Alex Palou has been the star of the 2025 season, winning four of the first five races. In the only race he didn’t win, the Spaniard was second.
Notwithstanding the Chip Ganassi Racing driver’s dominance, there has been plenty of action behind him, albeit without much in the way of carnage.
After the first lap Safety Car on the streets of St Petersburg, there were no full course cautions until the Indianapolis Grand Prix when David Malukas’ car stopped.
In an effort to promote more action and create greater variables, IndyCar mandated a minimum of three pit stops including tyre changes for the latest race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Team were required to use two sets of the soft compound ‘red’ tyre and two sets of the hard compound ‘black’ tyre.
Power, who started seventh, made his way up to third. Ironically, that was with no on-track passes, with every move made in the pit stop sequence.
“It was just a solid day. Didn’t pass anyone on track,” said Power after Sunday’s race.
“It was the same as Barber. Didn’t pass a single car. Just spent the whole day sort of like in a good pit stop strategy and speed and sort of overcut there at the end. Got us a couple of positions.
“It was a very uneventful day. It was eventful in the car catching and driving hard the whole day, but as far as chopping through the field or anything. I mean, when you start seventh, obviously it’s not like you’re able to pass a lot of people.”
Power said that while the tyre use mandate had its benefits, he offered another solution.
“It’s a very stout field. People don’t make mistakes,” he added.
“Even the person who finishes last — I don’t know who finished last, but I know when I lapped [Jacob] Abel, he stuck behind me at the same pace, exactly the same space. Hardly dropped off.
“It’s just a stout field with great teams and drivers. Maybe we need to try a lock-out push-to-pass system where you get within a second and it locks the guy out in front and create passing like that, but it’s cool to see.
“I’m not sure what it looks like on TV, but yeah, I think this was the first step, try something with tyres, but I think you need to do something more.”
IndyCar’s push-to-pass system can be used at any time. Drivers are allotted 150 seconds per race, with each press of the button giving them up to 15 seconds at a time of added power.
Drivers use the system in attack and defence, but Power believes drivers shouldn’t be able to use it to stop cars passing them.
“We have a system that Indy NXT used to have, that no-reply system,” he said.
“Maybe we just have to try that with what we got right now.”
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