Colton Herta Takes Long Beach Pole With Record Lap
Colton Herta is picking up right where he left off at Long Beach. After winning the race last season, the Andretti Autosport driver captured pole position for tomorrow's race with a record-breaking lap in the Firestone Fast Six. Herta posted a blistering lap at 65.3095 seconds to earn his eighth career pole.
"I mean, as a young kid, I always dreamed of being an IndyCar driver and that’s because of this race,” Herta said. "And so, finally to get the win last year was amazing and we checked another box off today with the pole. Super happy with how it went, the car is really good and we’re starting from the best spot tomorrow. Thrilled to finally get a pole here. It feels incredible."
"The car feels very different to St. Pete on these red tires, which are the exact same ones," Herta stated. "So it’s interesting. It’s a weird puzzle to find out, but it seems like we have a good car right now and we’ll try some stuff and try to help the car out a, a little bit tomorrow in the warmup and then see how we go in the race."
This Long Beach race will start just how the last one ended, with Josef Newgarden right behind Herta. After winning the most recent race at Texas Motor Speedway, Newgarden is aiming to make it three-for-three to start the season for Team Penske. The driver of the No. 2 Chevrolet has never won at Long Beach but has finished runner-up in the last two races here.
Reigning series champion Alex Palou will start on the inside of Row 2 along with Felix Rosenqvist, who had a much-needed impressive outing for the Arrow McLaren SP team. Row 3 features two more Andretti drivers in two-time Long Beach winner Alexander Rossi and his new teammate Romain Grosjean.
While Grosjean did not have an official lap, he was on a pole run when he lost control of his No. 28 Honda and went into the tire barrier. It was a disappointing end of the day for him, but he did pace the field during practice earlier in the morning, and will certainly be a factor in tomorrow’s race.
Will Power just missed out on the Firestone Fast Six by 0.0001 seconds. The Team Penske driver was furious that series officials did not penalize Grosjean for slowing at the hairpin. Power has three poles and six podium finishes at Long Beach, including his two race wins in 2008 and 2012.
Marcus Ericsson has been one of the strongest Ganassi drivers this weekend and will start 8th. Scott McLaughlin starts 9th and Simon Pagenaud rolls off in the 10th starting spot. Pato O'Ward started Friday off on a sour note by slapping the concrete wall, but has rebounded nicely and will start 11th.
Kyle Kirkwood has had an excellent weekend so far, showing strong pace in practice and in qualifying. The driver of the No. 14 AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet starts 12th tomorrow.
One of the biggest surprises in qualifying was the mistake made by six-time series champion Scott Dixon. The 2015 race winner has finished inside the top four in five out of the last six races here but will have his work cut out for him tomorrow as he starts 16th in his No. 8 Honda machine.
“In the last section I pushed and didn’t have to,” Dixon admits. “It’s one of those things that, it’s shame if you do, shame if you don’t. I did, and I made a mistake and the car got on the marbles and I lost the front. I’m really frustrated, because we have a phenomenal car. But this is not the race, right? It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish. We’re going to focus on the race and I know we can have a good result there.”
Helio Castroneves had started 1st, 1st, 1st, and 3rd in his last four Long Beach races but the four-time Indy 500 winner just missed advancing in the first round and will start 14th tomorrow.
The qualifying struggles continued for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing as Graham Rahal, Jack Harvey, and Christian Lundgaard all failed to advance out of the first round. Graham missed advancing by just a tenth of a second, and was impeded by Jimmie Johnson as the Ganassi driver was leaving pit lane. The three RLL Honda machines will start 13th, 20th, and 21st tomorrow.
Adding insult to injury, Johnson was given a penalty for the near run-in with Rahal. The driver of the No. 48 Honda will be racing tomorrow despite the fractured hand suffered in a practice crash yesterday. It has been a disastrous weekend so far for Johnson, but he remains optimistic heading into tomorrow.
"I had no pain on track. I felt great. Just trying to go too fast into Turn 1 and locked the tires and got wide," Johnson said. "I'm more disappointed in myself making the mistake and tearing up the car again, but from an injury standpoint, I feel really good. I just hate making mistakes, and I've made two now."
Rookie Devlin DeFrancesco qualified 17th today but will serve a six-position grid penalty for "avoidable contact" during last month's race at Texas. The Andretti driver was involved in a collision with Rahal and Castroneves which was deemed to be in violation of Rule 9.3.3 in the IndyCar rule book.
Coverage for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach begins at 3 PM ET tomorrow on NBC.
