The first rule of racing, as we all know, is never take out your team-mate, and it would take no more than two minutes to come up with a dozen examples when that was ignored with spectacular consequences. The rule becomes magnified when the drivers are frontrunners, magnified some more when the pair are fighting over a championship, and then becomes a colossus of an issue when their opponents are so close that a misdemeanour could lead to the loss of that championship.
That’s the situation for Will Power and Josef Newgarden as we head to the final two rounds of the 2022 season. Last Saturday night, we saw Josef Newgarden take full advantage of the best strategy to deliver his fifth win of the season – and Team Penske team-mate Will Power suffer as a consequence of the wrong strategy and come home sixth. In terms of Penske vs Ganassi damage limitation, it wasn’t a disastrous weekend for Power, in that he finished just ahead of Marcus Ericsson, Scott Dixon and Alex Palou. He doubled his margin over Dixon (14 points), is now 17 points ahead of Indy 500 winner Ericsson and his margin over Palou is out to 43.
