Power continuing to rally through adversity with Barber fightback

Will Power’s debut for Andretti Global has been less than kind. A pair of crashes to open the season at St. Petersburg, a crash in qualifying and a clash that resulted in a cut tire while leading at Phoenix, a surprise incident with Scott Dixon at Arlington, and a brake failure in qualifying at Barber Motorsports Park have conspired against the prosperous start to the season that was envisioned for Power.

Power and the No. 27 Honda crew have experienced a season’s worth of adversity in the first month of the championship alone, but the inner fight that lives within the two-time IndyCar champion has been an ally that’s made bad situations better.

With the barrier-bending qualifying crash at Barber leaving the No. 27 a distant 23rd at the start of the 90-lap race, Power and race strategist Ron Ruzewski were able to turn the disadvantage into a positive in one regard, thanks to the early exit that left his best tires unused after being unable to participate in the second and third qualifying rounds. The stockpile of new Firestone alternate compound tires meant Power could spend most of Sunday afternoon with a speed advantage while attempting to work his way through the field at a track that doesn’t lend itself to easy passes.

After opening the race on new Firestone primary tires, they threw three straight sets of new alternate onto the car and went on the attack, which allowed Power to deliver another salvage job and propel himself from 23rd to 12th at the finish.

“I think we had the potential for 10th,” Power told RACER. “We had a bit of a slow stop in the last one and got traffic on the in-lap. Perfect execution would have been 10th for us. So, yeah, good day. We certainly made the strategies work. Still, some little things to work on. The car was very good. Been fast everywhere. The cars have been great. It's pity, (what happened) in qualifying.”

In a season that has had too many moments where Power and the brakes on his No. 27 Honda have been a topic of discussion, putting the failure where the brake pedal went to the floor in qualifying out of his mind Power was also part of the job on Sunday.

“Brake failures are always…once you’ve had it once, it's a little bit of a like, ‘Oof man, I hope that brake pedal’s there for me,’" he said. "But I've been around so long, crashes like that don't really (affect me). I crashed hard at Phoenix and then went out and drove around about 10 people to start. I’ve had so many of them. You crash every year, to be honest.”

Andretti Global’s front-running capabilities on the Phoenix short oval were a welcome change for the team, and the same can be said at Barber Motorsports Park where the outfit showed a meaningful year-to-year improvement with the competitive output from Power, Marcus Ericsson, and championship leader Kyle Kirkwood, who started and finished fifth – his best to date with the team at Barber.

Although it wasn’t a demonstration of race-winning speed, the team is showing it’s ready to feature at every type of track is has raced on this season.

“Definitely had good cars here,” Power affirmed. “Kyle was capable of pole, to be honest. He just went (for used alternates in the Firestone Fast Six) instead of new which, if I was on his stand, I would have said, ‘Go new, man, at least have a shot at beating (pole and race winner Alex Palou). But yeah, we're good. We're good. We're working away.”