Photo Credit: Chris Jones/IndyCar
Will Power missed the first race of the season because of an inner ear issue. He was cleared to drive a few days after St. Petersburg and was able to test Barber Motorsports Park.
Once he got back on track at Phoenix International Raceway, you could tell he was feeling much better. He picked up where he left off, qualifying well. He went on to race his way onto the podium finishing a respective third. It marks his ninth career podiums as well.
Power credits his whole crew for the night that they had. They knocked out some awesome pit stops which gave him track position. That was good because passing was hard to do on green flag runs.
“I was really nervous going into the race,” Power said. “You know, can I do this? But the guys in the pits were awesome! The Verizon crew was just mega. I made a mistake there at the end. But the pit box is very slippery but still I was really happy with third place.”
During the race his teammates Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya both had cut right front tires, but he didn’t even know about his teammates’ issues until after the race. Lucky for Power, he never had an (tire) issue because he took care of his car and tires.
“Actually I was. I was very nice on my tires because I knew you couldn’t pass, so why get so close,” Power said. “Yeah, and I was aware that the more you punish it, the more chance you’re going to have of a big vibration. It’s not the tire that’s the problem. It’s the amount of downforce we have here. It’s too much, and that’s why we couldn’t pass, and that’s why the tires — some of the tires had vibrations.”
The key to the tire issues was the massive downforce the cars had. The teams all had vibrations during the test but didn’t think that there would be a tire issues during the race like there was. There are going to be some vibrations and there isn’t much Firestone can do about that because of the downforce so therefore some teams had the trouble, where some like Power’s did not.
Power feels after a run like this his championship chase started at Phoenix.
“Man, the Gs were unbelievable,” Power said. “We were wide open at the end there when it cooled down. So much load! You gotta be a body builder to drive these things. I did actually I was watching the laps countdown and with one hundred laps to go, I was like, I got this and I can finish this race. Very good!”
