DETROIT — Will Power has more podium finishes in the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix than any other driver since the 2014 season, when he won the IndyCar series championship for Team Penske.
It was then in ’14 when Power won Race No. 1 on Belle Isle’s 13-turn, 2.3-mile street course, then finished second in Race No. 2.
Power, 41, has six podium finishes in the last 14 races on Belle Isle, including two wins, two runner-up finishes and two more third-place spots. He hopes to take a jump in the Scott Fountain to celebrate a win Sunday in the final race held on the island.
“I’ve loved this track,” Power said during the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix media luncheon at the Detroit Yacht Club Thursday afternoon. “I really have. It’s really tough. There’s no other track that you have to drive the crap out of the car to be fast — like literally, you can’t drive hard enough. That’s how it feels.
“The thing that makes it tough is it’s cement and it’s extremely bumpy, and the track like over sessions just evolves quicker and quicker. I’m not talking like half a second, but a couple of seconds over a qualifying session. It gets grippier and grippier and grippier and you have to keep pushing and pushing.
“I’m certainly going to miss it, but I think having it downtown, where fans can get in for free, is a huge deal.”
The Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix will move to the streets of downtown next season.
Power’s former Team Penske teammate, Helio Castroneves, along with Scott Dixon of Ganassi Racing are the only drivers to have won three times on Belle Isle since IndyCar racing’s first race on the island took place in 1992.
Power, who also won Race No. 2 on Belle Isle in ’16, knows how challenging the track is, a reason he was so disappointed last year when that third win was wiped out after the race was red-flagged — stopped — with him in the lead with six laps remaining.
Power’s car would not restart after the nine-minute stoppage, opening the door for Ganassi driver Marcus Ericsson to win his first IndyCar race.
“It was unfortunate for me to find the problem and now everyone knows what to do,” Power said of not getting a fan on his overheated car quickly enough. Ironically, it was Ericsson who won the Indianapolis 500 Sunday, after sitting on the sidelines in his No. 8 Honda for nearly 10 minutes after the race was red-flagged with six laps remaining, due to Jimmie Johnson’s accident.
“It was massively disappointing because I know how hard it is to win when you had it more or less won, but you have to move on.”
No doubt, Ganassi is now the team to beat, with Dixon, a six-time series champion, winning the title in 2020, his teammate Alex Palou winning the championship last season and Ericsson entering the weekend as the points leader.
Still, Team Penske drivers Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin and Power know their way to Victory Lane.
Newgarden, who won series titles in 2017 and ’19 and was runner-up the last two years, has wins at Texas and Long Beach this season and McLaughlin earned his first IndyCar win in the season opener at St. Petersburg.
Power is the top Team Penske driver despite not owning a win this season in his No. 12 Chevrolet. He has five top-five finishes in the series’ six races, including third-place spots at St. Petersburg and in the Indy Grand Prix.
Ericsson has 226 points, a 13-point lead over Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren, 14 points ahead of Palou and 24 ahead of Power.
“If you win a race, it’s obviously all good in this tight championship, but it’s tough to win a race, it really is,” Power said. “It’s really cool as a series because there’s not a series in the world where it’s like who could predict who is going to win the next race, the next pole or the championship. It’s impossible.
“I’m really happy with my group, the crew I got, the engineer, the strategist, and as a whole, I think we developed really nicely during the offseason, so we have fast cars everywhere. It’s been a great season for me — it really has — and I’ve really enjoyed it.”
Newgarden already has a decade of experience of competing on Belle Isle, despite being just 31. He has enjoyed success on the island, winning Race No. 1 in 2019 and finishing second in ’17 and in Race No. 2 last year.
“I love this place. I love the island, I think it’s bittersweet leaving. The good news is I think we’re leaving it in a better place than when we started,” Newgarden said. “I started coming in 2012, and there was no doubt the island needed a lot of work. You could tell it was neglected, so to see the improvement and the awareness of this special place is great.”
So, what do you have to do to be successful on Belle Isle?
“Detroit’s really challenging,” said Newgarden, who is fifth in points with 174. “It’s all concrete and concrete is really slippery until it rubbers up, and even when that happens, there’s parts that can be slippery and it’s bumpy, so all that adds into a tricky track to drive.
“I’ve always loved challenging racetracks. It gives the opportunity to the driver to make more of it and to showcase their ability to get the most out of it. I think we’re able to do that here. It will probably be a similar case going downtown, but Belle Isle was really, really challenging, just so tough to get it right, and I’ve always enjoyed that aspect of it.”
When asked if he was surprised that McLaughlin won the season opener and is sitting seventh in points, Newgarden said: “It was important for Scott. We all knew he was capable of it. He showed excellent skill in my opinion all of last year, so we all knew he could win races, it was just a matter of it happening. It’s good to see it happen for him. It helps our whole team. It helps our confidence, and we can all build together from it.”
McLaughlin had one podium finish last year, finishing 14th in points with struggles (19th in Race 1, 20th in Race 2) on Belle Isle. He opened this season with the win at St. Petersburg and a runner-up spot to Newgarden in Texas to show he would be a force in his second year in the series.
Practice gets underway Friday at 3:30 with the second practice session set for 8:30 a.m. Saturday and qualifying at 12:30. The IndyCar race will be held Sunday at 3:30.
