Team Penske's Will Power feels finishing in third place in the second of two races at the 'Dual in Detroit' double-header 'felt like a win' after a difficult start to his day.
The Australian had managed to secure the final spot on the podium after a weekend of misfortune in various forms. A poor pitstop in the first race meant he fell to the back of the field after being in contention for the win.
Further trouble arose during Sunday morning's qualifying where it appeared handling issues hampered the #12 Verizon-Chevrolet which meant Power started the race from 11th place.
To try and change his fortunes, Power started the race on the harder, black Firestone tyres to try and move forward but a first lap collision with Chip Ganassi's Felix Rosenqvist in Turn 3 hampered his progress.
Power's day got worse after coming to a stop under the caution period on lap 8, luckily the AMR safety team managed to get the car restarted and he rejoined on the lead lap.
When asked about his feelings after the race, Power said "I know, felt like a win. Felt like that's kind of where we should have been yesterday.
"Unfortunately had a mishap in the pits. Today, the car stopped on track, just got about past me. Because I got hit from behind, damaged the gear parts. Had to go in emergency mode, kind of manually flip, lift to shift. Then it fixed itself somehow. I was able to then go fast and race hard.
In the final third of the race, Power was trying to chase down Marcus Ericsson for second place but caught some luck with two caution periods which gave the 2014 series champion the possibility to jump the Swede in the restarts.
However, Power revealed he wasn't prepared to take risks due to the damage his #12 Penske had taken during the race.
"I tried to get the best restart possible," he added. "We actually had diffuser damage, front wing damage, a bit of tow damage from the first incident in the race.
"The car was still fast. It was still quick enough. I didn't want to take any risks. Third was a good day, yeah. So if I would have gone for it, for sure. I was never close enough. Did my best to get close, I just couldn't."
