Q & A with Will Power
| By Simon Strang |
Monday, May 31st 2010, 11:08 GMT |
Will Power was Dario Franchitti's closest rival in the early laps of the Indianapolis 500, but issues in the pits dropped him out of contention for victory and he ended up only eighth at the flag.
That was still enough to retain the championship lead, but as Power told AUTOSPORT, he is sure victory was possible.
Q. Explain what went wrong in the race.
 Will Power: We had the fuel problem at the start, that put us on the back foot. We came back through though, we were passing people, then had a good stop and jumped a few more. Then I went long on one [stop] and we lost about 3s. Then the next one really screwed us.
Q. Penske isn't known for these kind of problems...
WP: I guess that first stop, when we left the probe in, it was a number of things. We were trying to do a front wing change as well. The guy on the right front usually lets me go. I think he was looking at the change, and as the wing was changed the car dropped, he sort of went like 'that', and I just went. It was just confusion. I don't think he realised the probe was still in. I go off what he does. He sort of looked and walked off. I thought I was going and it was all done, I thought he was just waiting on the front wing guy.
Q. And you got a penalty for that...
WP: Yeah, so I had to pit again. Luckily I was quick enough not to go a lap down. We made a lot of progress on the track, then made more progress in the pits after that, so we were in good shape.
Q. And what went wrong in the other stop?
WP: I went long, so it wasn't too bad, I just lost about 3s. The good thing is that everyone works harder when you have that sort of day. We all work harder on that thing [that went wrong] afterwards, so it will make us better.
Q. It was the pitstops that spoiled the race wasn't it...
WP: On track the car was good. We were able to get past people. It was fast enough to hang with Dario at the front. I was lifting behind him. Man, we were in good shape, we were in real good shape. But he was setting a bloody quick pace. That was a crazy fast pace.
Q. At the end of a day like that, to come out with eighth is a bonus in some ways isn't it?
WP: I was like 'woah, Jesus, eighth?' That's a good day considering what we had [go wrong]. We're still leading the championship. It certainly could've been better, but it could've been worse.
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