Will Power: Lack of Indy 500 poles “the irony of my life”

Team Penske star Will Power has described his lack of pole positions in the Indianapolis 500 as the “irony of my life”.

Power is considered one of the greatest qualifiers in IndyCar history and holds the record for most pole positions in the championship (70).

However, despite winning the Indy 500 in 2018, the Australian has never started the blue riband round of the series from pole position.

Power has five front-row starts to his name in the Indy 500, but a pole position continues to elude him after 17 attempts.

Naturally, the 44-year-old sees the absence of an Indy 500 pole position on his CV as a major contradiction in his otherwise decorated career.

“For some weird reason, I just think it's one of those things, where the racing gods go, ‘Yeah, you can have the pole record, but you're certainly not going to get this one’,” Power said. “That's just the irony of life.”

He added: “You put a lot on the line. It's really hard to have the quickest car and the quickest team on that year. To put all that together, there’s a lot of things that have to align, and that's very difficult because you see every team. There's one car that just seems to be a little bit quicker for whatever reason.

“It’s very finicky. You can have a fast car and not even be the best of the team. They’re all built the same. One is just slightly faster. I have been waiting to have that car for many years. I’ve been close, been on the front row, but it would be nice.”

Scoring pole position in the Indy 500 can be somewhat of a double-edged sword. In the last 15 years, only one driver managed to convert pole position into an Indy 500 win: Simon Pagenuad in 2019.

Power believes qualifying at the very front is no longer important on oval tracks such as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, saying he has been “very race-focused recently”.

“I think you put yourself in a great position if you win poles,” said Power, who qualified third in his Indy 500-winning year. 

“I just wasn't heavily focused on that. I really wasn’t. In some respects, I didn't want to get poles on ovals because I think it kind of in some ways hurts you a little bit at times, just being out front in nice clean air. 

“The car feels great, then you get put back some spots, and it takes you another sort of stint to get your head around a car in dirty air. So, there's some good and bad in that.

“For sure on road courses, qualifying at the very front is a big deal. But it's hard to get poles these days. It really is. No one is pumping out multi poles in a year anymore. It's very difficult.
“I’ve been very race-focused more recently.”