The 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series champion, who last year finished runner-up in the points race for the fourth time, said that he expects all four Penske drivers to be in contention for the title.

He told Motorsport.com: “If you look at the drivers, Simon [Pagenaud, reigning champion] will be as strong as ever, obviously. Last year the season really flowed for him. He had his bad times, too, but he was on top of things in every respect so obviously he’s the benchmark for everyone going into this season.

“Then Helio [Castroneves] is always a threat on any type of track we run on. Still really quick. And Josef [Newgarden, Penske’s replacement for Juan Pablo Montoya] is definitely going to have a shot at the title. The way I look at it, he was a contender for most of 2016 even before he joined Penske, so it’s logical he’s going to be even stronger now he's with us.

“So I still think our team is the best, and I think opposition-wise, it really depends on how much progress Honda has made with its engine this off-season. If they’ve only matched Chevy’s progress, I think it’s going to be hard for anyone to contend with Penske, at least, over a whole season. I think we could even get a 1-2-3-4 in the championship. We got 1-2-3 last year, and in 2014 we had a 1-2-4...

Asked if he thought opposition from Chip Ganassi Racing would be tougher or weaker as a result of switching from Chevrolet to Honda, Power said: “I don't know. It's an interesting situation for Ganassi, isn’t it? Honda has some good stuff and their kit is light, but I still think it’s probably too draggy on the road and street courses and short ovals.

"To be fair, I think having a team like Ganassi running Honda will be the first time we’ve had a true indication of where Honda are, relative to Chevy. And everyone knows that Ganassi is one of those teams that's great at adapting quickly to a new situation, like having a new engine and aero.

"But I think that when the margins are as tight as they are in IndyCar, you don’t need to be off by much to be nowhere, and we’re not allowed much testing this off-season. So I reckon there might be days when it’s tough for them to even be the best Hondas, at least in the early part of the season, because you’ve got Rahal and Schmidt who can be very strong, too.

“So, yeah, I’d say we should still have the advantage over Ganassi.”

Personal preparation back to normal

Last season, illness forced Power to miss the opening race after setting pole position, and left him without the energy to do much gym training. It was a situation that affected his performance in a few key races, due to the huge amounts of downforce and lack of power-steering in the current IndyCar.

But as his health improved, so too did his results. Power took four victories from mid-season and came within 20 points of teammate Pagenaud with three rounds to go. However, two DNFs spelt the end of his championship challenge.

Nonetheless, Power refused to say that the illness was the reason he lost title.

“We’ve had a close look at where our weaknesses were,” last year. “It’s definitely not a situation where we just blame the illness. We definitely have found a few areas where we fell short and we understand why. There’s always things that you can improve upon.

“For example, at Sonoma, we got some things wrong in qualifying which is why we were only fourth, behind our teammates. There was a bit of a brake balance issue, but we also headed in the wrong direction with another setup change that we’d made to deal with the wind direction. In fact, if we’d just stuck to what we had in the test a week earlier, we’d have been in better shape.

“It’s getting those little things wrong that can make the difference when you’ve got three strong teammates and they get it right.”

A busy but fit daddy

Since becoming a father last month, Power said he was “keeping busy” looking after baby Beau, but that it hadn’t affected his season’s physical preparation.

“Nah, fitness-wise, it's night and day different from last year – which isn’t hard! Gym training has gone well, I feel really good – on a good diet, a good program.

“And then, like I say, me and Dave [Faustino, his race engineer] have just been looking at the areas we need to improve. Like at Indy, we have to get better, because we know Honda turned up last year with very good horsepower there, and there are a couple of characteristics of the track that make it good for them. So when they supply half the field – more than half the field this year – we know we’re gonna have a lot of opposition there. For our #12 team, I’d say we need to find a bit more in ever single aspect of the car there.”

Aside from trying to score Team Penske’s 17th Indy 500 win, Power singled out two other venues where he’s particularly keen to find Victory Lane.

“Mid-Ohio is one that I’ve been trying to win for so long, man,” he said. “We’ve had three second places there, a couple of poles, but never got the job done. And that’s definitely one that got away last year when we were leading and I was asleep on the final restart.

“And I haven’t won at Long Beach for a few years… always cool to win there.

“But I’m just saying I want to win them, not that I have to win them. I don’t like setting targets like that. When you do that, you always fail because you’ve brought in this extra pressure which you don’t need if you’re already trying to win at every race you go to.”