"Very disappointing": Will Power upset with Pato O'Ward after race-destroying incident at Indy Toronto

Will Power has expressed his disappointment with Pato O'Ward after their clash during IndyCar's Toronto race on Sunday. The duo was battling for P4 on a lap 43 restart in the 90-lap race, which O'ward eventually won.

Rinus Veekay led the pack on the restart. Power was in P4, with O'Ward right behind him. The Mexican driver overtook the two-time IndyCar champion in Turn 1 to take P4. However, Will Power stayed on his rival's gearbox, and went side-by-side into Turn 3. Pato O'Ward didn't relent, and the two made contact, sending Power into the wall.

The Team Penske driver dropped from being in the Top 5 to P20. In an interview with FrontStretch after the race, Power frankly spoke about the incident.

"He hit me and it ripped the wheel out of my hand," he said. "I went in the wall. Haven't seen the replay. Obviously, very disappointing for me 'cuz certainly, it was gonna be a battle for the win, but at least the podium. Pato could've just... he would've gone long and got it anyway. But just unfortunate, man."

While O'Ward went from strength to strength to win the race, Will Power made a respectable recovery from P20 to P11. He was the only Team Penske driver to finish the race.

Scott McLaughlin crashed out in the early stages after a wheel nut on his left rear came off after a faulty pit stop, while Josef Newgarden got collected by Jacob Abel in a wild lap 37 crash with the latter's car landing on top of the former's.

Pato O'Ward claims Will Power was asking for a racing incident with the 'risky' pass.

Pato O'Ward shed light on his incident with Will Power in IndyCar's post-race press conference. He highlighted that the 2018 Indy 500 winner chose a risky and narrow part of the track to reclaim P4.

Turns 3 and 4 make for the narrowest part of the 11-turn, 1.786-mile Toronto street circuit. Going two-wide nearly guarantees contact. O'Ward emphasised the same, saying (via ASAP Sports):

"I knew that was going to be a racing incident. I want to go see Will actually. That's the last thing that you want to have. I respect Will so much. We've been racing against each other a lot. But yeah, the problem is that it's such a fine line that you're battling with. You don't want to lose any positions.When you hit tire to tire, both of our wheels got out of our hands. You had to, like, gather it back up. That's what happens when you're racing so tight in a place like this. The cars don't really do everything perfectly. They will be moving, and they'll understeer. They will be within places where you're like, 'Oh, I hope I make this' kind of thing. I think when you go to the outside, that's a risk that you're willing to take versus the guy that's on the inside."

The on-track incident was another unfortunate domino to fall for Will Power after three DNFs in the five races before Toronto. However, he remains Team Penske's best performer in what is turning out to be a horror show of a season for them.

Edited by pranavsethii