SALINAS, Calif — Will Power picked up Thursday at the WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca to where he left off here last September – on top. While he didn’t win last year’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES race here, he did take home the 2022 championship.
In the five-hour test session on Thursday, Power was P1 on the day at 1:07.2762-seconds in his No. 12 Dallara-Chevrolet.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Power said on if you can take much from this test. “Test day constantly working on where you can improve. Probably will compress everything more because everyone will have good cars by the time they get to qualifying.
“Yeah, very handy to have the test day.”
He topped Christian Lundgaard, Scott McLaughlin, Juri Vips and Marcus Ericsson on a mostly clean day at the scenic 2.238-mile road course.
Here are my top takeaways.
Power Aiming To End Winless Drought
Will Power has won at least one race every season since 2007. The defending series champion is winless in the first 16 races run in his championship defense. He’s almost out of time.
Palou went winless for the first 16 races a year ago before winning the season finale. The only time someone went winless was Scott Dixon in 2004. Ironically enough, that’s the only season since 2003 that Dixon didn’t win a race during.
Can Power avoid their company?
“You’ll fight pretty hard, I know that,” Power said on being winless. “You’ll fight pretty hard. If there’s someone there on the last lap, last corner, you haven’t got a win, yeah, certainly will be floating through your mind about what you might just do (smiling).
“But, yeah, obviously a lot about our qualifying and sort of being at the front. Definitely not going to race like it has done.”
Champions And How Long It Took To Win The Next Season
2022 – Alex Palou 16 races – won the 17th and final race
2021 – Scott Dixon – won the 3rd race at Texas
2020 – Josef Newgarden – won the 6th race at Iowa
2019 – Scott Dixon – won the 8th race in Belle Isle
2018 – Josef Newgarden won the 4th race at Barber
2017 – Simon Pagenaud – won the 4th race at Phoenix
2016 – Scott Dixon – won the 2nd race at Phoenix
2015 – Will Power – won the 5th race in the Indy Grand Prix
2014 – Scott Dixon – won the 15th race at Mid-Ohio
2013- Ryan Hunter-Reay – won the 2nd race at Barber
2012 – Dario Franchitti – won the 5th race in the Indy 500
2011 – Dario Franchitti – won the season opener at St. Pete
2010 – Dario Franchitti – won the 6th race in the Indy 500
2009 – Scott Dixon – won the 3rd race at Kansas
2008 – Dario Franchitti – went to NASCAR
2007 – Sam Hornish Jr. – won the 7th race at Texas
2006 – Dan Wheldon – won the season opener at Homestead
2005 – Tony Kanaan – won the 8th race at Kansas
2004 – Scott Dixon – winless
2003 – Sam Hornish Jr. – won the 12th race at Kentucky
2002 – Sam Hornish Jr. – won the season opener at Homestead
2001 – Buddy Lazier – won the 6th race at Pikes Peak
2000 – Greg Ray – won the 7th race at Phoenix
1999 – Kenny Brack – won the 4th race in the Indy 500
1998 – Tony Stewart – won the season opener in Disney
1997 – Scott Sharp – won the season opener in Loudon
Power’s 41 career wins rank fifth all-time. However, he’s running out of time. It’s down to one last shot on Sunday.
He has finished 2nd, 26th and 3rd in his three Laguna Seca tries though.
It’s just that his 2023 hasn’t gone the way that he had hoped. He has 10 top 10 finishes. Last year he had 13. There biggest difference is in the top 5’s. He had 12 a season ago. That’s down an astounding 7 to 5 top 5 finishes this time around.
“Yeah, it was a tough year,” Power said. “It was a tough start for me personally actually with what was going on with my family. That kind of continued all the way even in Road America, had a bit of an issue again.
“It certainly affects your preparation and your mindset, that it does hurt you. Not an excuse, but I know how tough this series is, and you can’t have any sort of issues off the track if you want to be good on the track.
“All in all, ultra competitive series, so it’s not hard to lose ground in the championship. Just takes a couple little mishaps and suddenly you’re trying to claw back.
“Yeah, definitely an off-season of reflecting on what went wrong, thinking about it, mental approaches, see what we can do coming back.”
Test For Repave
As late as last season, teams had to use strategy on their testing dates. In theory, they still do. But, last season as an example, teams had to choose which track at the end of the season to utilize a test day. Some elected for Portland. Others did here.
With how big of an advantage that testing is, especially when you have some teams that don’t show, it can be the difference of a race win, let alone podium vs. a top 10.
However, that aspect was taken out of the teams’ hands this year. That’s because for the first time, Laguna Seca was repaved.
The entire 2.238-mile racing surface has fresh asphalt which completely changes the way you attack this track. As a result, INDYCAR conducted an open test for everyone a day ahead of the “official” race weekend starts.
“Yeah, man, super important,” Alexander Rossi said of Thursday’s test session. “It certainly changed your approach to the car setup philosophy. Previously here you were always concerned about tire deg and trying to improve that through a stint. For the most part that seems to have gone out the window.”
We saw how much the repave changed things in Road America, another track repaved this past offseason, how much of a role does that play here?
“I’m excited for Laguna. I think our road course pace as of recent should continue there. Obviously, the place has been completely resurfaced so it’s going to be quite different from what we’ve had there before,” Graham Rahal said. “I would imagine tire degradation will be improved compared to what we’ve had in the past. It will also be interesting to see what tire we are running there and how that will play out. It’s good to go back.
Monterey used to be an older track surface with tons of tire fall off. Similar to Darlington in sense of low grip, high tire wear. You have to slow down to go fast. Be smooth.
Now, the entire track surface has been repaved like Road America was. How much of a role does that play. It didn’t do much to Road America as the heavy hitters were found up front still back in June.
“I think it’s identical, honestly,” Alexander Rossi said. “Yeah, the same guys that adapted to that quickly I think will adapt quickly here.”
Here though, it changes the way you drive this track. You can actually attack every corner now.
“Yeah, there’s definitely that here,” Will Power said. “Corners that are pretty high commitment. You don’t have much time to rest. It’s a pretty rhythm track. You’re always in a corner. A bit like a go-kart track. A lot of corners to get right, a lot. Easy to make a mistake. As you’ve seen the times, if you mess up one corner, moves you a lot of positions back.”
Christian Lundgaard agreed.
“The track has been resurfaced so I think everyone will come there with a new mindset of perhaps what we showed up at Road America with, setup wise,” said Lundgaard. “We were competitive there so we will likely also be at Laguna Seca.”
Strong Day From McLaren
It’s hard to take much out of a test day as you never know what teams are working on, but with 5-hours to work with, I have a feeling the speed charts could be quite indicative of things to come.
Arrow McLaren Racing went 6-7-8. That could be a sign of things to come because they landed on my sleepers list coming into the weekend already.
Pato O’ward was 5th and 8th in his two Monterey tries. He was also 4th, 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 3rd and 4th on natural road courses this year too. O’Ward was P7 on Thursday.
Alexander Rossi was 6th in 2019 and 10th last year. 8th, 3rd, 10th, 10th, 5th and 20th are his natural road course finishes in 2023. He was P6.
Felix Rosenqvist has 2 top 5’s in 3 tries here including 4th last year. He’s also finished 9th, 5th, 20th, 25th, 27th and 2nd on natural road courses in 2023 too.
Vips Has Strong Outing
Juri Vips had only tested an Indy Car twice before. He’d never raced one before and his last competitive race came a year ago. He was still solid last weekend in Portland. On Thursday, he was even better.
Vips was fourth overall with a top time of 1:07.6366-seconds. He turned 59 total laps on the day and with 5-hours of available track time at his disposal, to be this strong could lead to a potential eye-opening performance this weekend when it counts.
“Yeah, not surprising coming from Europe,” Power said of Vips’ pace. “That’s the sort of tracks those guys race on, just like this. He’s obviously a very fast driver. Yeah, I think he’ll be real good in the future.”
It’s not like it was a fluke either. His teammates were P2 (Christian Lundgaard) and P11 (Graham Rahal).
RLL’s best results this season have come on tracks like this.
“I think we’ve all witnessed what that organization has done this year,” admitted Alexander Rossi. “Like Will said, his results and pedigree in Europe kind of speak for itself. Like Will said, this is a quintessential European track now. It’s high speed, very smooth, a lot of grip. Not like most of the places we go to.”
Track Record To Likely Fall
With the repave, one thing we expected to be threatened was the track record. After Thursday, I think Helio Castroneves’ 23 year old lap falls.
9 cars on Thursday topped that lap time and they did so without the luxury of the faster Firestone alternate tires. Imagine what happens on Friday when we see those for the first time.
“Very nice. Very smooth. A lot of grip,” said Will Power. “Obviously tough offline. Yeah, it’s incredibly fast. I don’t know what was qualifying last year, pole? Five seconds quicker, yeah? Four seconds, yeah. It’s getting there.”
Pole last year was 1:11.6127-seconds by Power. It was his record setting pole award. Now, he was four seconds quicker.
“Yeah, it will be a mid six, yeah, in quallie by the time it’s all said and done,” Power said on the track record falling. “Rubber down. Mid six.
“I have to say, Bourdais, I remember in CHAMP CAR doing a 6.2. Bourdais did a 5.8. It wouldn’t be an absolute track record, to ruin everyone’s day.”
Power said that the quicker lap time does feel different. It has a lot more grip without bumps so it makes you almost flat in Turn 9, flat in Turn 4 and has a vastly quicker feel.
“I mean, it feels the same sort of rhythm, same gears, but, yeah, a lot more speed,” he continued. “A lot more grip, ton of grip. So much so I couldn’t actually turn the wheel in nine and ten. I actually had to change the setup so I could turn the bloody car. Kind of like Barber in that respect.”
Race Review Online 