It took 15 races, but Team Penske finally got in the win column during the 2025 IndyCar season, doing so with Will Power, who remains without a contract for 2026, in Sunday's BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland at Portland International Raceway, the site of his third and final win in 2024.
The two-time series champion and former Indy 500 winner now has 45 career victories, good for fourth on the all-time wins list, and win number 45 helped keep a streak alive that dates back more than 17 years.
Power held off Arrow McLaren's Christian Lundgaard in second place. A clearly disappointed Lundgaard is still searching for his first win with his new team and first since July 2023, when he earned his first career win on the streets of Toronto with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and had to hold off Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou, as he did on Sunday for second, to do so.
He is also seeking the No. 7 car's first win since Danica Patrick won in 2008.
Patrick took her lone IndyCar victory in a fuel mileage race at Twin Ring Motegi on Sunday, April 20, 2008. Now here we are, 6,324 days later, and the No. 7 car has still yet to make another trip to victory lane.
The fact that that's the case is quite bizarre too, given the car number's history in the 17-plus seasons that have unfolded since that historic victory.
In total, 297 races have been contested since then, and 277 have featured a No. 7 car. During that stretch, the car has been on the podium 20 times, including six times this year with Lundgaard behind the wheel. Nine of those finishes are runner-up finishes, including three from Lundgaard.
Other podium finishers in the No. 7 car since Patrick's win include Patrick and Simon Pagenaud with three each, Mikhail Aleshin and Alexander Rossi with two each, and James Jakes, Marcus Ericsson, Oliver Askew, and Felix Rosenqvist with one each.
Even crazier is the fact that teammates of the No. 7 driver, during that stretch, have collected 20 wins. Pato O'Ward leads all drivers with nine, including two this year, followed by James Hinchcliffe with three, Tony Kanaan, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Simon Pagenaud each with two, and Mike Conway and Marco Andretti each with one.
Maybe the No. 7 is not so lucky after all. Or maybe, just maybe, Lundgaard, the highest driver in the point standings without a win (fourth) this year, can finally break this absurd Patrick streak that just seems like it doesn't want to go away.
Or maybe, if McLaren are smart, if they are the superstitious type, they'll move Lundgaard to the No. 6 car next year. Just a thought. Anything to beat Palou, right?