Will Power has built a 17-year reputation on one quality above all others. The Australian was the fastest qualifier of his generation, the man teams could count on to wring a lap out of a car that had no business being near the front. Sixty-eight pole positions, an IndyCar record, told the story better than any trophy could. So there is something almost cruel about the season he is living through now, because the speed is still there and the results refuse to follow.
Power sits 17th in the standings as IndyCar reaches its second half, a position that would have been unthinkable for a two-time series champion at any point in the past decade. His deficit to runaway leader Alex Palou has already grown into the triple digits. He has a single top-10 finish to show for the opening run of races, a third place on the streets of Arlington that hinted at what the partnership could be and then vanished behind a run of misfortune and small mistakes. For a driver who spent most of his career as a championship fixture, the math has been hard to look at.
To understand why this season lands so heavily, it helps to remember what Power has been. He won the championship in 2014 and again in 2022, the second of those titles arriving at 41 and cementing his place among the most durable competitors the series has produced. He won the Indianapolis 500 in 2018, the crown jewel that had eluded him for years, and celebrated it with a flood of emotion that surprised even those who knew him. His 68 career pole positions stand as a record that may never be approached, the product of an ability to find a perfect lap on a Saturday that few drivers in any era have matched. This is not a man learning the sport. He has nothing left to prove about his speed. What he is trying to prove now is that he can still convert it.
A clean break that did not feel clean
The backdrop to all of this is the most significant change of Power’s professional life. After 17 seasons with Team Penske, the organization that turned him from a fast journeyman into a champion, he moved to Andretti Global for 2026. The split was not the warm send-off a driver of his standing might have expected. Power has said the team did not even speak to him during the offseason about his future, and the silence stung.
“They didn’t even talk to me in the offseason,” Power said of the end of his Penske era. “That definitely pissed me off.” It was a rare flash of raw feeling from a driver who has spent years guarding his words, and it explained a decision that surprised much of the paddock. Leaving the most successful team in American open-wheel racing at 45 is not a move a driver makes lightly. Power made it because he felt he had to, and now he is living with the consequences week to week.
The adjustment has been bigger than he expected. Power has described Andretti as “military-like” in its structure, a culture different from the one he knew at Penske, and learning a new group of engineers and mechanics has consumed more energy than any single race weekend. “For me, in particular, learning a new team, it’s been such a busy time,” he said earlier in the year. Chemistry between a driver and his engineers is not something that appears on a stopwatch, but it decides races, and building it from scratch takes months that a 17-race season does not always allow.
“It’s not bad luck”
What separates Power from a driver simply having a rough patch is his refusal to hide behind excuses. Asked whether his start to the year could be put down to misfortune, he rejected the idea outright. “It’s not bad luck,” he said. “It’s definitely things that could have been managed.”
Then he went through the catalogue himself, almost as an act of accountability. “For instance, racing Rasmussen for the win at Phoenix, I could have given him a little bit more room, settled for second. Indy road course, I could have not gone too deep coming out of the pits, got a penalty. That was definitely a top three there.” He conceded that a brake failure in Barber qualifying, traced to a relocated brake line and a broken zip-tie, was outside his control, but he refused to let that stand in for the whole picture. “All manageable things. I wouldn’t call it bad luck.”
The honesty cuts both ways. It is the assessment of a driver who still believes he belongs at the front and who will not allow himself the comfort of pretending the car is the problem. “The car is really good, the team is really good,” Power said. “You just have to put it together.”
Watching Palou and thinking out loud
The most revealing moment came when Power turned his attention to the man dominating the championship he used to contest. Alex Palou has won at a rate that has left the rest of the field chasing shadows, and Power, sitting in a post-practice press conference, let his mind wander to what that must feel like.
“I do think about Palou at these times and think about how often he puts it together,” Power said. “To be in this place must feel so good, where it’s all flowing for you. But his time will come.” He paused after that last line, then laughed, and admitted the laugh had come out wrong. “That was an evil laugh,” he quipped, before quickly returning to praise for the No. 10 team and the way it strings perfect weekends together. It was a small, human moment, a champion half-joking about a rival’s inevitable bad day while knowing he could use one of Palou’s good ones himself.
The exchange captured where Power’s head is. He is frustrated and self-critical, but he is not beaten. “Frustrated but encouraged,” was how he summed up his form. “It’s there, for sure, if I just complete the task. Cars are good, just various things going wrong at times. It can beat you down a little bit. That’s the way this sport goes sometimes.”
What is left to play for
The championship is gone, and Power knows it. What remains is something harder to measure but no less real for a competitor of his standing. He wants to prove the move was right, to himself and to anyone who questioned it. He wants to deliver the kind of weekend that reminds the paddock why Andretti wanted him in the first place. Street and road courses, where Andretti has long been a benchmark, give him his best chances, and he has not been shy about saying so.
“Looking for a good weekend. I say that every time but I really am,” Power said. “I really want a good weekend. If we just finish on pace and merit, I think we finish really well.” There is a plainness to that ambition that tells you how far the bar has shifted. A driver who once measured seasons in titles is now chasing a single clean afternoon, the kind of result that could break the spell and turn a lost year into a foundation.
For more on the championship picture Power is chasing, see our look at the tighter title fight at IndyCar’s halfway mark.
Road America, the sweeping four-mile road course in Wisconsin where IndyCar resumes its season, is exactly the kind of circuit where Power’s qualifying edge has historically counted for most. A front-row start there can change the complexion of an afternoon, and a clean run from the front is the simplest route back to the result he keeps insisting is within reach. The team tested at the venue earlier in June, and Power will arrive knowing that a strong weekend would do more for his belief than any amount of reassurance from the garage.
Power has been written off before, and he has answered before. The speed that made him the best qualifier of his era has not left him at 45. If the partnership with Andretti finally clicks, the rest of the grid will remember quickly why his name carried the weight it did for so long. The story of his 2026 is not finished. It has simply, so far, refused to go his way.
Sources:
- https://www.dive-bomb.com/article/power-woes-not-bad-luck-after-tough-start-to-indycar-season
- https://www.foxsports.com/stories/motor/will-power-leaving-penske-joining-andretti
- https://www.motorsportweek.com/2026/03/24/will-power-compares-military-like-andretti-to-his-former-team/
