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Will Power's outing at IndyCar's first race weekend of 2025 at St. Petersburg was a full-blown train wreck. The 2-time champ wanted to take pole position in qualifying on Saturday as a 44th birthday present, only to get knocked out in Round 1. Instead of a comeback in the race, a lap 1 crash put the final nail in the coffin to conclude his underwhelming season opener.
The lap 1 crash at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg was caused by a series of drivers checking up in Turn 3. However, Power failed to lift his foot off the throttle in time and ran into the back of Nolan Siegel, prematurely ending their race. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing rookie Louis Foster got collected in the accident.
While Siegel and Foster gave post-crash interviews on the live FOX broadcast, Will Power didn't. The Team Penske driver later opened up about the St. Pete misfortunes in an interview with reporter Bruce Martin. In an episode of the Pit Pass Indy podcast released on Wednesday, he said [11:21 onwards]:
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"Oh, man! Put a lot into it and it is frustrating. You know, everyone, at some point, gets caught up in a first-turn thing every few years. So, all the work we put in to be out on the first lap... very frustrating, man. I was not ready for that check-up in (Turn) 3, and really had not much to say about it, just unfortunate."
Defending champion Alex Palou won the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg with teammate Scott Dixon sealing a 1-2 for Chip Ganassi Racing. Power's Penske teammates Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin finished in P3 and P4.
Will Power hopes to collect himself before IndyCar's second race of 2025 at the Thermal Club
Will Power would've wanted to begin the season with a statement drive to prove his worth to Team Penske. The 44-year-old is in the last year of his current contract with the Roger Penske-owned team, with young guns like AJ Foyt Racing's David Malukas rumored to be his successor in the near future.
The 2018 Indy 500 winner's plan to recover from the terrible first result is to positively shift focus onto the next race - the Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix, as he said on the aforementioned podcast [12:40 onwards]:
"You very much focus positively on the next race, the next few outings. It's funny how things roll, man. It's funny."
Power also spoke about the 3.067-mile Thermal Club circuit which hosted the $1 million challenge in 2024, a non-points-paying race.
"I do like the track. It's very technical. There's definitely gonna be a lot of tire deg, which obviously we had the tires here (St. Pete), similar to that," the Aussie driver said.
Power's DNF at St. Pete means he stands 26th in the championship standings with five points. The next race weekend in Thermal will take place from March 21 to 23.
