was on edge all weekend, which included barking at the track for the quality of its new track surface and unloading on old rival Scott Dixon, who made a mistake and caused a crash that did severe damage to Power’s No. 12 Chevy.

“It was a very stressful weekend because I left thinking that Liz was sick again,” he said. “She was looking (into) a glass. Getting in the car; had booked a private plane, because that’s the only way she could travel, get in the car, she looks down and says, ‘Look at all the worms in that cup.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, s**t.’

“(To my) mother-in-law, I said, ‘You have to stay here. We already booked this plane. Taking off now. I’ll go, call you on the plane.’ All weekend she’s going back and forth to the doctors. Turns out she mixed some medications (and was having) hallucinations. That’s how it all started, hallucinations.

“Stressful, this predicament. Should I race or not? Then you crash bad. That’s why I was so I guess angry or just stressed. Anything set me off. Grappling with that.”

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Separate from the racing and whatever else folks might associate with Power in sports, the win at Road America was a very personal affair for the 2018 Indy 500 winner and his wife from Texas. It was a return to normalcy, a reminder of the good days before she was dreadfully sick. Together, they’ve been among the kindest and most caring couples in IndyCar, and after enduring a hellish spell in their personal lives, they got to celebrate together at the race track, in the setting where they met and fell in love. For the first time in a long time, Will Power could breathe freely.

“That’s life,” he said. “People have it way worse. I’m not complaining. People have it way worse. I’m lucky, very lucky.”

Holding back puts Power ahead when it counts

Will Power had been close to victory plenty of times during his 34-race winless streak, only to see his prospects slip away. So when a golden opportunity presented itself at Road America, he played it cool. “Yeah, I sat back,” Power said of his …

“Yeah, I sat back,” Power said of his early acceptance to playing a backstop role in Team Penske’s three-car storm out front. “I kind of couldn’t get Scott [McLaughlin] without using a lot of push to pass. I sat back. I knew I had a lap of fuel on him. I was making the reds last. My in-lap was super quick. They [tires] didn’t really go off for me at all. I was kind of babying them. I sat behind there. That was a big in-lap. Gave me enough of a gap on Josef [Newgarden] to be able to get up to speed on the cold tires.”

Power admitted being able to celebrate with wife Liz in victory lane made it all the more meaningful, given the medical issues she’s been struggling with.

“It was very special. She was in tears. So was her mother. Had [son] Beau there,” said Power. “Yeah, been a rough trot. It was last year we didn’t get a win. She wasn’t at a lot of the races.

“You start thinking, ‘Should I be racing at all? If something happens to Liz and something happens to me, is she going to get better? What’s going to happen.’ The doctor said this can come back at any time. Should I be racing? That was the thing that was planted in my mind last year.

“You certainly don’t perform at your highest level because you don’t want your son to have no parents. That is sort of the thing you’re thinking. Yeah, tough wrestling with that. Ultimately, yeah, if she wasn’t getting better, I would stop. I would have to stop for my son. Simple as that.

“I have to say I’m a better driver again this year than I was in ’22 when I won the championship. Last year was sort of a stall-out year. Not much I could do. Spending a lot of time at home, looking after Liz, making sure everything was going well for her.

“Back to Liz helping me — she is a big part of my preparation. We’re back as a team again.”

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Satisfying as it was to end his drought, Power recognizes there’s a lot more work to do to get where he wants to be.

“We have to win more this year. It’s a tough field,” he said. “That’s one thing I was a little cautious in ’22 at times where I felt like I needed to push the envelope a little more. It’s that fine line. I think [Alex] Palou is the one that nails that perfectly, of aggression versus risks and so on.

“I feel like as a package we are very strong. You see Colton [Herta] has incredible speed at times, but things seem to happen, which you go through when you’re young. You know, that guy’s going to be pretty strong in the future.

“I feel like as a package we’re pretty good. Pretty good…”