After an underwhelming qualifying session the Penske trio of Will Power, Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin faced a tough task during the IndyCar race at Thermal Club. Eventually only Power succeeded in making significant process, making it a Penske Passable performance, rather than a Penske Perfect one.
Will Power salvages P6
Power had the best race of the Penske drivers. He was knocking on the door of the top ten before his final stint, in which he eventually managed to improve to sixth, scoring valuable points.
“Yeah, that’s a big day for the Verizon Chevy team considering it was full green,” Power looked back. “They didn’t get any lucky yellows or anything. That was pure pace there. The guys had a great strategy and we had great speed. I was really patient and methodical getting through the field.
“I think we’re all pretty disappointed with qualifying. I thought we certainly should’ve been in at least the top 10. That’s racing. That’s a good day. You look on those days and that’s the sort of thing that will help you win a championship there.”
Prior to the race the strategy was a huge question mark for Penske, as it was the first proper IndyCar race at Thermal Club. But with a better-than-expected soft tyre, Power had an advantage with an extra set.
“We had an extra set of reds there,” Power explained. “It helped, yes. Big time. It was kind of cool because at St. Pete, you didn’t have that luxury because the green was so soft, you couldn’t even use it in the race.
“But in this race, the (alternate) was the preferred tire. It was just, man, you had one lap to do it. Made a mistake starting the lap. The tire wasn’t quite in and I was disappointed with that because I’d been very fast in practice, running in the top six most of the time.
“But, you know, this is INDYCAR, anything can happen. Keep your head on and keep rolling.”
Josef Newgarden unsatisfied with P13
Newgarden didn’t have the same result as team mate Power, despite running close to him for a significant time.
“Just a tough day for us on the No. 2 PPG Chevy,” he reflects. “I had more potential, but I probably missed out on the tire game today, not utilizing the reds enough. That’s still a really strong effort from the team to try and make the most of it which I think we did with the 13th place.”
“We can take those points and move forward. It’s a long season, so we had a tough weekend here, and we’ll try and get things turned around in Long Beach and get back towards the front.”
Scott McLaughlin disappointed after MGU issues.
McLaughlin’s race started off on the wrong foot after Devlin DeFrancesco turned him around. It led to a war of words between the two drivers after the finish, and a drive-through penalty for DeFancesco.
To add insult to injury, McLaughlin’s car suffered issues with the hybrid system. This caused a long pit stop, and eventually the Kiwi had to retire.
“Not the day we wanted for the XPEL Chevy,” McLaughlin said with a sense fo understatement. “Tough weekend all around, really, but I was very confident going into today that we would have good race pace. I’m confident that we could have moved up through the field like Will [Power] and Josef [Newgarden] were able to do.”
“Unfortunately, the issue we had with our MGU [motor generator unit] caused it to go into critical mode and we had to sit on pit lane for several laps while draining the battery and resetting everything. Very thankful that we got a solid finish to start the year at St. Pete. We’ll just go about climbing back out of this points hole.”
