Last season, Will Power finished off the year the best way possible – with a pair of wins. He won the second race in Houston, before winning the season finale at Auto Club Speedway.
“That was an unusual finish to a season for me if you go off the last few years,” Power commented. “Definitely had a good off-season and very motivated to have a good year.”
Last year, Power didn’t have the same that he wanted – statistically – with numerous finishes outside of the top 10. However, he was able to bring home three wins in the last four races. Power said in previous years he had been conservative and rode the points, but last yea taught him to hang it all out there.
“At the end of the year, it was fun. You can just race hard, it does not matter. In fact, the results came a lot better when I did that,” he explained. “It taught me a lot about racing, getting in the pack. When you spend a lot of time at the front, the restarts, you’re not in the pack. I feel that my race craft was really good by the end and I enjoyed it.
“That’s how I’ll be racing this year.”
Like many other teams, Team Penske has kicked testing into full gear and done some tests, in which Power admits that they’ve found some things that will help them be strong in 2014.
“I feel as though we’re going to be pretty competitive,” Power commented. “Kind of just working hard, not leaving anything on the table, not leaving anything to chance. You just can’t be lazy. You’ve got to work hard in this game if you want to continually be competitive. So that’s our plan.”
Power also feels confident about this year with the addition of having Juan Pablo Montoya as a teammate to him and Helio Castroneves, saying that’ll allow for more feedback and information.
“With Juan, he’s had some good experience, good ideas. He’s obviously been very successful in Formula One,” Power commented. “His experience in NASCAR, it’s kind of good having him there, for sure. He’s a guy that I looked up to when I was racing Formula Ford and he was in Formula One. Kind of cool to be working with him.”
Power says so far, everybody is working well together and Montoya has already suggested some great ideas.
“At the end of the day we all understand that we got to race each other on the track,” Power said. “During this testing time, part of the season, we need to work together and try things, find things that are going to help us be at the front.”
The work that is put in the off-season will come to surface the first weekend of the year as the new year promises to be competitive across the board, espically with arch-rival Ganassi switching from Honda to Chevy as Power says that will make them more reliable and stronger as an organization.
“But it’s good to have them in the family. Four more drivers giving good feedback to help point us in the right direction,” Power commented. “Plus they’ve had the experience of looking at some of Honda’s strengths, see if we can transfer it over to the Chevy side.”
