Lack of qualifying "good place" behind Power's 2021 IndyCar struggles

His sole victory of the year came in the second Indianapolis road course race, after passing polesitter Pato O'Ward for the lead and fending off Romain Grosjean to claim the win.

Power previously had to endure watching a near-certain victory at the first race of the Detroit double-header slip from his grasp, as his car failed to start up following the late-race red flag period while he was in the lead.

The Australian says that qualifying proved to be the key weakness, having originally elected to focus on race pace in order to try and build a consistent basis for a title challenge.

“I definitely needed to improve qualifying," Power told Autosport.

"We kind of got back on top of that toward the end of the year.

"Up to that point, I’d say we had put a bit less emphasis on qualifying because we could see that the real key to a championship, as tight as IndyCar is now, is to get a bunch of top threes and top fives on race days and obviously go for the win whenever possible.

“But the thing is, you can’t really give up anything in qualifying because you’ll drop too far down, especially because it was a year where we were struggling to find a good place for the car.”

Power and race engineer Dave Faustino, who since 2007 have been partners every year bar one, worked hard to remedy the situation in that month-long mid-season gap last year and again in this off-season.

Following that, Power believes they have turned up some good insights which will bring about tangible improvements this year.

“We have a lot of information to look at, and when you do that you find plenty of things to improve upon – stuff you’re looking for and sometimes extra stuff too,” Power explained.

“We’ve got plenty of good data, not only from what we learned but also because Josef was so fast in the middle part of the year while doing something different with the car.

"I mean, watching how he was generating speed, Dave and I got suckered into trying things that didn’t particularly suit us.

 

Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images

“You do learn so much more when things are going against you, you dive deeper and deeper into the data, discover the issues, come up with a few different ways you might solve the problem, and then analyse which will be best to get the most speed from the car. And that includes my driving, too."

Power added that he was "optimistic" about 2022 and the following 2023 season, in which the current 2.2-litre twin-turbo powertrains will depart for a 2.4-litre hybrid unit, feeling that the experienced drivers will have the nous to understand their demands.

“I’m optimistic about this season because whenever we’ve had issues the year before at a particular kind of track, Dave and I have been good at homing in on it, figuring it out and coming back harder the year after.

"I have a lot of confidence in my crew – they’re quick, really solid and reliable. Best I’ve had.

“And then I reckon 2023 is looking good too, because it’s going to be a huge change with the new engine and hybrid units.

"I think that’s when we’ve traditionally looked strong – adapting to new regs or a significant alteration to the cars.

“And anyway, I think it will suit all the experienced drivers because we’ve been through big car changes before; we sort of know what we’re trying to achieve with a car, what we’re looking for."