MONTEREY, Calif. — Will Power withstood the challenge from teammate Josef Newgarden to close out a season of consistency and win his second IndyCar championship on Sunday.
Power finished third at Laguna Seca Raceway to beat fellow Team Penske driver Newgarden for the championship by 16 points in the final standings. The Australian driver’s first IndyCar title came in 2014.
“Oh, man, it sounds so surreal,” Power said as he crossed the finish line behind outgoing IndyCar champion Alex Palou and Newgarden, who used a white-knuckled drive through the field to make Power sweat until the checkered flag.
Power needed only to finish third to guarantee the championship. But Team Penske has proved over the past week that its cars race individually and all three drivers were on their own in this title decider.
Newgarden was relentless.
“I’m ultimately just proud of the team,” said a crestfallen Newgarden, who has talked in the past several days of his personal drive for perfection and the emotional toll it has taken on him.
Newgarden was a five-time winner this season, but his inconsistency put him in too deep of a hole to overcome Power’s consistency.
Going off course in a sloppy qualifying mistake forced Newgarden to start 25th in the 26-driver field. He picked his way through traffic and used three nail-biting passes through Laguna Seca’s famed corkscrew to make it tight for Power.
One of Newgarden’s big moves in the corkscrew was on Power, but Newgarden made it clean and pulled into second behind Palou. The American driver needed much more than that to win the championship.
Power, 41, has insisted all year he was “playing the long game” with an eye on a second title. He won only once, but his average finish was sixth and he barely bobbled all year. On Saturday, he won his 68th career pole to break Mario Andretti’s mark for most in series history.
Now the fastest man in IndyCar is the most consistent too, and he rewarded team owner Roger Penske with a 17th championship.
Palou, eliminated from the championship fight last week and locked into a legal battle between Chip Ganassi Racing and McLaren over his 2023 rights, won his first race of the year. He was the only competitive Ganassi driver at Laguna Seca, where five drivers were in title contention in the tightest championship race since 2003.
The four Ganassi cars tested at Laguna Seca, but contenders Marcus Ericsson and Scott Dixon were never in Sunday’s fight. Ericsson, the Indianapolis 500 winner, finished ninth, and six-time champion Dixon was 12th.
“We ultimately just didn’t have the pace,” Dixon said. “You win some, you lose some, man. This team never gave up.”
Palou was the ninth different IndyCar winner this season. After taking the checkered flag, with current team owner Ganassi behind him, Palou was evasive on where he will drive next season. Ganassi said he picked up the option for 2023 on the Spanish driver, McLaren said it has signed him, and the fight is both in the courts and mediation.
In July, Palou definitively said he would be a McLaren driver next year. After the win, he sounded less sure.
Palou’s dominance put the focus on Newgarden, who started the day 21 points behind teammate Power in the championship standings.
Colton Herta, the 22-year-old Californian being courted by the AlphaTauri Formula One team, was a nonexistent 11th in what could have been his final IndyCar race for some time. Herta won the past two races at Laguna Seca from pole.
Christian Lundgaard, who raced last year in the Formula One ladder system, finished fifth to win Rookie of the Year.