Hours of introspection midway through the 2013 Verizon IndyCar Series season, when Will Power was sitting 12th in the standings and without a podium finish, are now regaled as a career watershed.
The series championship runner-up in 2010-12 says those rewarding, but ultimately disappointing, seasons in which he was “feeling the points” affected his driving – and ultimately results — the following year.
He qualified well, as usual – 11 times in the top five, including two poles — but wins were negligible through 14 rounds. Reaching Sonoma Raceway, whose blind corners and rattling undulations were a metaphor for his Indy car service, and the hard self-inspection began the page-turning period. Power qualified third and became the track’s first multiple Indy car race winner.
“It taught me you just need to race hard no matter what,” Power reflects on 2013 drought. “In fact, the results came a lot better when I did that. I just started driving more naturally instead of trying to manipulate things. I just drove my normal way, which I had done in junior categories coming up and I carried that into the next season and it felt good and I just raced each race as it is and not think too much about it.”
Dividends were immediate and impactful – victories in the final two races of the 2013 season and another to start the next year at St. Petersburg. Power followed with five podium finishes (two wins, three second-place finishes) in the next seven races and went on to secure his first series title in the season finale at Auto Club Speedway.
Power, who turns 34 on March 1, begins defense of his Verizon IndyCar Series championship in the No. 1 Team Penske Chevrolet at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in a month. New challenges will arise, but the North Carolina resident will seek to retain the “don’t over-think it” approach to each of the 16 races.
“When I look back at the season I was a contender in every single race,” he said of 2014, which included three wins and 15 of 18 finishes in the top 10. “It wasn’t a more dominant year than I’ve had in the past with winning and poles, but it was a consistently solid year. I won three and I was always there knocking on the door, capable of a top-five finish.”
Though Power has reached a personal pinnacle – “something I worked really hard for for the last 15 years” – he’s not content. There’s additional career markers, including an Indianapolis 500 victory and more series titles, to attain. Reprising his 2014 race results might not be enough, he acknowledges, to repeat as champion.
“It’s another year and I just think it’s something in your head when you’ve done it, know you can do it,” Power said. “When it happens, you realize it’s not this impossible task so in that way you get a more comfortable feeling, more confidence and I guess more relaxed. But you have a very burning desire to win because you understand the feeling when you did and you want it again.
“I’m still motivated as all hell. I want to feel it all again. I want another championship, and another.”
