NTT INDYCAR SERIES: ONLYBULLS GRAND PRIX OF PORTLAND

August 9, 2026

Will Power

Felix Rosenqvist

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Joined currently by the second- and third-place finishing drivers, Felix Rosenqvist and Will Power.

Felix, a little bit of shades of Long Beach. Tough to beat that guy in the 10 car, isn't it?

FELIX ROSENQVIST: He just drove better, to be honest. Not a lot quicker, but he was a little bit quicker, especially on the blacks. That first stint he outsmarted us, did one lap longer. I didn't know he did that, so maybe we need to work on communication. I don't think I could have kept up with that pace he did anyways, if I saved that much fuel.

He got us in a sequence. I got kind of twisted up leaving my box because I was so close to the Schumacher crew. I think between the overcut and that, we kind of lost the position. From there on we just sat in second.

Some stints we looked really good. The last one we were struggling a little bit. Yeah, it's hard to pass. I think they did the right move there.

Yeah, from there it was just like a lapped car race, I guess. Sometimes you're getting three seconds because of a lap car, the next time you lose three seconds.

I think without sounding salty, I don't think I would have won the race anyway, but I think it's kind of time for us as a series to grow up and not have the lapped car situation. I think it makes us all look stupid.

When you work hard and all of a sudden you lose five seconds behind a lapped car, I don't think it's right. I don't think anyone wants to see that.

Again, I don't think I would have won anyways. I think all drivers probably agree with me.

WILL POWER: Yes, I agree with that. I mean, I've said it forever. It's kind of ridiculous we have a 1970's rule going on: But we've always done that. Yeah, it's a little bit different now. Drives me crazy all these cars.

If INDYCAR won't do anything, I think all the drivers get together and have a gentlemen's agreement. INDYCAR: We don't make the rules, we keep the same ones since the '70s.

THE MODERATOR: Sounds like a good off-season discussion.

FELIX ROSENQVIST: Nothing will happen.

WILL POWER: Same discussion every year.

THE MODERATOR: Will, your thoughts on another podium finish, three of the top six for Andretti Global today.

WILL POWER: Yeah, great day for us. Great day for Andretti. Didn't quite have the pace I think the top two guys. Probably about a 10th off. But yeah, solid day.

Just seriously fast pace all day. Qualifying laps, really good quality. Such a quality field now. That's why it's green. People are so good.

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up to questions.

Q. Will, can you explain what happened with the confusion when you were going to pit? How big a factor was that?

WILL POWER: That probably lost me three seconds behind the back marker I would say in the sequence. Probably a good shot of coming out. I can't remember the gap as I came out behind Felix. It certainly would have made things interesting.

Yeah, I heard something, I just didn't hear it clear enough. Normally the strategists will repeat it multiple times. I never heard it again. Heard in 10. I was waiting, waiting. Was that a call or not? I think I missed a pit call there. Hey, are we pitting? Yes.

I believe I missed it, which cost us quite a bit of time. As Felix said, he was losing sometimes five seconds behind a back marker.

Q. Got kind of held up there?

WILL POWER: I absolutely got held up massively. I was racing a back marker into turn 10. I was beside him and he actually raced me into turn 10, which was surprising. Yeah, that hurt.

Q. Alex has a 110-point lead with five races to go. Kyle is second. I think Malukas is 118 back. Can those guys catch him or is this thing done?

WILL POWER: Yeah, it's tough, man. He makes no mistakes. He's very quick. I feel like we've closed the gap. We're there. Just takes time.

I think we've had a year in our team of significant gains in learning in many areas, many areas. Whether it's pit stops, car builds, car setups, road courses, ovals, they've all been positive steps forward. Feel like next year we should be in a pretty good position.

THE MODERATOR: Felix, do you want to add in on that?

FELIX ROSENQVIST: I did my best today to make it interesting for the championship. I mean, he's just really good. Kind of been a topic of the season, right? We all get our shot to beat him. I had probably two, three this year. Yeah, he's just really tough to beat. He's got it figured out. Ill probably wouldn't put my money on anyone else, so...

Yeah, you never know. Yeah, looks like he's got a fifth one?

THE MODERATOR: Sixth win.

FELIX ROSENQVIST: I mean, title.

THE MODERATOR: Fifth overall.

FELIX ROSENQVIST: He's racking them up.

Q. I asked Michael Shank since you made the decision you're going to leave, that was done sometime in June, he says that he thinks the team is running better than ever since then. In a lot of ways that might be surprising to some people. How important is that to you, that the team not only doesn't miss a beat but gets better?

FELIX ROSENQVIST: Yeah, I mean, I think we've known that all along. I think since I joined the team, it's been an upward trajectory. The first year we had poles, front rows, we couldn't really put it together. Second year we had more top fives. This year we've got the missing piece, which is the race pace.

Yeah, we're contenders most of the weekends now, which is super cool. The pit stops have been better and better and better all the time, as well.

Yeah, I think on a really good day we do results like today or the 500, which is exciting. There's still many races to go. I hope we can get one more win together. It would mean a lot. We got Indy, which is super cool. There's also something to winning a non-Indy race.

Hope we can get it done. Yeah, rolling really well at the moment.

Q. What do the two of you do to make sure you're up to the task of this huge stretch of six races in five weekends?

FELIX ROSENQVIST: Red Bull (smiling).

WILL POWER: He's trying to get a sponsorship. He's going to have a Red Bull helmet next year. I'm going for another thing, though, Taria green tea.

I love the back to back to back. I love it. I wish we could race every weekend.

FELIX ROSENQVIST: It's nice when you do it well.

WILL POWER: If you have a bad day... Then you get the next week. Move on quick.

FELIX ROSENQVIST: I think you mentally prepare yourself for it. You know it's going to be a rough stretch. You kind of just go into war mode. You'll figure it out.

I think it's harder on the crew, the engineers. They work their asses off, stay up late at night. Don't get that much sleep. For us, we're training to do this. For them it's never easy. Yeah, but they're all pros.

Q. Will, you ran a contrarian tire strategy, saving the last set of reds for the last 20 laps. How did that work out for you in practice? Did it do what you expected?

WILL POWER: I didn't expect to run them that late. That was a team decision. I think kind of smart if we had a restart at the end. It would have been pretty interesting. Especially early on the reds, the reds are really good initially, then they kind of just plateaued out similar to the blacks.

Yeah, saving the best for last. Every time I was coming in, it's like, We're going back to blacks. Oh, no. Blacks are really hard to hang on to. They weren't easy to drive. The reds were like a dream. Really forgiving, so...

Yeah, it was a good strategy. We just sort of maintained all day. I think there were other plays in there we could have done. We could have gone a lap longer on the first exchange, a lap or two. Yeah, I think it was what it was. Good day.

Q. Felix, you talked about how well Alex drove today. How helpless does the situation feel where it's something small and he stays up front the rest of the race?

FELIX ROSENQVIST: Yeah, obviously you try to stay calm, hope for a yellow that can reset the race a little bit. I just never happened.

We had to pit early later in the race, as well, because I got behind I don't remember who it was, some back marker. We just lost like tons of time. We pitted early again, and we were for sure screwed because Alex just kept going long, and Will also at that point.

Yeah, I think a yellow could have made it interesting. Actually, I think the strategy Will had would have been pretty strong if that happened.

Yeah, it is what it is. It could always work out in different ways. Today just nothing really happened. So that's all we had.

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations, guys, on the podium. We'll see you in a couple short days.