{"id":35443,"date":"2021-08-14T16:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-08-14T21:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=35443"},"modified":"2021-08-14T23:48:30","modified_gmt":"2021-08-15T04:48:30","slug":"will-power-extends-reign-as-king-of-ims-road-with-first-win-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/14\/will-power-extends-reign-as-king-of-ims-road-with-first-win-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Power extends reign as King of IMS Road with first win of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Will Power. Photo by Joe Skibinski<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Courtesy of the NTT IndyCar Series<\/em><\/p>\n

INDIANAPOLIS \u2013 Will Power finally got his first victory of the 2021 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season on a track he has mastered like no other.<\/p>\n

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Will Power. Photo by Chris Owens<\/p><\/div>\n

Power drove the No. 12 Verizon 5G Team Penske Chevrolet to victory in the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix on Saturday on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, his fifth career win on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile layout that debuted in 2014.<\/p>\n

Official Results<\/a> |<\/p>\n

It was the 40th career INDYCAR SERIES victory for Power, who broke a tie with four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser to climb into fifth on the all-time list. The win also was the sixth of Power\u2019s career at IMS, as he also won the 2018 Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge. Only NASCAR star Kyle Busch, with two Brickyard 400 wins and four Xfinity Series wins on the oval, has as many major race victories at the Racing Capital of the World.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed that as a group,\u201d Power said. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how good these guys have been all year. Flawless on pit stops. They\u2019ve given me the car, and we\u2019ve had some bad luck. I\u2019ve made some mistakes, as well.<\/p>\n

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Will Power. Photo by Joe Skibinski<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cSo stoked to get the Verizon 5G car in Victory Lane. Oh, what a relief, man!\u201d<\/p>\n

Rookie Romain Grosjean equaled his season-best finish \u2013 on this same circuit in the GMR Grand Prix in May \u2013 by placing second in the No. 51 Nurtec ODT Honda, 1.1142 seconds behind Power. Colton Herta rebounded from his disappointing late-race crash last Sunday in Nashville to finish third in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda.<\/p>\n

2016 Indianapolis 500 winner Alexander Rossi earned his season-best finish by placing fourth in the No. 27 AutoNation\/NAPA AUTO PARTS Honda. NTT P1 Award winner Pato O\u2019Ward finished fifth in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet, but he still ended up a winner because of a dramatic shift in the championship standings.<\/p>\n

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Will Power. Photo by Joe Skibinski<\/p><\/div>\n

O\u2019Ward pulled to within 21 points of series leader Alex Palou with four races remaining in the season, as Palou retired from the race on Lap 68 with a mechanical problem while running fourth in his No. 10 NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.<\/p>\n

Palou led six-time and reigning series champion Scott Dixon by 42 points entering this event. Dixon fell to third but still trimmed the margin to the top, 34 points behind Palou, after placing 17th \u2013 tying his season low \u2013 in the No. 9 PNC Bank Grow Up Great Honda.<\/p>\n

A tense, strategic duel erupted into a mad dash for the checkered flag when Palou retired from the race.<\/p>\n

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Alex Palou. Photo by Joe Skibinski<\/p><\/div>\n

Palou was running fourth and closing on Grosjean on Lap 68 when smoke began to flow from the rear of his No. 10 NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing Honda in Turn 4. He pulled off track and hopped from his car, out of the race with a 27th-place result, his lowest of the season.<\/p>\n

There were warning signs from the opening lap about possible troubles for Palou, who told his team on the radio after Lap 1 that he felt down on power.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started having some issues with the mapping, and we weren\u2019t sure what was going on,\u201d Palou said. \u201cWe managed like 60 laps, and it was fine. We were losing a bit of power, but it wasn\u2019t too bad. We were trying to fight for a podium, and we had to stop.<\/p>\n

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Alex Palou. Photo by Joe Skibinski<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a shame when we were running so good, but it\u2019s just a bump in the road. We\u2019ll continue, and we\u2019ll get those points back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ensuing full-course caution, the first of the 85-lap race, erased Power\u2019s 1.9-second lead over Herta. Grosjean, who had closed to within a car length of Herta\u2019s gearbox before the caution, passed Herta for second on Lap 72 on the restart.<\/p>\n

Power maintained a 1.1-second lead over Grosjean when the field was bunched again by a full-course caution on Lap 77 when Rinus VeeKay\u2019s No. 21 Sonax\/Autogeek Chevrolet stalled in Turn 7 after contact from behind by the No. 3 CarShop Team Penske Chevrolet of Scott McLaughlin.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen the yellow came and then another one, you\u2019ve got to survive those yellows,\u201d Power said. \u201cWe had a really good car. It\u2019s tough to get by lapped traffic, but the car was solid out front.\u201d<\/p>\n

2014 series champion Power kept the lead on the restart on Lap 79, helped by Grosjean using all 200 seconds of his push-to-pass by Lap 65. He maintained a gap of about one second to Grosjean over the final six laps, with both drivers running on the Firestone alternate \u201cred\u201d tires.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a good car all day long, and we fought at the front,\u201d Grosjean said. \u201cWe ran out of push-to-pass early today. I had to use quite a bit early in the race to make sure we were going through the lapped cars. Through the end, Will had more than I did. I just had to go flat out and try not to make any mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Romain Grosjean – Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix. Photo by Joe Skibinski<\/p><\/div>\n

Various tire and fuel strategies unfolded during the first 67 laps of the race, which ran caution-free. That helped breed 11 lead changes among six drivers as teams tried to undercut and overcut rivals with well-timed pit stops.<\/p>\n

Herta appeared to be the biggest threat to Power, as he trimmed a deficit of nearly nine seconds to just 1.9 seconds before Palou\u2019s problem triggered the first caution.<\/p>\n

The next race is the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 on Saturday evening, Aug. 21 at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis. It\u2019s the final oval race of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Courtesy of the NTT IndyCar Series INDIANAPOLIS \u2013 Will Power finally got his first victory of the 2021 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season on a track he has mastered like no other. Power drove the No. 12 Verizon 5G Team Penske Chevrolet to victory in the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix on Saturday on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":35445,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[421,22,672,96],"class_list":["post-35443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indycar","tag-indianapolis-motor-speedway","tag-indycar","tag-ntt-indycar-series","tag-will-power"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/JGS-2021-INDY-GP-210969-1-scaled-e1628999641560.jpg?fit=640%2C427","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-9dF","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35443"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35453,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35443\/revisions\/35453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}