Colton Herta Sets New Track Record for Pole at Long Beach Grand Prix

Colton Herta dominated qualifying for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, winning the pole position with a new track record time of 1:05.309, nine tenths of a second faster than the previous record.

Herta won every segment of qualifying that he was a part of, each time breaking the provisional track record in a dazzling display of speed.

“As a young kid I always dreamed of becoming an IndyCar driver, and that’s because of this race,” Herta said at the end of the session.

“To get the win last year was amazing, and we checked another box off today with the pole. It feels incredible.”

Six of the fastest cars this weekend were in Group One, and Herta topped the group followed by Alexander Rossi, Felix Rosenqvist, Scott McLaughlin and rookie Kyle Kirkwood. Graham Rahal looked like he was going to make it, but missed out by one tenth of a second to Marcus Ericsson. Rahal was impeded by Jimmie Johnson, who received a penalty for being in the way.

Group Two saw Romain Grosjean match his teammate at the top of their respective groups, with Simon Pagenaud, Will Power, Josef Newgarden, Alex Palou and Pato O’Ward advancing. O’Ward struggled greatly in the practice sessions, and making the fast twelve was a huge boost for not just the young Mexican, but Arrow McLaren SP as a whole with both cars advancing. Power’s last lap bumped Helio Castroneves, who holds the record for pole positions at Long Beach, out of the top six. He will start fourteenth. Scott Dixon was not happy with his performance, eliminated from the group and starting sixteenth.

Herta once again led the fast twelve, followed by his teammate Rossi, Rosenqvist, Grosjean, Newgarden and Palou. After a moment of deliberation for possible incidents between Power and Grosjean and McLaughlin and Ericsson, no further action was taken and the fast six was set.

Drama came late in the fast six, as Grosjean slapped the wall in turn four and went head-on into the turn five barrier. The red flag was thrown with two seconds left in the session, and many drivers thought that would mark the end of the session and had gotten out of their cars. IndyCar announced after the crash that one more lap of racing would be allowed, since the rulebook states that six minutes of running in the third segment of qualifying is guaranteed. Rosenqvist and Rossi were the only takers on this offer, and both failed to improve on their times.

Grosjean was set to start on the outside of the front row before his crash, but now it will be Newgarden sitting alongside the polesitter Herta. Palou will start third alongside Rosenqvist, who is starting in the top five for the second week in a row, in fourth. Fifth will go to Rossi, who already looks like his old self this weekend at his home track, alongside Grosjean in sixth.

Power and Ericsson find themselves on row four, starting seventh and eighth respectively, with McLaughlin and Pagenaud rounding out the top ten.

Kirkwood, as he’s been all weekend, was the fastest of the rookies, advancing into the fast twelve and starting twelfth. The next highest-finishing rookie would have been Devlin DeFrancesco, but he will be serving a six-position grid penalty for the incidents he was involved in during the Xpel 375 at Texas Motor Speedway. Instead, David Malukas is the second best rookie qualifier starting eighteenth, just ahead of Christian Lundgaard in nineteenth.

Callum Ilott will start twenty-first, while DeFrancesco will be knocked to twenty-third because of the penalty. Tatiana Calderon rounds out the rookie field, starting twenty-sixth.

The grid is set for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, with the green flag set to drop tomorrow at 1200 PT / 1500 ET / 1900 GMT.

Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach – Qualifying Results

RANK	CAR NO.	DRIVER	NAT	TEAM	BEST TIME
1	26	Colton Herta	USA	Andretti Autosport	01:05.3095 (TR)
2	2	Josef Newgarden	USA	Team Penske	01:05.7550
3	10	Alex Palou	ESP	Chip Ganassi Racing	01:05.8667
4	7	Felix Rosenqvist	SWE	Arrow McLaren SP	01:05.9349
5	27	Alexander Rossi	USA	Andretti Autosport	01:06.0674
6	28	Romain Grosjean	FRA	Andretti Autosport	No Time
7	12	Will Power	AUS	Team Penske	01:05.8745
8	8	Marcus Ericsson	SWE	Chip Ganassi Racing	01:05.9548
9	3	Scott McLaughlin	NZL	Team Penske	01:06.0507
10	60	Simon Pagenaud	FRA	Meyer Shank Racing	01:06.0678
11	5	Pato O’Ward	MEX	Arrow McLaren SP	01:06.0726
12	14	Kyle Kirkwood (R)	USA	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	01:06.2604
13	15	Graham Rahal	USA	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	01:06.6896
14	06	Helio Castroneves	BRA	Meyer Shank Racing	01:06.2467
15	21	Rinus VeeKay	NED	Ed Carpenter Racing	01:06.7049
16	9	Scott Dixon	NZL	Chip Ganassi Racing	01:06.3241
17	20	Conor Daly	USA	Ed Carpenter Racing	01:06.4489
18	18	David Malukas (R)	USA	Dale Coyne Racing w/ HMD Motorsports	01:06.7925
19	30	Christian Lundgaard (R)	DEN	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	01:06.5049
20	45	Jack Harvey	GBR	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	01:06.9708
21	77	Callum Ilott (R)	GBR	Juncos Hollinger Racing	01:06.6672
22	51	Takuma Sato	JPN	Dale Coyne Racing w/ Rick Ware Racing	01:07.1001
23	29	Devlin DeFrancesco (R)	CAN	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport	01:06.7418*
24	4	Dalton Kellett	CAN	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	01:06.7679
25	48	Jimmie Johnson	USA	Chip Ganassi Racing	01:09.0287
26	11	Tatiana Calderon (R)	COL	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	01:07.4789

(R) = Rookie, (TR) = Track Record, * = Serving six place grid penalty