PRUETT: Welcome back, Will Power

Call off the search party. Put the bloodhounds back in the kennel. 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series champion Will Power has been found.

Team Penske's finest Australian driver spent more than a year in the wilderness as he searched for a follow-up win to the one he earned at the Indy GP road course in May of 2015. The path to normalcy – a win last weekend at the second Duel in Detroit round – came on the heels of too many mistakes in qualifying, unforced crashes, and races where needless contact or simple misfortune ruined his chances.

As a perennial pole winner and threat for victory from 2009-2014, Power has been fighting to regain his championship-winning form. With the bold move he made for the eventual win over teammate Simon Pagenaud, and a weekend-long tussle with fellow Penske man Juan Montoya, the Detroit version of Power is just what the No. 12 Chevy program needs right now.

"I was pretty happy on Saturday just by the fact that I was back in turn, the groove of driving like how I drive to win races," Power told RACER. "Obviously, it was disappointing that we lost a wheel nut [and were] stuck out there and we couldn't get back to the pits [but] it gave me a lot of confidence the next day. [Then] qualifying was disappointing, getting the pole and getting the two laps removed.

"[Pagenaud] definitely had a great run and obviously I saw my opportunity there, protected pretty heavy on the inside...I had the option to go to the outside. Actually, I did [the pass] as cleanly as you could possibly do it. That was the key to the race."

The mental side of Power's game has strengthened with each season, and he's had many reasons to summon that fortitude in 2016. A lingering inner ear infection hampered his pre-season preparation and carried into the first race of the year at St. Petersburg. Food allergies also made life difficult for Power, and with a spate of driving errors in the opening rounds, momentum was heading in the wrong direction.

There's no guarantee everything was fixed in Detroit, but it's clear Power's breakthrough win came at the perfect time.

"You go through the droughts and tough times, you just keep an even keel," he said. "Just watch [Scott] Dixon – he is the king of that. It has kind of been a strange year, just the way it started. I wasn't able to do my normal fitness regime so I wasn't on my normal fitness level for the races and the cars are the most physical they've ever been.

"But my biggest problem this year was making mistakes in qualifying when I had a car good enough to get pole. There have been races where qualifying really matters. In the past, it's almost a blessing to start at the back of an IndyCar race because you have a really good chance of winning because of the way the yellows fell and the cars are way more racy. Now it's all about qualifying and you have to qualify at the front. That has cost me quite a bit."

Leaving Detroit, Power sits seventh in the standings and needs to cover a lot of ground in the remaining races to catch Pagenaud. The Frenchman holds a 117-point advantage over Power, and has been a model of consistency this year. With double points on offer at the season finale in Sonoma, and seven other rounds to earn points, Power knows he can't afford to stumble if he wants to earn a second championship.

"[If] you think about it, the last race can be an 80-point switch in itself," he said. "It takes a couple of races, a couple of really good races. And a couple of bad ones and you are right there again. Honestly, you don't have to win any more races – you could still win the championship by finishing second a number of times for the rest of the year. I always said, anyone who wins four races is going to win the championship. You don't have to win more than that.

"Simon has had such a good run; he is probably able to win more than that. It all goes in cycles. It just does. Sometimes things just absolutely click. I'm not saying it is luck, because a lot of it is hard work and execution. Things have also got to flow your way. And for some reason when you work hard, they do."

IndyCar's calendar has been punishing since May and continues at a steady clip until Sonoma, and if Power is going to mount a run at Pagenaud, he'll need to be at full strength.

"It's been kind of catch-up all season to be physically good enough to be on top of it," he said. "Obviously, you struggle in the car. I'm trying to get to the point where I can push all the way through a race hard. I'm getting there now."

Provided he can regain the necessary strength and fitness, and maintain the focus that was on display Sunday, there's every reason to believe Power can make life difficult for his championship-leading teammate. Whether he's ready to reassert his dominant position inside Team Penske is another question altogether. And how would Pagenaud deal with an aggressive and laser-sharp Power as the season winds down?

If we're lucky, Detroit was the start of something good for one of IndyCar's best and the beginning of some serious fun for IndyCar fans to follow.