Colton Herta, who won last year’s IndyCar Grand Prix of Long Beach from 14th on the grid, will start this year’s race from pole position after setting a new course record during qualifying on Saturday.
Herta had the dominant car throughout all three stages of qualifying, leading his group in the first round, then leading the second round. He took pole with a time of 1’05.310, which eclipsed Hélio Castroneves’ previous course record set in 2017, by nearly a full second.What could have been an all-Andretti Autosport front row was thrown out with just two seconds left in the Fast Six session, when Romain Grosjean, the fastest driver in the morning’s practice session, crashed into the barrier at turn five. He was able to drive his wounded car back to the pits, but had his fastest lap time deleted for causing a red flag, moving him down to sixth on the grid.
That moved Josef Newgarden, the winner of the previous race at Texas Motor Speedway, to the outside of the front row alongside Herta.
Reigning IndyCar champion Álex Palou starts third, at the venue where he clinched the 2021 title. He’ll be followed by McLaren SP driver Felix Rosenqvist, who had another great qualifying effort in fourth, and two-time Long Beach winner Alexander Rossi in fifth, still looking for his first victory since 2019. Herta will look to replicate Rossi’s feat of winning back-to-back Long Beach Grands Prix in 2018-19.
Will Power, who Grosjean beat to the last Fast Six berth by a one ten-thousandth of a second, qualified in seventh place. Marcus Ericsson was eighth, championship leader Scott McLaughlin ninth, and Friday practice pace setter Simon Pagenaud was tenth.
Pato O’Ward and top rookie Kyle Kirkwood will share the sixth row, qualifying 11th and 12th respectively.
Graham Rahal missed out on advancing to second round qualifying after being impeded by Jimmie Johnson. Johnson finished last in Group One and will start 25th, driving with a broken bone in his right hand that he sustained after crashing into the turn five wall during Friday practice.
Scott Dixon and Rinus VeeKay were also eliminated during the first round of qualifying – Dixon will start 14th, ahead of VeeKay in 15th.
Rookie Devlin DeFrancesco will start tomorrow’s race from 23rd after a six-place grid penalty handed down before the weekend, for avoidable contact in the previous race at Texas – specifically, for his role in a multi-car accident that took himself, Rahal, and Castroneves out of the 375 mile race.
Tomorrow’s 38th running of the Long Beach Grand Prix begins at 8:45 PM BST.
Position | Car | Driver | Team | Engine |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 26 | Colton Herta | Andretti | Honda |
2 | 2 | Josef Newgarden | Penske | Chevrolet |
3 | 10 | Alex Palou | Ganassi | Honda |
4 | 7 | Felix Rosenqvist | McLaren SP | Chevrolet |
5 | 27 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti | Honda |
6 | 28 | Romain Grosjean | Andretti | Honda |
7 | 12 | Will Power | Penske | Chevrolet |
8 | 8 | Marcus Ericsson | Ganassi | Honda |
9 | 3 | Scott McLaughlin | Penske | Chevrolet |
10 | 60 | Simon Pagenaud | Meyer Shank | Honda |
11 | 5 | Pato O’Ward | McLaren SP | Chevrolet |
12 | 14 | Kyle Kirkwood | Foyt | Chevrolet |
13 | 15 | Graham Rahal | RLL | Honda |
14 | 6 | Helio Castroneves | Meyer Shank | Honda |
15 | 21 | Rinus VeeKay | Carpenter | Chevrolet |
16 | 9 | Scott Dixon | Ganassi | Honda |
17 | 20 | Conor Daly | Carpenter | Chevrolet |
18 | 18 | David Malukas | Coyne/HMD | Honda |
19 | 30 | Christian Lundgaard | RLL | Honda |
20 | 45 | Jack Harvey | RLL | Honda |
21 | 77 | Callum Ilott | Juncos Hollinger | Chevrolet |
22 | 51 | Takuma Sato | Coyne/RWR | Honda |
23 | 29 | Devlin DeFrancesco | Andretti Steinbrenner | Honda |
24 | 4 | Dalton Kellett | Foyt | Chevrolet |
25 | 48 | Jimmie Johnson | Ganassi | Honda |
26 | 11 | Tatiana Calderon | Foyt | Chevrolet |
amian
10th April 2022, 13:06
Can’t wait for the race! Especially as the F1 GP was to early for me today.
RandomMallard
10th April 2022, 13:33
Herta seems to absolutely love these street tracks. Convincingly won Long Beach last year despite not making out of the first segment of qualifying and then he goes and completely obliterates the lap record here. And he dominated the Nashville weekend last year until one small lock-up put him in the wall right near the end as he was chasing down Ericsson.
RandomMallard
10th April 2022, 21:58
Turns out Nashville was good foreshadowing…