Power scores second podium for Andretti at Road America

Andretti Global’s Will Power broke through to capture his second podium of the season in the No. 26 Honda on Sunday as he surged to claim third place despite a late collision with Graham Rahal.

The podium builds upon the third place he earned at the Arlington Grand Prix and the eighth at the recent oval race in St. Louis, which bookends a rough stretch of races where Power fell deep in the championship pack.

“It was a great day for us and definitely a result we needed,” said Power, who improved to 14th in the standings. “The strategy was really good, and there were some great calls on the stand. We had strong restarts as well. That last sequence was very good and moved us into the top four, and on the final restart, I was able to get up to P3. I’m really proud of the effort from the entire TWG AI Honda crew. This is a well-deserved result, and hopefully we can build on it at Mid-Ohio.”

Andretti team principal Ron Ruzewski, who serves as Power’s race strategist, made use of multiple undercuts to move his driver forward.

“We put ourselves in a position to be lucky,” he told RACER. “We saw that everybody was going slow, so there was the chance to play the undercut, we played the undercut. It worked out, which then essentially forced us to play the undercut a second time, which that one really worked out, which I was surprised, and then we just managed the rest of the day.”

Rahal battled Power entering Turn 12 leading into the final lap and spun and crashed across the front of the No. 26 Honda. After the race, IndyCar Officiating assigned the blame to Rahal for blocking Power.

“The issue with Rahal, to me it was Rahal moving in reaction [to Power], unfortunately, and Will felt terrible,” he said. “He's like, ‘I don't want anyone to crash, especially there, but there's nothing I can do.’ He came across him. Surprisingly, it didn't take us out too, you know, which I was waiting for. Maybe we turned a corner. We could have gotten hit by the [cartoon] anvil.”

Rahal didn’t see the situation in the same way as Power and Ruzewski.

“So, with Power, I fought the fight for about six or seven laps of him closing on me before the car kind of came to life a little bit more and we started to be able to pull away,” Rahal said. “So, that yellow with two laps to go, I really didn't need to see for sure. Overall, it is what it is. It was just Power being Power. I had every right to move to the right at the end of the brake zone. People can say that I came back to the left, but he ran into the back of my car; he wasn't even next to me. It’s frustrating to not be able to get the result that I felt like we deserved. Our race pace was significantly better than I think we expected it to be. And to not be able to see it through and have the result was quite frustrating.”