By David Morgan, Associate Editor
ARLINGTON, Texas – After finally claiming a podium finish for Andretti Global in Sunday’s inaugural Java House Grand Prix of Arlington, Will Power is very bullish on what the future holds for his No. 26 team for the remainder of the season.
Power joined the Andretti stable with much pomp and circumstance after and nearly two-decade tenure at Team Penske, with the pairing not exactly getting off to the best start with a rocky debut of 22nd in St. Petersburg and a run-in with Christian Rasmussen in Phoenix, which relegated him to a 16th place finish.
Coming into Arlington, a track primed to capitalize with the street course success of Andretti, if there was any place to turn things around, it was here.
After starting fourth, Power and his team elected to go for the two-stop strategy around the 2.73-mile, 14-turn course, while the majority of the field went for the three-stop strategy.
Power’s first two runs came on the Firestone alternates, in which the second run, he made the tires last much longer than his competitors, before switching to the primary tires for his final run of the day.
He would cycle out to third behind eventual race winner Kyle Kirkwood and Alex Palou and held serve there for the remainder of the race, securing his first podium finish – even leading 16 laps on the day, the same total as Kirkwood and Palou.
Power noted afterwards that he was relived to finally have a complete weekend under his belt to show his potential with the Andretti stable.
“Honestly, I just wanted to have a clean weekend after the first two. Obviously last week we had a shot at the win or at least a podium. It’s very nice to get one today,” said Power.
“Very happy with the new team. Very, very strong. Very strong. Still improving a lot, too. I think this will be the team to beat this year actually. I was saying three years it would take us to get everything, but I’m going to say this year (smiling). It’s good stuff.”
He added that while his strategy was enough to get him on the podium, it wouldn’t have been enough to contend the win against the top-two.
“I couldn’t have kept these guys behind me with the fuel that I had to save. We kind of committed to the two-stopper. That was a big fuel save.
“First two stints were big tire saves. But the pace was not bad. It just wasn’t the quickest strategy today. But it showed that we can really look after tires if we have to and we can get big fuel.
“Podium this weekend, I was going to be very happy with. Just wanted to get a solid run in, then get my feet on the ground, see what we can do.”
With a break before the next race at Barber Motorsports Park on March 29, Power explained that Sunday’s run has given him added confidence that his debut season with Andretti should be a good one.
“Looking forward to Barber. I think we can have some good stuff there,” said Power. “Yeah, the thing is with this team, we’ve got so much room to improve. I know we do. Some of the stuff…
“Got an amazing team already, for example, being really good on short ovals now. That was something where last year they would just take what they could get and hope for the best on street courses where they’re strong. Now we’re going to be fighting for wins on short ovals.”
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