{"id":399153,"date":"2026-01-08T06:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T06:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399153\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T06:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T06:21:17","slug":"will-power-completes-first-andretti-indycar-drive-at-phoenix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399153\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Power completes first Andretti IndyCar drive at Phoenix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_6756.png\" alt=\"Will Power completes first Andretti IndyCar drive\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAndretti Global driver Will Power at Phoenix. <\/p>\n<p>By no means was it a fully-fledged test, however. Power\u2019s maiden drive was part of a tyre validation with Firestone to finalise the compounds for the Phoenix race in March.<\/p>\n<p>Cold conditions greeted Power, who was joined on track by Team Penske\u2019s Josef Newgarden.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s funny. You feel very out of place once you get in the car and get rolling \u2013 then it\u2019s just like \u2018Oh, it\u2019s an IndyCar\u2019,\u201d said Power.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m going through the same processes. Very good first few runs. Now we\u2019ve got plenty of work to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNice to feel the Honda engine. It\u2019s very good. Definitely looking forward to getting in amongst a lot more cars and seeing where we stack up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The tyre test offered Power a low-stress opportunity to familiarise himself with his new team.<\/p>\n<p>The two-time series winner said he spent the day learning names and working closely with his new engineer Andy Listes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just the typical stuff. You\u2019re just trying to understand how everything works in this team,\u201d said Power.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been at one other team, Penske, for 17 years, so it was just like second nature; you didn\u2019t think about anything.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHere, you\u2019ve got to get the steering wheel in the right position, the pedals and padding, and just basic things like that \u2013 but, all good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Power will return to Phoenix in March with \u201cunfinished business\u201d having led 80 laps of the 2018 race before crashing on Lap 153.<\/p>\n<p>Still, it\u2019s a happy hunting ground for Power, who finished third in 2016 and second in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve had a couple of chances to win and it hasn\u2019t played out,\u201d said Power.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do like this place. I like the area, the city. Yeah, it\u2019s going to be fun.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s good for us that we\u2019re having an open test here because I feel like, just look at the results in the past, it\u2019s somewhere where we need to improve, so we\u2019ll get plenty of time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>IndyCar will have an open test at Phoenix on February 17-18.<\/p>\n<p><a data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/b\/285249\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none; vertical-align: middle;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/285249.gif\" alt=\"\"\/><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andretti Global driver Will Power at Phoenix. By no means was it a fully-fledged test, however. Power\u2019s maiden&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[123830,83359,64,63,806,805,803,804,7499,85,25988],"class_list":["post-399153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-andretti","tag-andretti-global","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot4","tag-sports","tag-will-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}