Alexander Rossi dominated proceedings at Long Beach to score his first victory of the 2019 IndyCar season by over 20 seconds, repeating his 2018 victory from pole position.
The Andretti driver was never seriously challenged after he led the field away. Scott Dixon made two bids to pass him on the outside of turn one – once at the start and again a few laps later after the race’s only caution period – but to no avail.Josef Newgarden took second place and maintained his championship lead after Penske left him out late in the first stint, lifting him ahead of Dixon. Newgarden’s team mate Will Power got ahead as well but ran into trouble after his car faltered at the hairpin. That allowed Dixon to attack, Power locked a wheel at turn one, and slithered into the run-off.
Dixon’s race was spoiled by a slow final pit stop which cost him around eight seconds which dropped him behind Grahal Rahal and Ryan Hunter-Reay. But he grabbed the final podium place in controversial circumstances on the last lap.
Hunter-Reay faltered just as he was beginning to challenge Rahal, allowed Dixon by into fourth. As the final lap began Dixon, with over 20 seconds of push-to-pass, was climbing all over the rear wing of Rahal, who’d spent his boost fighting off Hunter-Reay.
Rahal locked up into turn eight on the final lap and Dixon swung out from behind him to pass. But Rahal moved across and the pair made contact. Dixon slotted in behind his rival but erupted in fury on the radio. Moments after they pulled up in the pits race control confirmed Rahal had been penalised, and Dixon promoted to third behind Newgarden.
Hunter-Reay took fifth ahead of Simon Page, Power, Takuma Sato, James Hinchcliffe and Felix Rosenqvist. COTA winner Colton Herta retired after hitting the wall at turn nine.
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Video: 2019 IndyCar Grand Prix of Long Beach highlights
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RB13
15th April 2019, 10:19
Kudos to Sky for keeping the feed rolling without commentary when the American’s take an ad break every 30 seconds. Now they just need their own commentary feed and the broadcast will be quite alright.
Didi
15th April 2019, 10:53
Feel sorry for American viewers having to put up with ad break after ad break. And even when they come back from ads they film something else going on off track for a while.
Lancer033 (@lancer033)
15th April 2019, 14:39
I’ve actually been trying to figure out how ESPN is getting away with not doing commercials for F1. Doesn’t seem sustainable when anything else could play in those time slots and make more money for them.
Radoye
15th April 2019, 15:44
A sponsor has paid full fee for all ad breaks during F1 broadcasts so that there will be no ads shown on ESPN.
Which is great because here in Canada we get the same SkyF1 broadcast on TSN but with ad breaks covering much of the action. And i find the US-style coverage easier to follow even with ads because the broadcast team is at least aware of the breaks and if something significant happened during them they will follow it up when they are back on air. Canadian F1 coverage is absolutely the worst.
Lancer033 (@lancer033)
15th April 2019, 22:44
@Radoye that’s good to know, thanks. We had 1 race where they cut to commercials and it was horrible, but I want ESPN to be making money so they keep showing it.
Matt Jones (@mattj)
16th April 2019, 18:20
IndyCar really need a proper world feed. They could take the NBC guys and just have them continue commentary when NBC goes to commercial. Like what happened on the F1 world feed when the ITV commentary was used. Either that or provide a full non stop commentary.