The good thing for Will Power is he’s starting the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on the second row and has teammate Josef Newgarden directly in front of him on the first row.
The bad news for Power, who really needs to win at Nashville in order to overtake championship leader Alex Palou, is everyone from polesitter Kyle Kirkwood, Newgarden, to third-place Felix Rosenqvist, and the majority of those in proximity of Power’s No. 12 Chevy aren’t in contention for the title and only care about winning the final race of the season.
Set among a hungry group where seven of the drivers starting in the top 12 have yet to score a victory in 2024, Power’s life won’t be easy when the 206-lap contest gets under way, but he does have Newgarden nearby and willing to help if it doesn’t throw his race out of rhythm.
There’s also the fact that Nashville serves as Newgarden’s home race, which could make giving up the lead—if that’s needed to give Power the IndyCar crown—a hard ask by the Penske team.
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“You’ve got to run your program as normal as you can,” Newgarden told RACER. “You start trying to get too clever and orchestrate something, I think that’s when you get in trouble. Let’s try and do the best job in the No. 2 car of course. The priority for us is, if we’re in a position to win this championship, then we need to figure out how to seal that off, and we will. We will all do that.”
The third member of the Penske trio, Scott McLaughlin, is the only other driver with a mathematical chance of winning the championship, but that will end if Palou starts the race. Add in McLaughlin’s No. 3 Chevy, which starts ninth, to the list of Penske entries that will do what it takes to assist Power.
“We’re prepared to do what’s necessary to win the championship, because we’re all in it together,” Newgarden added. “But I think the way you get there is by running a normal race, in a lot of respects. We’ve just got to go do our jobs, take care of each other as normal, and hopefully the chips fall our way and we can button things up. We can do that. It’ll be a big hit for everybody.”