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Will Power has made an “adjustment” to his driving style in order to improve his oval performances, the 2022 IndyCar champion has revealed.
Power battled to 16th in the first oval race of 2023, at Texas Motor Speedway, then finished five laps down in the Indianapolis 500 after hitting the wall.
While the latter could be at least partially attributed to an earlier weight jacker failure which made the #12 Team Penske Chevrolet difficult to drive, the Queenslander admitted he had also struggled in the pre-Indy 500 test.
Despite being a winner of that race in 2018, Power felt the need to make changes, something which he explained ahead of this weekend’s double-header at the 0.894-mile Iowa Speedway.
“It kind of goes in and out,” said the two-time IndyCar champ of his comfort on ovals.
“I really struggled at Texas and then made a big adjustment. Even at the Indy test I struggled.
“[I] Made an adjustment in driving, and it significantly helped. I was a lot better at Indy this year in the race, like a lot better.
“I felt like, if I hadn’t had the weight jacker failure, which ultimately sent me very loose in that stint, I feel like we would have been the front group fighting or top sort of three positions.
“Yeah, felt very good. Always feel good at Iowa. We have great cars there. It’s an interesting race, it’s quite difficult to win.
“If Josef [Newgarden, team-mate] wasn’t there, maybe I would feel very confident.
“But, yes, [in the] last three races, I’ve been on the podium.”
Newgarden won the first race of the 2022 Iowa weekend and would likely have backed up in the second if not for a mechanical failure which put Car #2 hard into the wall and left the Tennessean in doubt for the following event.
Power finished third in Race 1 and second in Race 2, to McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, but thinks Penske’s rivals would have had the short oval circled on their calendars given it is a double-header.
“I just keep knocking on that door,” said the 42-year-old, who has a total of four podiums but no wins at Iowa.
“So, yeah, looking forward to getting there, seeing where we stack up. I feel like we’ll stack up there.
“I feel all of these other teams will have closed the gap a bit because it is a double-header race.
“If you’re going into off-season after last year, you would focus pretty hard on that because of the points available. Maybe Ganassi is a bit better, and we know McLaren is good there.
“I don’t think Andretti tested there … Oh, yes, they did. Yeah, it will be a pretty fierce race.”
Practice takes place on Friday at 16:30 ET/Saturday at 06:30 AEST, with Australian viewers able to watch live, ad-free, and on-demand on Stan Sport.
