Despite a rough start, Power fired up by the vibe he’s getting at Andretti Global

Will Power isn’t hanging his head after a pair of rough starts to open his season at a new home in Andretti Global.

Granted, the last thing he envisaged was holding 22nd in the IndyCar standings entering Sunday’s Java House Grand Prix of Arlington, but based on his demeanor, you’d never know he’s been met with heavy doses of adversity at St. Petersburg and Phoenix.

“For where I’m at in my career, it’s a dream scenario,” Power told RACER. “After Phoenix, I'm like, I've left one team, and I'm going to another best team. How good's that? You know what I mean? I'm very engineer-minded as well, so I understand a lot of stuff, and I can tell you, it's all there, man. And they're all working towards the same goal. That's what's motivating. The potential at this team, I keep saying, is it will be the best team in the next, three years, but honestly, the next two years, next year. Even this year, in many places, we’re already making moves. It’s just that we were delayed because I couldn't start till January 1 (with Penske’s non-compete that ran through the end of 2025). So everything was rushed.

“The beauty was the Phoenix Open Test was at a short oval, which was the team's weakness. So we had a lot of time with three drivers there and I got to do the tire test there, which is great. Went back, thought about it, and gave them tons of feedback on what we should do, what the car felt like and so on. And came back for the race and we had the best car in the field. [Teammate Kyle] Kirkwood was there fighting in the front. I drove from the back to the front. So in my mind, that was a success.

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“The finish was very disappointing, obviously. But I keep telling you, I walk around that team, and it will be the best and it will be coming quickly. I already see it. Now you see it in the pit stops. You see our oval pace. Next step is, how do we get rid of [tire] degradation on these high-deg tracks? We’re just working away, man, just moving so quickly. They've got the best people.”

Although he doesn't have the results to show for it yet, Power is convinced Andretti has assembled all the right ingredients – and the right attitude – for success. Chris Owens/Penske Entertainment

Having driven for one of IndyCar’s two best teams since 2009, Power was accustomed to having the best of everything at Team Penske where its deep financial resources fueled its widespread excellence. At Andretti, which welcomed Mark Walter, Dan Towriss and the vast investment and ongoing funding they’ve brought to the team after purchasing it under the TWG Motorsports banner, Power sees a team that’s learning how to level up in the financial game.

“They have enough resource, have enough money, they have everything. It's all there,” Power said. “And I know it wasn’t always that way. And now they have all the resources they need to compete against the best, and it takes some time when you’re new to that degree of resource to get the most out of it, but I walk around and tell them, ‘We’ve got everything.’ We’ve got smart people everywhere, the best engineers. This is why I wanted to come here.”

The change of teams has also come with a change in cultures. After 17 seasons with Penske, which has a reputation for using a semi-militaristic approach to its program, Power is loving the environment he’s found within Andretti alongside Kirkwood and fellow Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson.

“I love working with Kirkwood; I really have a ton of respect already for him,” Power added. “He works very hard, he’s incredibly fast, and I’ve known [Marcus] Ericsson longer and there’s a rapport already there. And this really is an open team. They want the three of us to work together, and we want to help each other. It’s not like that at every team, man. That's what I feel like was quite a difference between Penske and here.

“Here, you do not screw with your teammate on track. At Penske, it was almost like you were expected to fight your teammate harder than anyone. I think that was how Roger [Penske] extracted the most out of the drivers. He wants the drivers competing against each other very hard. Obviously, he didn't want us taking each other out, but there was a very adversarial tone to it.”

Power won Penske’s most recent championship in 2022; before that, it was Josef Newgarden in 2019.

“I feel like Penske was more the Formula 1 mentality which, fair enough, you extract a lot out of the drivers that way,” Power continued. “But I also felt like there were times that we hurt each other in championships, racing each other the way we did, but that's because they had such good cars that we were fighting for championships with teammates.

“So definitely a different situation here, but certainly a different feel between two teams. And I get both sides. But when you're in the stage I feel like we are at Andretti, we all really need to work very well together. And that is just the culture there. We very work together.”

Power has a new race engineer for the first time in two decades and races about the talents of Andy Listes and the rest of Andretti’s engineering brain trust.

“Andy's very thorough, a great engineer, and obviously we're still learning each other,” Power noted. “I think he's had drivers that he's had to coach a lot and really just had to bolt on the setup, versus me, who has a lot of input into what I think we should do, so we're just trying to find our ground on that stuff. The dude knows how to extract the most out of a car, as you've seen from his history in Indy NXT recently, he doesn't leave any stone unturned.

“We’re very similar. He's a true racer. He just wants to win. And if you crash a car, just sending it, he's not going to get mad at you. I crashed at Phoenix in quali, and he said, ‘I can’t blame you; the car was too loose,’ and that’s a true racer to me. He loves to win. He gets it. I like that.

“Nathan O'Rourke, who's now working in the background, which is a very strong place for him, he’s an incredibly intelligent person. Comes up with so many good ideas. You got Jeremy Milless there. Ron Barhorst. Craig Hampson that's overseeing the whole thing. Just look how strong that group is. And like I said, they're only a couple years into big budgets, so they’re playing catch-up in that respect. But this is the team. The potential is there, and Dan Towriss simply wants to win, so that’s what he’s pushing everybody to go do.”