NTT INDYCAR SERIES NEWS CONFERENCE

May 30, 2026

Alex Palou

Will Power

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Will Power. His fourth front-row start here in Detroit.

Are you happy with the front-row start here?

WILL POWER: Yes, definitely. You know how bad it can go at times. Pretty happy with that.

I was close to pole, man. Damn. Just that one guy all the time. I don't know. I don't know. Keep doing things that suit him, like one-lap qualifying.

THE MODERATOR: He's good at whatever he does.

WILL POWER: He definitely is.

THE MODERATOR: Nice start to the weekend. You've been looking for a bounce-back. This is heading in that direction?

WILL POWER: Yes. Never feel comfortable, but so far. Even in the Indy 500 I'm thinking this is going to be a good race, and suddenly it wasn't. Yeah, same thing with Indy road course. I think we had a shot at the win, and didn't.

Never, never. Have been around long enough to just do your job as best you can, then after it's done decide if it was good or bad (laughter). Don't do it during.

THE MODERATOR: Open it up for questions for Will.

Q. Looking back to the races you raced here in the previous years, how difficult was this bumpy racetrack to set up the car properly? More difficult than Indianapolis road course?

WILL POWER: In some respects it comes a bit down more to driving. The car is never perfect. It's how you attack the corner. The car does matter, but on smooth circuits the balance is really, really critical. There's not as much you can do as a driver. The ovals are even another step of you can't do much. You have to get a good balance.

Here, yes, I would say this is a track where driving, a lot of technique, comes into play.

Q. In the race, dealing with traffic, is this an important factor?

WILL POWER: Yep, it is. It is difficult to pass these days because the field is so good. So many good guys. People don't generally make mistakes. They're all great drivers. Track position matters. Pits. Everything matters now.

Q. We saw in Barber a cooler race than we expected temperature-wise. It's fairly cool today. Will be cool tomorrow. It seemed that favored the harder tire. Do you expect that to be the case tomorrow, the black is going to be the preferred tire?

WILL POWER: Yes, it's very strange because usually cooler is definitely better for a soft tire. I think in the end the red was quicker, there's no question. Black, maybe there is a half second in there.

Yeah, I would say the red is probably a better tire for the race because it's not really degging and slightly softer. Probably is a red race. But the blacks certainly are strong.

Q. The streak that Alex is on now with poles, is it reminiscent of any point during your career when you were racking up poles left and right?

WILL POWER: Yeah, definitely he's doing it. What number is he on?

Q. Three in a row, 16 total.

THE MODERATOR: Still got to get to 71.

WILL POWER: It's not impossible because that's where I started, where he was. Depends how long he goes. Might convince Dan to put him in F1 if he gets close (laughter).

Q. What part of your career where you remember where you were on it when it came to winning poles?

WILL POWER: I knew I left a little on the table, and you definitely scooped that up (speaking to Alex).

ALEX PALOU: I tried. I tried (smiling). When I saw your lap time, like, Man, that's fast.

WILL POWER: It wasn't bad. I was shocked. Man, there's some grip there.

ALEX PALOU: Yeah.

Q. Will, at what point in your career do you remember when you were basically winning qualifying and the pole?

WILL POWER: In that sort of 2010/'11 time was a lot of poles. '12. It ebbed and flowed at times. I think I had five or so poles in a year. I kind of went in and out depending on the car configuration and so on.

Yeah, Alex is certainly pumping 'em out. It's good stuff. I was just saying I wish I could convince Dan to put you in F1.

ALEX PALOU: I'm good here. They can take Colton and Kyle.

WILL POWER: He likes it better here.

THE MODERATOR: Clearly Alex Palou joins us. Second pole here. Fourth NTT P1 award of the season.

Your thoughts on a P1 here?

ALEX PALOU: It's great. It's tough now with this Fast Six style to know what you're going to get when you head into a Fast Six.

I remember Arlington, I thought that we had a great car, we can fight for the pole. Then we were not. Same for Long Beach.

Here it was the opposite. I thought we had a great car, but maybe not like his speed or Scott's or Kyle's. Yeah, very happy. Very happy with my lap. There was a lot more grip than I thought on Fast Six. Happy to get that Honda Honda up top.

THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions.

Q. Will, after spending so many years with your previous team, previous manufacturer, do you feel like you're on enemy grounds driving for who you have behind you?

WILL POWER: No, it didn't really cross my mind. I certainly have enjoyed running with the Honda engine. It's been really good.

ALEX PALOU: So fast.

WILL POWER: It is definitely fast, man.

ALEX PALOU: Mileage is so good.

WILL POWER: Mileage is good, it's so fast. I find myself easy to get on pace.

ALEX PALOU: Super comfortable.

WILL POWER: Good delivery. Easy to drive.

ALEX PALOU: I have extra power, so I need to...

WILL POWER: We know. We see it in the data share (smiling).

Q. Both of you being on the front row, is there any extra good feeling or bonus feeling, given this is Chevrolet's race, we're in Chevrolet's old headquarters?

WILL POWER: I had a lot of good times with the other guys. But like I said, I enjoy being with Honda. I think it will be a good battle tomorrow.

ALEX PALOU: Honestly, no. It's fun to talk about it and stuff. At the end of the day it's just another race, another city. I think it's great that there's some tracks that are like Honda and some tracks that are like Chevrolet so we have that head-to-head.

We don't go mindset-wise, we're like more aggressive here to try and make it. Yeah, I think it's a great rivalry that we have between both manufacturers. Obviously it's great to have the Honda Honda on pole.

Q. Will, step one of trying to get back on the right track. What has it been like for you and the team to go into tomorrow and get the first win with Andretti?

WILL POWER: Yeah, it is usually a bit of a hectic race here, a lot of mayhem. Calling strategy right and keeping it clean, I think that's all you can do. We definitely got fast cars, stuff to win. We have had a few times this year. See what we can do tomorrow.

Yeah, it will be interesting with yellows. Maybe we'll be getting a lot more.

ALEX PALOU: We said it yesterday, we're going to be 1-2.

WILL POWER: INDYCAR changed their policies on yellow. A bit of an argument. Alex was swearing and carrying on about how it's bad (laughter).

ALEX PALOU: I don't recall it that way, but I'll take it (smiling).

WILL POWER: That was you. It wasn't me.

ALEX PALOU: It wasn't you.

WILL POWER: In driver meetings sometimes.

ALEX PALOU: I like it. It's good.

Q. On the mayhem comment that you made, is that just a general assumption of the drivers coming to this race? How do you mentally prepare for that?

WILL POWER: It is because it's such an epic track to drive. You're just threading the needle. I love it for that. I think it's a really cool track. It's one of my favorites.

There's just no room for error. That's why there's yellows simply.

THE MODERATOR: Will, thanks for coming up. We'll continue with questions for Alex.

Q. You get three poles in a row for the first time. It came on a road course, the big oval and now street course. How satisfied are you to be able to accomplish that?

ALEX PALOU: It's super satisfying. It's incredible. But I have to say poles are cool, yeah, it doesn't pay as much as tomorrow.

Sadly we haven't won any of the last two races that we started on pole. Yeah, I think it's just super satisfying for today, but at the same time it doesn't really, as we've seen the past two weekends, races, it doesn't really mean we're going to have more chances or win or anything.

Q. When the season started, you were more of a race winner than pole winner. Now you're doing both. Are you becoming the complete package?

ALEX PALOU: I hope. We're trying. We're trying. I think the speed from the cars these past years I would say, I would say the last years especially, but this year it's been incredible.

I thought last year was tough to top off in terms of speed, but this year everybody at CGR went one more step, everybody at Honda as well, to have even more speed as you can see.

It's great. Now we need to finish it off tomorrow.

Q. Will thinks it's going to be a red race. The cool conditions at Barber favored the black tires. What do you think for tomorrow?

ALEX PALOU: I don't know. I think it's going to be a red race basically because of the rules of running two reds. I think if we didn't have that rule, it would be different for sure.

We saw Pato in the 5 car going on primaries in Q1. You could see that he made it. It's on speed there quite close. Nobody knows what the tires feel like on a 30-lap stint. I guess we'll see tomorrow in warm-up, but especially in the race.

Honestly, I have no idea. That's a very honest answer. It's going to be red because we're forced to run two reds, otherwise I think it would be like 50/50.

Q. Will talked about the change to the yellow flag procedure. One of the advantages you have is stretching the sequences. Now every time you do that, that is going to be a risk. How do you manage the race tomorrow?

ALEX PALOU: Like honestly, even until now, we didn't know what was going to happen. We didn't know if it was going to be a yellow or if they were going to wait. It was like trying to anticipate what somebody else was going to think.

Now at least it's clear. It might not be a benefit for us in the next two races. On the long-term I think it's going to be a benefit for everybody. Not only the 10 car, I think for everybody. When everything is consistent for everyone, on the long-term pits going to be better so we don't have to be guessing.

It was quite clear on drivers briefing or meeting, if there's another debris like we had at Indy road course, entry the turn seven, big one in the middle of the track, that's going to be a yellow. Now we know.

You could see there were only four or five cars in Indy road course pitting. We didn't know, should we pit? It's better to avoid confusion.

To Will's point, it's going to be literally worse for the people that are leading. Now it's going to be beneficial to go crazy, pit early and hope for a yellow. At least it's going to be the same for everyone.

Q. Both the guys who had incidents talked about the inconsistency of grip. Did you feel the same? How do you handle that?

ALEX PALOU: Yeah, I feel this track is the less grippy track we have by far. You cannot even compare it to, like, another street course. There's corners in Arlington that felt really low grip, but this track just overall feels like the track doesn't really have grip anywhere.

Yeah, even on my best laps I felt inconsistency. That's just the nature of the track. Yeah, I think it doesn't come from tires or conditions or anything else. It's just been this track. We saw that we lost a lot of lap time from last year. I think it's just going to keep on getting worse.

Q. Your best lap at the end where you did brush the wall, what caused that for you?

ALEX PALOU: You never know. You just hope for the best. You enter the corner and you're like I hope it's going to be okay. Especially Fast Six, you don't want to go crazy and just crash the car. It's okay if you suddenly start getting those limits. At the end of the day you don't know if it's going to be by 1/10th or one millisecond. You just want to go for it.

I was super lucky that everything worked today for me. There's been other qualifyings where it doesn't go for me, you end up fifth or sixth.

It was very close, but I was comfortable with what I had. I had a lot of confidence with the car so I could get those limits and brush the wall.

Q. You were talking about the tires. What happens if tomorrow you decide that the black tires are better than the red, will that change your strategy for the race?

ALEX PALOU: Depending on how the yellows are falling and how good or bad the alternates are. I think if you have an alternate that suddenly only lasts five laps, which is not going to happen five laps because we've done more than 10 in qualifying, then you could go for a three- or four-stopper, then suddenly make it a primary race.

I don't know. As long as there's a big difference in the tires, you can make a strategy, a primary strategy, work. I think we're going to see the tendency is just like once you're forced to run two sets, everybody just has to run those two, then we see what we have left.

Q. Did you save enough primary tires to do that?

ALEX PALOU: We're good. Yeah, we're good on tires. I think mostly everybody should be good.

Q. Yesterday when Will was in here he said your time will come as far as not being able to just execute flawlessly. He was talking about his struggles this year. He had an evil laugh. I don't know if you heard that.

ALEX PALOU: No, I didn't.

Q. Do you feel like eventually you'll have a stretch where you don't execute, where you have five or six weeks, or do you all have the processes in place to keep that from happening?

ALEX PALOU: We have the processes, but you know the time will come. I agree with him. I hope he's wrong and I hope I'm wrong.

That's life. Yeah, you go through a good stretch. I've been saying it the last two years. Hopefully it goes another four or five the same way.

Yeah, I agree with him. I'm just in a moment where I feel super confident with myself, the team is giving me the fastest cars, and I feel very confident with the car, the team, with everything.

I'm on that sweet spot. Hopefully it's long and it's tall. It could just go wrong tomorrow.

THE MODERATOR: Last time you started from pole here, you won.

ALEX PALOU: Hopefully it's the same. Thank you.