The 14th race of the NTT IndyCar Series Season is over and an angry Will Power turned his frustration from last weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway into a flag-to-flag display of dominance at the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland.
Furious at the circumstances that led to the crash and loss of a fourth-place finish or better at WWTR, the Team Penske driver channeled that disappointment as he so often does and rebounded with total mastery of the 110-lap contest in Oregon, beating championship leader Alex Palou with relative ease while leading more than 100 laps along the way.
Palou kept Power in sight, and even came close to making a pass when they hit traffic, but the driver of the No. 12 Chevy kept Palou anywhere from 1-3s behind on most laps, to over 10s in the closing laps of the contest. Other than the brief moments where he pitted and others inherited the lead until they stopped, Power was in command the entire time.
With his win, Power vaulted from fourth in the Drivers’ standings to second. Palou arrived at Portland with 59 points over Colton Herta in the championship; with the victory, Power demoted Herta and sits 54 points back from the driver of the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.
Penske’s Josef Newgarden continued his late-season surge with a run to third, one position ahead of Herta. Ganassi’s Marcus Armstrong sealed his third straight top 10 finish with a strong performance to take fifth, and the often-unlucky Marcus Ericsson had a clean day on the way to sixth.
The biggest mover was Penske’s Scott McLaughlin who fired from 20th to seventh, and after running in the top three early in the day, polesitter Santino Ferrucci from AJ Foyt Racing held on to claim eighth.
It wasn’t terribly exciting to watch, but Portland delivered everything Power and Penske needed to keep themselves in the title fight. The championship battle reconvenes next weekend in a doubleheader on the Milwaukee Mile.
Ferrucci led the field to the green flag and lost the lead to second-place Power and championship leader Palou slotted in behind in third. The opening lap was clean through the Turn 1 chicane, thanks to the green being thrown early, but the lap ended under caution as title contender Scott Dixon was hit by Pietro Fittipaldi entering the back straight and shot across the track into the barrier, which folded his left-front suspension. Dixon, third in the championship entering Portland, was done for the day, 28th and last.
Five drivers starting at the back of the field used the caution to pit for fuel and move to an alternate strategy.
The lap five restart saw Power lead Ferrucci and Palou. Fittipaldi was ordered to pit lane for a drive-through. Lap eight and Palou took second from Ferrucci, 0.8s behind Power. McLaughlin was up from 20th to 15th.
Lap 10 and Romain Grosjean ran fourth, Herta in fifth. Lap 18 and Christian Luandgaard dropped down to P12 after locking up at the chicane and Linus Lundqvist fell to P25 after overshooting the final corner and needing to return via the drag strip. Power held 1.3s over Palou and 3.8s over Ferrucci.
At lap 21, Kyle Kirkwood pitted from P6, the first of the leaders to stop. Three laps later Fittipaldi tried to pass Conor Daly into Turn 1, locked up on the inside, and speared Daly into a spin. Both continued.
The next lap, Power’s lead was down to 0.6s over Palou while Ferrucci was down by 4.6s.
Lap 26 and a slow Fittipaldi in front of Power nearly allowed Palou to get by; he pitted at the end of the lap to serve a penalty for the Daly hit. Lap 30 saw Power’s lead over Palou stretch up to 1.0s. Ferrucci was 3.4s back as the first pit stop loomed. Grosjean was 4.7s behind; Herta, 5.3s down; Josef Newgarden in sixth was 6.5s arrears; Marcus Armstrong was 7.8s back in seventh. Lap 32 and Ferrucci pitted. McLaughlin following him in.
Power pitted at the start of lap 33 as did Grosjean, Herta and Armstrong. Palou followed on Lap 34 and it wasn’t overly fast; Power returned to the lead with Palou in second. Herta was forced off of Turn 2 by Grosjean and rode through the dirt as Ferrucci made the pass and took P6 from the No. 26, right behind Grosjean. No action taken by race control on Grosjean.
In two more laps, Power was 1.6s clear of Palou. By lap 44, not much changed, barring Power taking greater command of the race with 2.5s over Palou and 7.5s over Kirkwood.
Lap 50 and the gap extended to 3.5s between Power and Palou. Kirkwood got to within 4.5s of Power, and in fourth Newgarden was 8.1s back. Lap 51 and Kirkwood ducked in for his second stop. Lap 52 and Palou cut the lead to 2.1s. Lap 56 and Christian Rasmussen went off at the last turn and used the drag strip to resume his race. A blocky Kirkwood got the call from race control to give up two positions.