Advertisement

'I’m not retiring': After Portland win, Will Power defiant amid retirement rumors

PORTLAND, Ore. – There have been whispers that Will Power, the two-time IndyCar champion and the sport’s all-time pole leader, could retire at the end of this year or next. While basking in his dominant victory Sunday afternoon at Portland International Raceway – a triumph that gave the Team Penske driver his first three-win season since 2018 – Power squashed any notions that he believes he’s nearing the end of his career with 2025 believed to be the final year of his latest contract with Roger Penske.

“I want to continue. I’m not retiring. I’m not. I’m just simply not retiring,” a resolute Power told reporters after leading 101 of 110 laps at PIR to shave 12 points off championship leader Alex Palou’s lead, closing within 54 points with three races left in 2024. “I know people probably spread that around as a rumor or whatever, in the hope that they can take my seat.

“But I’m staying here for a while. I’ll get better every year, man. I get better every year.”

IndyCar results: Will Power snags early lead, runs away with third IndyCar win in 2024 at Portland

In a follow-up question from IndyStar, clarifying whether the notion or noise is weighing on him, Power shrugged it off and noted his best response can be seen on-track.

“I can’t do anything about it. Ultimately, it’s my results that count, and at the end of the day, if I’m not good enough, I’m not good enough, and you’re done,” Power told IndyStar. “And I get that. But if that’s not the case, and you’re performing, then you’d be disappointed if they got rid of you.

“I’m going to keep going, man. That’s all I ever do. I just focus on what I can control, and if you get results, it just makes everything easier.”

2023 was a year from hell, his wife, Liz, took months to recover from a staph infection that cropped up a few months after Will’s 2022 IndyCar title. After weeks of feeling under the weather, starting in November 2022, Liz was eventually rushed to the hospital in early-January with a 106-degree fever. Doctors performed emergency surgery and she nearly died on the operating table.

In the months that passed as Liz, who for years has been her husband’s rock at the track on race weekends, recovered at home, Will’s title defense rode a rollercoaster of podiums and finishes well out of contention. His quick-fuse temper often boiled over, culminating in an explosion with fellow veteran Scott Dixon that saw Power grab and shake the six-time champ by the scruff of his firesuit over an intense – but otherwise innocuous – practice crash at Road America.

IndyCar news: Will Power heated after big crash with Scott Dixon in Practice No. 2 at Road America

When Power triumphed at the same Wisconsin racetrack for his first IndyCar win in more than two years earlier this summer, the 43-year-old revealed thoughts of retirement had crossed his mind the year prior in the darkest moments when he didn’t know whether Liz would survive. Above all, he knew he couldn’t risk the couple’s son Beau growing up without parents.

“When that was going on, you start thinking, ‘Should I be racing at all? If something happens to Liz, and then something happens to me, is she going to get better? What’s going to happen?’” Power said in June. “'The doctors said that this could come back any time, so should I be racing?’ That was the thing that was planted in my mind last year.

“You certainly don’t perform at your highest level, because you don’t want your son to have no parents. It’s tough wrestling with that. Ultimately, if she wouldn’t have been getting better, I would have stopped. I would’ve stopped for my son, simple as that.”

Two months after that drought-snapping victory, Power stands as the series’ only driver with three wins in 2024 and leads the charge for Team Penske’s title hopes. But his hopeful come-from-behind title charge comes in the wake of AJ Foyt Racing’s recent signing of 22-year-old David Malukas to a multi-year deal. According to a source, Team Penske – as part of its technical alliance with Foyt – exerted control over Malukas’ signing. Some in the paddock have gone so far as to insinuate that Malukas may have, in fact, signed a contract with Team Penske to replace Power at the end of his current deal.

For what it’s worth, Malukas poured cold water on those rumors Friday.

“No, that’s not true. I’ve signed with Foyt,” he told IndyStar during this weekend’s media bullpen. “Rumors are rumors. I try to keep everything quiet, like how everyone thought we were going to (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) for next year, and then, ‘Nope!’”

Team Penske has held onto an identical IndyCar driver lineup the past three seasons, and is poised to do so again for 2025, keeping together the perennial title and 500-contending trio of Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin and Power. The changes over the past decade have included:

  • 2014: Hiring Juan Pablo Montoya and adding a third full-time car

  • 2015: Hiring Simon Pagenaud and adding a fourth full-time car

  • 2017: Hiring Josef Newgarden and moving Montoya to a 500-only program (along with a spot in Penske’s IMSA lineup)

  • 2018: Moving Helio Castroneves to a 500-only program (along with an IMSA ride) and dropping a full-time car

  • 2021: Hiring Scott McLaughlin, adding a fourth full-time car and dropping Castroneves’ 500-only program

  • 2022: Dropping Pagenaud and moving to just three full-time cars

At the start of this season in March, longtime Team Penske president Tim Cindric discussed his IndyCar team’s driver lineup continuity and noted he believes the team has been “patient” as it’s moved on from a trio of drivers that have delivered one championship and five 500 victories during their Penske tenures. But there’s a balance.

“There’s a balance of having the continuity and people not being comfortable. I think whenever drivers and other people get comfortable in their positions, someone’s going to pass you,” Cindric told IndyStar. “I think we’ve typically been a very patient group.

“Helio’s stats had continued to decline. Pagenaud’s stats had continued to decline, and Montoya’s had, too. And we found other positions for those guys – or offered other positions to those guys – to continue with us.”

Cindric’s assertions ring true. Pagenaud, notably, is believed to have bristled at the idea of joining Penske’s sportscar lineup after 2021, moving instead to Meyer Shank Racing on a multi-year deal, after finishing 8th in the IndyCar championship in back-to-back years (2020-21). Montoya also finished 8th in his final full-time season in IndyCar (2016). Castroneves’ final full-time Penske campaign did feature a 4th-place finish in the title race (2017), but it completed a run of three-straight years of finishing 3rd-best in the championship among his teammates. He also won just a single race over that stretch, too.

“IndyCar is so competitive. Jimmie Johnson found out that you don’t come to IndyCar to retire,” Cindric continued. “In sportscar racing, you have other people that can contribute to the success, and that’s why it’s a good landing zone for people with a lot of experience.

“It’s a natural evolution. From our team’s perspective, we don’t have a swinging door in any of our driver lineups. We try to analyze them and be patient.”

Whatever Cindric, Penske and the company’s private plans may be for 2026 and beyond, Power talks as a driver who still has plenty of runway left – at least if he’s given the ability to control his future.

“Every win I get now, it’s so special. It really means a lot. It’s adding to my win list,” he said. “It’s not like I’m racing for another decade – put it that way.

“No way that I thought I would have driven for the best team in the U.S., won on ovals, won the Indy 500, won a championship. Not a chance. But I’ve worked very hard, and I’ve always been determined. What I’ve done, I’ve lived out my dream, and you need to reflect sometimes and appreciate that when you get mad or disappointed about something, that just happens. You’re really lucky to be here.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Penske's Will Power denies IndyCar retirement rumors after Portland win