Will Power: 71 Poles, Two IndyCar Titles, and a New Chapter at Andretti
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Driver Spotlight - where we pull one driver into the garage, look under the hood at their career, and tell you what makes them tick. This week: the Australian who has started more races from the front than anyone in the history of the sport.
The Short Version
Will Power is a two-time IndyCar champion, a 2018 Indianapolis 500 winner, and the fastest one-lap driver the series has ever had. He owns 71 career poles, which is more than anyone in IndyCar history, along with 45 wins that put him fourth on the all-time list. After 16 seasons at Team Penske he switched to Andretti Global for 2026 and put the No. 26 Honda on the podium at Portland. If you like drivers who leave everything on the track and say exactly what they think about it afterward, this is your guy.
From Toowoomba to the Champ Car Grid
Power was born on March 1, 1981, in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. Racing was already in the house. His father, Bob Power, raced open-wheel cars in Australia, and Will followed the same ladder from the bottom rung up. He won the Queensland Formula Ford championship in 2000, then dominated the 2002 Australian Drivers' Championship in Formula Holden with seven wins.
Two seasons in British Formula 3 followed, and then came the move that changed everything. Power joined Champ Car with Team Australia in late 2005, took Rookie of the Year honors in 2006, and broke through in 2007 with wins at Las Vegas and Toronto on the way to fourth in the standings. He closed that chapter in the most fitting way possible by winning at Long Beach in 2008, the final Champ Car race ever run before the series unified with the IndyCar Series.
The Penske Years: Heartbreak First, Then the Titles
Roger Penske took notice, and Power landed at Team Penske in 2009. That first season nearly ended his career before it started. In practice at Sonoma he ran into the back of a stopped car and fractured two vertebrae in his lower back. He needed a walker, then a back brace, then months of work to get his body back.
What followed was one of the most frustrating stretches any driver has ever had to sit through. Power finished runner-up in the championship in 2010, again in 2011, and again in 2012, losing the last one by three points. Three straight years of being the fastest guy in the field and the second-best guy in the standings.
The wait ended in 2014. Power came into the Fontana finale with the points lead, drove a clean and controlled race to ninth place, and finally had the trophy. At 33 he became the first Australian to win a major international four-wheel racing championship since Alan Jones took the Formula One title in 1980. Eight years later he did it again, wrapping up his second championship at Laguna Seca in 2022.
Signature Moments
The one everybody remembers is May 27, 2018. Power had been coming to Indianapolis for nearly a decade without cracking it, and the 500 had become the hole in his resume. He led 59 laps that afternoon and held on to become the first Australian ever to win the Indianapolis 500. He said afterward that he started screaming on the white-flag lap because he knew it was finally happening, and the video backs him up.
The second one is quieter but arguably bigger. On September 10, 2022, at Laguna Seca, Power took the 68th pole of his career and passed Mario Andretti for the all-time IndyCar record. He won the championship the next day. Since then he has pushed the number to 71, and nobody currently racing is close.
By the Numbers
Here is the career so far, laid out in the parts that matter. All figures are IndyCar career totals through the Portland race on August 9, 2026.
A New Chapter at Andretti
Power spent 16 seasons in a Penske car, which made the news in September 2025 genuinely strange to read. Penske did not bring him back for a 17th year and signed David Malukas to the No. 12 instead. Within days, Andretti Global announced Power would take over the No. 26 Honda.
A Champion has arrived. Welcome to Andretti, Will Power
- Andretti INDYCAR & INDY NXT (@AndrettiIndy) September 3, 2025
The first year has been a rebuild more than a rocket ship. Through 13 starts he sits 11th in points with three top-five finishes, and the podium at Portland on August 9 was the clearest sign yet that the speed traveled with him. He also has a new set of teammates in Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson, and five races left to sharpen it up before 2027.
Off the Track
Power lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife, Liz. The two met through his Team Australia days, when she worked in public relations, and they married in 2010. Their son, Beau, was born in December 2016, and Power has been open about how much fatherhood reset him. He has said he makes a point of telling his boy he loves him, something his own upbringing did not include much of.
There is also a comedian in the family. Power's brother Damien Power is a well-known Australian stand-up who has built bits around having a famous racing brother, and the two have appeared together on camera for IndyCar more than once. Will also plays drums, and the version of him you see on the radio after a bad restart is pretty close to the version you get in person, which is a big part of why fans like him.
The Bottom Line
Will Power is the fastest qualifier IndyCar has ever produced and one of the few drivers who can say he won the Indianapolis 500, won two championships, and won the last race of an entire series. At 45 years old he is still putting a Honda on the podium and still saying exactly what he thinks about the traffic rules afterward. Nobody has ever had to guess where they stand with him, and that is worth as much as the record book.
We do not carry Will Power gear right now, but if the 500 is what pulled you into this sport, here is what is in stock:
- 109th Indianapolis 500 Back Home Again Tee
- Indianapolis 500 Snake Pit Tee
- IndyCar Checkered Flag Sublimated Tee
- Indy 500 Champions Tee
- Indianapolis 500 Race Logo Long Sleeve Tee
See everything open-wheel in the IndyCar collection. New driver spotlights drop every week.
