From a first-time winner to a rookie mistake, the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach certainly had it all but who were the winners and losers from Califonia?
Winners:
Kyle Kirkwood:
It was a weekend that Kyle Kirkwood could only have dreamt of. From securing his first NTT IndyCar pole on Saturday to winning his first IndyCar race, the young American looked like he had won races in the top tier of American racing prior to Long Beach that's how good he was on Sunday. He kept his composure when he lost the lead to Josef Newgarden even if there was a tyre discrepancy between the 2 drivers. When the cautions came out, Kirkwood handled the restarts extremely well given the drivers that he had to hold behind. Kirkwood recently had a new voice on his timing stand, Brian Herta was recently moved from the 26 Gainbridge Honda of Colton Herta to the 27 Autonation Honda, and boy what a combination that could be in the future given Brian's calm voice over the radio.
Romain Grosjean:
Even though it wasn't the win that Romain Grosjean would have wanted it was still a very solid weekend for the Frenchman and one where he needed to have an incident-free race given what had happened in the last 2 races prior to Long Beach. Grosjean qualified 3rd behind his teammate Kirkwood and former F1 compatriot Marcus Ericsson. On the cross-over of the alternate tyre and the primary tyre, Grosjean slipped down to 4th behind Newgarden and was able to maintain P4 on the restart. The Frenchman was then able to take advantage of a poor divebomb from the Arrow McLaren of Pato O'Ward when the Mexican blocked Ericsson, which allowed Grosjean to overtake the Swede. Then for the rest of the race, Grosjean was able to match the pace of his teammate Kirkwood with everyone having to do a massive fuel save and had 3 times the amount of push-to-pass than his teammate but wasn't able to use it until the last 3 laps.
Marcus Ericsson:
Marcus Ericsson and championship leader is a duo that just sounds right and it is very much deserved for the Swede after getting his 2nd podium in 3 races but Long Beach was a race that could have yielded a lot more for him. Ericsson was less than a tenth of a second from securing his first pole position on older green tyres compared to Kirkwood, who was able to go fastest on sticker green tyres. Moving onto race day, Ericsson didn't get the best launch but going to the braking zone of turn 1 he was able to gain all the lost time on Kirkwood. Lap 26 was the moment where things could have undone all of the previous day's work but Ericsson never got flustered when O'Ward tried to take the position lost the rear into the tyre barrier and left Ericsson nowhere to go and hit the McLaren's front wing but nothing too bad. This then started the 'Sneaky Swedes' recovery up the field and at the end of the race he came home P3 and had the pace to win after closing down a 5-second deficit to Grosjean nevertheless, it has been a good start to the season for Ericsson.
Andretti Autosport:
Coming into 2023, it was a big year for the Andretti Autosport squad to see whether they could close the gap to Arrow McLaren, Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske but after the first 3 races of the season, the team arguably is the team to beat on the street courses. St Petersburg, the team had 3 cars into the fast 6 even though all 4 cars were involved in a crash at some point during the race they had the pace to get a good team result. Texas was just the same as St Pete all the race pace but for different reasons, they weren't able to show it with Kirkwood being involved in a pit road collision with Alexander Rossi, Devlin DeFrancesco hitting the wall then being hit by Graham Rahal, Romain Grosjean hitting the wall with 2 laps to go, only Colton Herta was able to finish in the top 7 and on the lead lap. Long Beach however was different, both Kirkwood and Grosjean looked so comfortable from the very first lap of practice to lap 85 of the race. Whatever Andretti Autosport have found on their street course package over the summer it has definitely worked and it's hard to look at anyone else who has a stronger package.
Honda:
when you're getting 5 Honda-powered cars into the fast 6 then you know you've got a strong engine and that's exactly what happened at Long Beach. Honda might feel that over one lap, they need to find some extra speed on an oval but on a street course Honda definitely has the edge over Chevrolet. When you compare the first 2 street courses in 2022 to the first 2 street courses in 2023, then you can see the difference in speed over an entire race. It will be interesting to see whether or not Honda can keep up their street course speed onto road courses and importantly the ovals.
Marus Armstrong:
Arguably the most highly anticipated rookie driver coming from Europe over the past several years. Marcus Armstrong is only doing the road and street courses this year and currently leading the 'Rookie Of The Year' battle by a point over Agustin Canapino, 11 points over Sting Ray Robb and 17 points over Benjamin Pedersen. What made Long Beach a standout moment for Armstrong is that from the get-go he looked quick which is impressive given that this was his first time around the streets of Long Beach. He made it into the Firestone Fast 12 but sadly carried way too much speed and went into the tyre barrier at Turn 9 and caused a red flag which meant that he wasn't able to carry on in qualifying which meant that he would start P12. He was able to come home in P8 in a relatively quiet drive which is usually a good thing if you get a solid result as a rookie instead of having the limelight on you.
Losers:
Pato O'Ward
A weekend of what could have been for Pato, it all started in qualifying when he was told to abort his lap and save his set of sticker greens but Pato kept pushing which cost him the chance to get the pole. Then came race day and more mistakes for the Mexican, which is truthfully rare from Pato, his race was basically done after a very ambitious move on Ericsson into Turn 8 when he locked the rear of the car and went rear first into the tyre barrier and his front wing was tapped by Ericsson and then slipped back to a 17th place finish and a lap down. Long Beach also saw O'Ward slip back to 2nd in the championship points after going into it as the leader, he is now 15 points behind leader Ericsson.
Ed Carpenter Racing:
A weekend to forget for Ed Carpenter Racing, Veekay had a crash in FP2 which was caused by a "new" kerb being added at Turn 5 that wasn't there in FP1 because of an issue in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship. Qualifying wasn't a success either for the team with Veekay starting in P19 and Daly starting in P27 and even though the race could be any worse for the team, it wasn't exactly better. Veekay suffered a mechanical DNF on lap 48 while Daly finished in P23 and 2 laps down. Street courses are something that ECR need to get on top of otherwise it will be a long hard struggle to climb up the championship standings.
Juncos Hollinger Racing:
Juncos Hollinger Racing would have been buoyed by their start to the season but Long Beach would have been a race that the team would want to get past in a hurry. FP2 was where it all began when Callum Ilott's 77 car got launched on the turn 5 kerb and sent into the tyre barrier, which frustrated the Brit.
"If they did and didn't tell us, they can pay for the damage."
Things didn't really improve for the ex-F1 test driver when a self-sustained tap of the wall on the exit of turn 1 left him with a front right puncture and dropped to last however he did record a P19 finish from a P22 start but after the start to the season that he had, it was a race that he won't have fond memories of in 12 months time.
His teammate Canapino also had a tough race, he led for 3 laps after the entire field had pitted for fuel and tyres but at the restart, his teammate Ilott was coming out of the pits just as he was coming towards turn 1. Canapino tapped the wall with left him flailing in the middle of the track which caused O'Ward to spin. He completed 52 of the 85 laps and was classified in P25.
Scott Dixon:
Scott Dixon very rarely suffers a DNF in his entire IndyCar career but to say it was a scruffy race is an understatement. Dixon was apoplectic about the start when the 2 of Josef Newgarden and the 5 of Pato O'Ward jumped the Kiwi and then on lap 20 was when his race unravelled when an ambitious divebomb from O'Ward pushed Dixon into the tyre barrier and into last place and he never really looked like having the pace to challenge for a top 15 finish. His race was finished on lap 37 when a loss of oil pressure forced the PNC Bank number 9 Chip Ganassi Racing car to retire from the race. After the collision with O'Ward, it left Dixon seething in frustration and in a fiery with NBC Sports he let his frustration be known.
"(O’Ward’s move) seemed extremely late. I can understand tire (degradation) and that kind of stuff going on, but I wouldn’t have chosen to do that,” Dixon said on the broadcast. “But if that’s how the series wants us to race, then I guess it’s all gloves off at this point."
“And the start was a complete joke as well. I don’t know what they’re doing up there (in race control), but it seemed like Rows 5 and 6 (accelerated) before (polesitter Kyle Kirkwood) did.”
It will be interesting to see if Dixon does in fact change the way he now races if the other drivers or does he stick to the style that has won him 6 championships. All will be revealed at Birmingham, Alabama next week.
Comentarios