AUSTIN, Texas – He talked about it two weeks ago – and 54 times before that during his career – but the question of Will Power’s uncanny ability to win pole positions has taken on added meaning this weekend.
The Circuit of The Americas has offered a $100,000 bonus to anyone who can win both the NTT P1 Award pole position and the race this weekend at the INDYCAR Classic, the first NTT IndyCar Series event at COTA. Power made a preliminary case for winning the bonus Friday afternoon by posting the fastest lap of the day during the second practice session.
While $100K would be nice, Power would rather be remembered for winning the landmark race, not just for starting first in it.
“The bonus would be great,” Power said after posting a lap of 1 minute, 47.4401 seconds (114.259 mph) around the 3.41-mile, 20-turn circuit in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet. “I mean, I don’t care about the money. I just care about getting a bloody win here. It’s so hard to win in this series. I just want to win a race.”
Power recorded the 55th pole position of his career March 9 at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, moving him within 12 of tying the Indy car record held by Mario Andretti. Power and the rest of the 24-driver field had time to see what they had Friday at COTA during two practice sessions and a warmup that also served as pit stop practice. Power’s lap was just 0.1749 of a second faster than rookie Felix Rosenqvist.
But the point of Friday’s work had little to do with being P1 for the day. Instead, drivers continued to adjust to a circuit most hadn’t driven before an open test Feb. 12-13. To hear them tell it, tire degradation could be the great unknown heading into Sunday’s 60-lap race.
“The main thing is the tires,” said Rosenqvist, driving the No. 10 NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. “The tires seem to go off quite a lot. Managing that is going to be the key. Everyone just got, like, one or two laps on the (Firestone softer-compound alternate) reds, then it's a big question mark how they're going to behave in the race without laps on them in the warmup session. I think it's going to be an interesting one. It's a big question mark, like it always is in this area.”
The driver who won the St. Petersburg season opener isn’t so sure that the pole at COTA – bonus or not – will be all that essential to winning the race.
“The nature of our racing is you’ve always got a chance to fight back, depending on how the cautions fall and how these cars race,” said Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, who had the fastest lap during Friday’s early session and the ninth-fastest overall in the No. 2 PPG Chevy. “I don’t think it’s super critical to be first. It might actually be worse to be first. Maybe people are going to get a really good run (at the start of the race) and you’ll get dive-bombed.
“It’s hard to tell around a track like this where you have so many unknowns at the start. I don’t think qualifying is the most critical thing, but we’re always going for the front row. That’s the best place you hope to be. We’ll never know in this race until we get a start underneath us.”
For Power and many others, a different setup than the one used at the February test was in place for Friday’s practice sessions.
“It's funny,” he said. “You can do all these miles in testing, come back, and it's different for the race. You get the basics down, get some good data and such to go away and think about it. (I’m) definitely running a different package to what I ran at the test, so we'll just keep massaging on it. It's going to be tight in quali. It always is.”
Rosenqvist started third and finished fourth at St. Petersburg, his first NTT IndyCar Series race. He expects Saturday’s qualifying at COTA to be less stressful than qualifying for the opener, which was marred by crashes in the early rounds that cost some drivers a chance to advance.
“This track is very different to St. Pete,” Rosenqvist said. “It's much easier to get a gap here. Hopefully it's going to be less red flags here as well because you have so much runoff. I think it's going to be good, fair qualifying where everyone can get a lap in.”
But when it comes to starting up front, ask the guy who does it with uncommon efficiency. He’ll say there’s no secret.
“There’s no magic in it,” Power said. “I’ve come to that conclusion after years. I used to think you could learn it, but honestly, I think it’s in you. When people get to their highest level, you see throughout their career that when it comes to qualifying, they generally stay at that same level. It’s just in you. It’s a natural thing. When it’s time to go, you go.”
After another practice session Saturday at 11 a.m. ET streams on INDYCAR Pass on NBC Sports Gold, live coverage of qualifying begins at 3 p.m. on NBCSN, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app and INDYCAR Pass.
Coverage of Sunday’s INDYCAR Classic begins at 1 p.m. on NBCSN and NBCSports.com, with the green flag expected at 1:43.