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The saga of Will Power’s summer took another interesting turn this past weekend when he became the only Team Penske driver to win a race this season. With two races to go in the NTT IndyCar Series season; Will Power currently sits in sixth in the championship standings, while teammates Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden are eleventh and eighteenth respectively – yet Power is the one whose future is in question.

This has been a horrible season for Team Penske. From a cheating scandal in May that led to the dismissal of three of their top people in key positions, to mysteriously not having pace a lot of weekends to just plain bad luck – it has been the worst season in a quarter-century for the team that was once the standard that other teams aimed for.

Will Power is 44, and will be 45 before the start of next season (depending on when the season starts). Since turning 40, Power has amassed six wins, nine poles and one series championship; so age has not slowed him down.

Power had one of his forty-five IndyCar wins for KV Racing Technology in 2008, the rest were all with Team Penske, after joining the team on a part-time basis in 2009, as a Plan B for Helio Castroneves during his tax-evasion trial. He drove one race in Helio’s Marlboro car, finishing sixth at St. Petersburg. At Long Beach, Power started the weekend in the No. 3 Marlboro car, but Helio was acquitted on that Friday afternoon and headed straight to Long Beach. By Friday afternoon’s Practice Two, the team had already unloaded a black car for Power, with red trim and Verizon on the sidepods.

After a couple of races in Penske Truck Rental colors in 2009, Verizon has been the primary sponsor for Power’s car ever since the start of the 2010 season, without a single one-off or rotating sponsor as the other Penske cars have gone through in the sixteen seasons since. Power won four races in 2010, his first full season with Team Penske. Power would go on to win at least one race every season, up until the 2023 season – when his wife, Liz, was seriously ill and sometimes close to death. Having been in that same situation three times in the past five years; I can relate and I marvel that he was able to finish seventh in the championship standings with all of that going on.

He rebounded in 2024, and won three races. He currently has the only win for Team Penske this season, and has been the model of consistency on a team that appears to be wandering in the wilderness. Yet Power is the only driver on the team who has an uncertain future for 2026.

I tend to avoid using any derivative of the word “respect”. It is way overused in sports as players claim that they are being disrespected by other players, other teams, their teammates or even their own organization. It has been so overused that it has become tiresome. That’s why I almost never use it myself. I will break precedent and use it in this case, however. Team Penske is being very disrespectful to the driver that has won more IndyCar races for the team than any driver in their storied history. He is second only to Helio Castroneves in full seasons driving for Team Penske. Yet this season has seen Will Power left twisting in the wind, as speculation grows each week that he will not be returning in 2026.

Power is spending more time answering questions about next season, than for questions he gets regarding anything he has done on the track.

Adding to the speculation is the presence of David Malukas at AJ Foyt Racing in the No. 4 car. When Malukas was first signed at Foyt, it was assumed he had really signed a contract with Team Penske and he would be parked at Foyt for a season or two. As the uncertainty has swirled around Will Power in the past couple of months, many are beginning to connect the dots that Malukas will be replacing Power at Team Penske as early as next season. The fact that Malukas was in a car sponsored by Gallagher, a longtime partner of Team Penske, at Portland – did nothing to silence the rumors that Power will not be returning to Team Penske next season.

Personally, I think it is criminal the way Power has been treated this season. Here is a driver that has driven 270 races for Team Penske, won two series championships and the 2018 Indianapolis 500; yet he has spent this season in limbo and it’s looking more and more likely he may not return.

In recent weeks, Power hasn’t held back his frustration with being left in the dark on his contract situation. Good news usually comes before bad news. If he was being retained, wouldn’t you want your driver to be able to put that behind him, so he could focus on the job at hand? By giving him no information, it only fuels the fire that he will be told the day after the season is over that his services are no longer wanted at Team Penske.

Silly Season is in full swing right now. We may not be hearing about it on the surface, but I promise you – conversations have been taking place behind the scenes, and deals are secretly being made now for 2026. Power needs to know what his future is. If his shelf-life has expired at Team Penske, he needs to know now so that he can get a deal done before a prime seat gets away.

Power has not hidden his frustration, but he has also made it clear he would like to stay at Team Penske. Why wouldn’t he? He lives in the Charlotte, NC area, near the Team Penske headquarters. It isn’t optimal to be living in Charlotte, when your team is based in Indianapolis. Josef Newgarden does it. He currently lives in Nashville, with the team six hours away by car. It’s doable, but not ideal. It’s also not ideal to move his family elsewhere late in his career. They are entrenched in the Charlotte area, and wife Liz would probably prefer to keep her doctors the same – since they all know her medical history.

But he has also hinted that this decision may not be all to Team Penske. In Sunday’s post-race press conference, Power was asked by winning Sunday’s race at Portland, “…being the highest ranked Penske driver and the only one with the win – do you feel like, no matter what happens you have put everything out there and kind of put the decision in someone else’s hand? Power gave a coy smirk, and said “I don’t know man, maybe it’s my decision”.

That brings up a good point. Is this season an aberration, or could this be the beginning of a long drought for Team Penske. Tim Cindric, Kyle Moyer and Ron Ruzewski weren’t just three talking heads. They had all played vital roles in Team Penske’s success. This is not simply a case of next man up. These individuals, especially Tim Cindric, were valuable cogs in the Penske machine. You may be able to replace one on a moment’s notice, but not all three. Their replacements were not ready for this. Some may grow into their new roles over time, but some may not. This could be a long rebuilding process, and Power may feel that at his age, he doesn’t have the time nor patience to help put this thing back together. He may see this as a good time to bail.

Everyone is feeling sorry for Will Power right now, but he may have the brightest future of the three current Team Penske drivers. The others are bound by contracts to be part of a team that is no longer led by the three exceptional people that were let go last May. This is not the same team they signed up for. It could be they are jealous of Power having the freedom to openly negotiate with other teams, in order to extricate himself from a potentially bad long-term situation.

What do I think is going to happen?

If you’ve read this site for a while, you know what an abysmal record I have of predicting race winners. I’m about as good at predicting Silly Season signings. But by connecting the dots, this is what I have come up with. No one has told me this, so take this with a grain of salt.

I think David Malukas will leave Foyt and go to Penske. I also think Will Power will go to the Malukas car at Foyt. That way, Power still has access to the Penske database and can still feel somewhat connected to the team he has called home for the last seventeen years. Remember, I think that deep down, he really wants to stay with Penske.

Here’s the twist – I think Verizon goes over to Foyt with him. And I think he takes his No. 12 with him. Malukas will take the No. 4 with him to Penske, and will have rotating sponsors like McLaughlin and Newgarden. That way, Penske will have ownership of three consecutive car numbers – 2, 3 and 4; while Foyt will have sort of consecutive numbers with 12 and 14 – because no one will run No. 13 for bad luck.

Power will work it out where he doesn’t have to move to Indianapolis and he can retire in the Charlotte area. It’s not ideal for Power, but it’s probably more seamless than going to Arrow McLaren. With the Penske support, even with them in a downward spiral right now – Foyt is probably a better option than MSR, ECR, Rahal, Juncos Hollinger, Dale Coyne or PREMA. And there seems to be no room at Ganassi or Andretti.

I could be way off base here, but a Power/Malukas swap between Penske and Foyt makes a lot of sense to me. That is, if a change has to be made. If I were Roger Penske, I would offer Will Power a two-year deal. It gives them a proven driver that wants to stay there, and it allows Power to close out his career with the only team he has known since 2009. It’s a win-win for both sides. Hopefully, Team Penske will get their act together, sooner than later.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 13, 2025 at 4:04 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.