A full 16 years, nine months, and four days passed between Will Power’s last on-track debut with a new IndyCar team and his first outing with Andretti Global on Wednesday at Phoenix Raceway.
Back in April of 2009, Power was brought in as a temporary replacement for Helio Castroneves, who was in the finishing stages of a tax evasion lawsuit in Florida, and promptly finished sixth for Team Penske. Castroneves was back in the car at the second race, but Penske held onto Power, who took second in the No. 12 entry he’d hold onto and drive to a pair of championships and an Indianapolis 500 win for Penske.
With his decision last summer to leave Penske for Andretti Global, Power spent the offseason playing a waiting game for his non-compete clause to expire before he could get to work and visit the Indy-based team on January 1. Days later, at Firestone’s tire test on the one-mile Arizonian oval, Power got to sample the No. 26 Andretti Honda and start what could be his final IndyCar chapter.
“It did feel like the first day of school,” Power told RACER. “First day at a new team, learning people’s names and not feeling completely comfortable because you don’t know everyone yet. But it’s a nice feeling to not have any sort of complacency or anything; you’ve got to make sure you’re on your game.
“It’s a very good group of people. Man, there’s some smart people in this team. And the group on my car, the crew chief is very good and there’s two other guys that could easily be crew chiefs. Pretty happy with the group, very happy with my engineer. It was a good test and it was very nice to be able to do this, to go down the track, fix some of the basic driver comfort stuff and that sort of thing. Car was good, nicely balanced. Pretty uneventful. Just got plenty of laps; plenty to think about for when we come back.”
A lot of time had passed since Power dealt with the nerves he experienced on Wednesday. Making his debut with a new employer while being surrounded by a large group of people who are largely unfamiliar took a moment for the 44-year-old to process.The finer aspects of his Andretti debut, which included turning his first laps in a twin-turbo V6 Honda-powered car, and getting a feel for the team’s short-oval setup, were somewhat limited due to the cold temperatures that cut the test day in half.
Power will onboard more meaningful chassis and engine data at upcoming tests, but for now, leaving Phoenix on a positive note with his new racing family had IndyCar’s all-time pole winner feeling thankful for the experience.
“It’s always the unknown, the nerves of the unknown,” he said. “But after you’ve done it, you finish the test… man, you just realize how much you love doing it. It’s why I wanted to keep going. It’s really cool to be able to work with a whole new group of people. And, yeah, there’s always a bit of anticipation, and sometimes that’s not the best feeling. But that’s when you know you’re serious, and you care. You want to do well.”
