Will Power has spent the past 17 Mays at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Team Penske livery. This weekend, that changes. The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion and 2018 Indianapolis 500 winner rolls onto the IMS Road Course in Andretti Global's No. 26 TWG AI Honda for the Sonsio Grand Prix, the official kick-off to a Month of May that will define his first season with his new home.
Power's transition to Andretti has been bumpy by his standards. A pair of brake failures at the season opener in St. Petersburg, an early-season pace deficit and a Long Beach weekend that finally hinted at form have all framed the build-up. Now, with three wins and five poles in his Penske-era IMS Road Course CV, he arrives at a track where he has historically been able to drag results out of any car.
"I'm looking forward to the Indy GP," Power said ahead of the weekend. "I've had a lot of success there, and it's one of my favourite tracks on the circuit."
The Australian's confidence will be welcome at Andretti, where the wider operation has restructured around its newest signing. Team-mate Kyle Kirkwood, off the back of a dominant Long Beach win and an Arlington street victory earlier in the season, is the squad's championship hopeful, but Power's experience is being leaned on to lift Marcus Ericsson and the wider engineering group.
Kirkwood echoed the boss's view of the venue. "The Indy GP is one we all really look forward to every year," he said. "It's one of the best road courses we race on."
"The Month of May is here, and it's always super special to be racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, even when it's not on the big oval," Ericsson said. "It's such an iconic place for our sport, and you feel that in the paddock straight away."
Power has been candid about the size of the cultural shift involved in leaving the team that won him two championships and a Borg-Warner. He has, however, framed the move as the right decision rather than a forced one. In a January conversation with RACER about why Andretti was the next step rather than retirement, the Australian made clear he saw the operation's strengths in areas where he could still contribute, particularly on twisty tracks.
This weekend's road-course race will be the dress rehearsal for the bigger prize. Indy 500 practice opens on May 13, with qualifying on May 16-17 and the 110th running of the race on May 24. Andretti will run three cars in the show after Power, Kirkwood and Ericsson — the team has already confirmed it will not bring out a fourth — meaning the squad is built around its current full-season trio.
Defending Sonsio Grand Prix winner Alex Palou and the wider Chip Ganassi Racing camp arrive at IMS as title favourites once again, with Pato O'Ward's Arrow McLaren team and the ever-present Penske trio rounding out the front-runners. But for Power, the more interesting comparison is internal.
If the No. 26 Honda is on the front three rows on Friday, the Andretti experiment will look to be working precisely on cue. If not, the next two weeks will be louder than any other team principal in the paddock would like.
