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Will Power had contact on the first and last laps of Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto.
It left the 2014 NTT IndyCar Series champion and three-time Honda Indy Toronto champion feeling downtrodden heading to this week’s race at Iowa Speedway.
“I feel bad for my team,” Power told NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “It was a reasonably good comeback. That’s really not the way I should be driving.
“I feel bad for my team at Team Penske. I feel bad for them. I really do. They are not used to these results. We expected bigger things at the beginning of the season. I have to go out there and there have a mistake-free race and try to give them good results again.”
Power’s weekend got off to a surprising start when he did not advance out of the first group in the first segment of Saturday qualifications, the first time that’s happened to him in knockout qualifying since the Long Beach race in 2015. Instead of starting near the front, Power started 15th and finished 18th.
“I know how to do this,” Power said. “I have to mentally stay I the right place and keep doing what I know. I have to reflect on the mistakes that I made and make sure I don’t do them again and have a better day next week at Iowa.”
Other drivers believe Toronto is a difficult race course to make a pass, that is why Power was so aggressive on the first lap.
“I got a good run on Graham Rahal, but he had another guy (Marco Andretti) on the outside,” Power explained. “I shouldn’t have done it. I went to turn in aggressively, I backed out of it. I feel bad for him. It was really a bad mistake. I didn’t realize someone was on the outside when I went two-wide.
“I feel bad and man, terrible, terrible mistake at the end. I actually locked my rear brakes. You have to get them at the start and be quite aggressive. Everyone is so good down, it’s so hard to make anything up. You have to make a very big move to get a pass.
“It’s hard to get a run on everyone because they are so good.”
When Power was told he was good on fuel to make it to the end, he raced hard and that is when he forced the issue and locked it up again going into Turn 8.
“You can’t force it; you just can’t,” he said. “That is what happens. In the end, I thought I was hooked up and it was a lot of fun.
“But I have to focus harder and try to have a better result at Iowa. Man, I really need that right now.”
Power is fifth in the NTT IndyCar Series championship, but 128 points behind the leader and teammate Josef Newgarden with only six races remaining.