Will Power in the No.12 Verizon 5G Team Penske Chevrolet ended his two-year winless streak at Road America on Sunday after the Australian took his first win since Detroit 2022.
Power started the race from fifth place and took victory ahead of his teammate Josef Newgarden in the No.2 PPG Chevrolet and Scott McLaughlin in the No.3 XPEL Chevrolet. Speaking following the race, Power said:
Massively special. “We’ve worked so har. to try to get wins. I worked really hard in the offseason. Obviously, last season was very stressful. Had half a mind at home and half at the track, so it was very difficult to perform at a high level there.
“Man, I’m just stoked. I’m very happy, man. That was very well deserved for the whole team. We worked so hard for that.”
Power went on to say:
I’ve been digging all year. Sometimes it just works out.
Long Beach I was leading by seven seconds. If a yellow doesn’t fall there, I think we were going to have a pretty good day. A reasonable chance at Barber.
Yeah, very good strategy. Very fast cars. A lot of fun. Like, once all the yellows stopped, it was a very fast-paced race.
For Josef Newgarden, the Indianapolis 500 winner who suffered probably the most violent crash of his career in qualifying on Saturday, he was extremely quick and came home in second and speaking following the race he said:
“It was a really good team day. Really good day. I mean, 1-2-3. I don’t think we can be dissatisfied with that. Will (Power) did a great job too. He deserved to win the race as well. He drove really well today. Both things can be true, it was a great team day but I think we let that one go, for sure. That’s what’s hard about it. Our PPG Chevy was fast. Team Chevy 1-2-3, I think we can all be super proud of that. We just put together a great day, we just probably misstepped there at the end. I feel bad that I came in a lap early. I probably should have stayed out.”
Scott McLaughlin who started the race from eighth came through the field and chaos at the start of the race to finish in third place and speaking following the race he commented saying:
“Huge team day. The XPEL Chevy was great. We led all the laps, obviously. It was a great team day. Will (Power) with a win, first win in a long time, and then Josef (Newgarden) second. I wish we could’ve ran a little bit longer and a couple of those stints. The overcut was really strong. But ultimately, this is a huge day for the team. Really proud of everyone. It’s been a hard slog over the last month-and-a-half. Big few days for the team, big month for the team. Really proud of everyone.”
It was the first team sweep in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES since 2020 at Mid-Ohio when Colton Herta led home Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay to Andretti Global a podium sweep. It was Team Penske’s first podium sweep since Sonoma in 2017, that day, Simon Pagenaud led home Josef Newgarden and Will Power.