Will Power’s opening three races with Andretti Global has been a rollercoaster. 

The 45-year-old Aussie has shown flashes of brilliant pace at times and gone over the limit on others, with four incidents combined through practice sessions or in the race, including crashing out while leading at Phoenix Raceway earlier this month. However, his latest result, a third-place finish in the Grand Prix of Arlington on March 15, was the most complete race weekend to date with his new team and provided optimism that things are beginning to click. 

After the previous 17 years with Team Penske, which included two IndyCar titles and winning the 2018 Indianapolis 500, the switch to Andretti Global - where he wasn’t contractually allowed to start until January 1 - has been steeper than many expected. 

What's different?

On the surface, the IndyCar Series is a spec-formula and the most obvious change for Power comes from getting used to a different powerband going from Chevrolet to Honda. However, it’s deeper rooted than that, and no one understands Power and the challenges he’s facing more than Ron Ruzewski, Andretti Global’s team principal and his longtime race strategist that also came over this off-season following a 21-year run at Team Penske.

“Yeah, so obviously there's lots of subtleties about the cars,” Ruzewski told Motorsport.com.

“Yes, it is a spec series. And it's crazy to see how tight some of the events are with 25 cars on track; everybody's separated by just less than tenths of a second, right? But there's 25 different philosophies out there as far as how the cars are set up. 

“First and foremost, he's driving a different engine. The Honda engine has a slightly different characteristic than the Chevrolet engine. And getting used to that is one part of it.” 

The other challenge comes in trying to understand the dampers, the one area in IndyCar that has become a major focal point of continued development by teams.

“The setup philosophy and the damping philosophy and the way that they have designed and developed the dampers at Penske versus Andretti is different,” Ruzewski said.

For trade secret reasons, Ruzewski couldn’t get into specifics for either team on the philosophy, but did provide generic subtleties in what is different for Power.

Will Power, Andretti Global

“It can provide a different feel,” Ruzewski continued. “The driver has different sensory points on the car that feed to his senses and how the car pitches and yaws, how the car heaves.

“All of that is basically how the feel from the tire transmits through the suspension. It all has to go through the dampers. And there's a lot of things that can be done internally to either filter, amplify, or change how his sensory provisions are from the car.

“So it's not that one is better or worse. It's just different. And understanding what that is, having driven something for 17 years, it's no different than if you drive a pickup truck every day and then all of a sudden you get in a Corvette. It feels different.

“Everything feels just a little different, but after you drive it a little bit, it's fine.

“It doesn't really bother you. You adapt. So it's just that same process for him.”

Next up in Power’s Andretti adaptation tour is this weekend’s round at Barber Motorsports Park, a place where he has captured two wins, five podiums and sat on the front row nine times, including four poles, in 15 starts. 

“It's certainly a flowy track, very different to what we just came from, very different to, like, St. Pete,” Power said.

“It's going to be an interesting weekend for me. It's the first time I've driven this thing on a road course, like a fast-flowing road course. I'm very interested to see where we stack up, if there's any work to be done. Every year you come back, it's more competitive. We kind of know that.

“Yeah, it is a track I really enjoy. It's a track I've had a ton of success at. Always expect to be the pointy end there.”

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