Team Penske’s Will Power has harbored hard feelings toward Chip Ganassi Racing driver Charlie Kimball ever since last September’s crash at Watkins Glen International that left the driver from Australia with a concussion and affected his shot at the 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series championship.

Another incident between the two drivers on the first lap of Sunday’s 43rd Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach escalated their relationship from simmering to a full-boil feud.

The two drivers were racing side by side from turn one until the collision in turn four sent Power’s Chevrolet into the wall. Power had to wait for the safety crew to refire the engine so the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series champion could return to the pits and replace the front wing assembly. Power returned to the track and finished 13th, one lap off the pace. Kimball’s Honda suffered a broken rear suspension and he was out of the race on lap one.

When approached by Autoweek after the race, Power had some strong words for Kimball.

“This guy is a big problem,” Power told Autoweek. “He always has been. He is the only one that has incidents in every race. He is the only one. The only guy. He is a big problem. I’m going to let him know it, too.

“I’m so sick of this guy. He ruined my championship last year at Watkins Glen. He did. Yes, yes. I’m really, really mad at him.”

Last September at Watkins Glen, Power was legitimately in a fierce title fight with Team Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud before he was involved in a crash with Kimball coming out of turn four on lap 39 of the 11-turn, 3.37-mile road course.

Power’s Chevy drilled into the tire barrier and hit the steel reinforcement, bringing the car to a sudden stop. Power was taken to the infield care center, where he was treated and released with concussion-like symptoms. After he exited the care center, Power had some strong words for Kimball, a driver from the United States who has a fairly clean reputation on the race track from his fellow competitors.

“It’s just racing with Kimball, that’s expected,” Power said at the time. “No one in the paddock likes racing him. They all talk about it -- he’s the most dangerous guy on the track. I haven’t seen the replay, but he’s just a pain in the ass. It was very disappointing.”

Power entered the Watkins Glen race 28 points behind Pagenaud of France in the battle for the 2016 championship. After the crash, Power finished 20th in the 22-car field and headed into the final race of the 2016 season at Sonoma Raceway 43 points behind Pagenaud.

Fast forward to the start of the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series season in the March 12 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Kimball crashed into Graham Rahal on the first lap of that race. Rahal had some strong words involving the driver after that incident.

And then came Sunday and another crash with Power.

“I was right up beside him and I thought he would realize that I had him and it was a bad corner,” Power said. “He just went hard and took me out.”

Naturally, Kimball saw the incident quite differently and was incredulous when told of Power’s comments.

“He’s upset with me? If Will wants to talk to me he can come talk to me,” Kimball told Autoweek. “He was behind me at that point wheel-to-wheel, right-rear to left-front. It’s hard to know he is still there, having gotten the better drive off of turn three.

“On a street circuit, it’s real close corners and went side-by-side with the 12 car (Power) through turns one, two and three and I got a better exit out of turn three and he was losing ground. I assumed that having ground out of the corner and being on my right-rear corner that I would be able to turn in for the corner. I started to turn in and then there was contact and I ended up in the wall.

“That’s unfortunate. But the encouraging part is we’ve had pretty good pace and have qualified ninth and seventh and that is better than we have done last year. The pace is there and we are saving our luck for later in the year.”

Power is a hot-tempered Australian while Kimball is a more laid-back Southern Californian from nearby Camarillo. These two drivers will be back on the track at Texas Motor Speedway on Wednesday for an open test session on the newly repaved 1.5-mile oval, so it will be interesting to see if they settle their differences there.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io