Will Power’s title aspirations ended just 12 laps into what had been set up to be a thrilling 206-lap finale around the Nashville Superspeedway.
Trailing championship leader Alex Palou by just 33 points coming into the day, the Aussie started 20 positions ahead of his rival for the race.
It was the ideal scenario for Power, who just had to keep himself in contention for the win until the end of the race, and hope that Palou would struggle to carve through the field.
But, as IndyCar always seems to do, curveballs were thrown up not even 10% of the way into the race, much like in Milwaukee when Palou suffered an issue too.
Seatbelt issue could have seen Will Power ‘thrown’ from his car
Speaking to Motorsport.com after the race, Power revealed that the seatbelt which caused him to stop early on in the race was faulty, and not an accident.
It’s the sort of failure that he described after the race in vivid fashion – could have sent him flying out of the car in the event of a crash.
“Yeah, it actually just popped,” Power said. “Like ‘pop’, like a failure. So it didn’t just come loose, it just popped off. I was in the middle of a battle and I felt it off, like ‘Ah, that’s off, I have to pit’. Then did it again later in the race, so it’s a faulty seatbelt or faulty clasp, whatever it is.
“Pretty bad situation really, because I didn’t even think about, man if I hit the wall what happens here. If it’s just popping off from a little bit of pressure from my body, I might get thrown out of the car.
“Yeah, that didn’t cross my mind after we’d plugged it in, but after it did the second time there’s something wrong with it.”
Where did the main title protagonist end up?
After finishing eight laps down in 24th place, Power did actually slide down the drivers’ standings after the race.
In fact, he fell from second to fourth in the championship in the end – as both Colton Herta (who won the finale) and Scott McLaughlin ended up ahead of him.
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He will be back with Team Penske next season to avenge his defeat, but he will need to tidy up on a few uncharacteristic errors to challenge for the title again.
The seatbelt wasn’t his fault, but a spin at Milwaukee severely damaged his chances, and a scuffle with David Malukas at Gateway did him no favours either.
Nearing the back end of his IndyCar career, Power will be aware that he might not have many years left ahead of him, and that 2024 may have been a missed opportunity.