IndyCar: Acura GP of Long Beach Preview

The longest-running North American temporary street circuit motorsports event the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach returns this weekend with three days of non-stop action.

“With our U.S. headquarters nearby in Torrance, this is a true ‘home’ event for the Acura brand,” said Jon Ikeda, Acura vice president and brand officer.

“The Grand Prix of Long Beach is one of North America’s premier motorsports events, and an institution in Southern California. Acura is delighted and proud to be associated with the Grand Prix of Long Beach, and we look forward to a long and successful partnership.”

The weekend will be headlined by the season finale of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, where Honda last week clinched its 10th – and fourth consecutive – Indy car Manufacturers’ Championship; and Honda-powered driver Alex Palou reclaimed the Drivers’ Championship points lead and could claim his first title.

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will be the feature event on Saturday, where Wayne Taylor Racing drivers Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque lead the Drivers’ Championship in their Acura ARX-05, after eight of 10 events.

In addition, the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach weekend will include the Super Drift Challenge under the lights on Friday and Saturday nights, the SPEED Energy Stadium Super Trucks, and the new-for-2021 Historic Formula Atlantic Challenge and Global Time Attack.

Live network television coverage Sunday’s 95-lap NTT INDYCAR SERIES finale starts at 3 p.m. EDT on NBC.  Complete, flag-to-flag race coverage also will be available on NBC Peacock, the INDYCAR Radio Network, and carried by SiriusXM satellite radio.

Saturday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race will be broadcast on NBCSN, starting at 5 p.m. EDT.  Live flag-to-flag race coverage also will be available NBC Sports Gold TrackPass, on NBCSports.com  and the NBC Sports App with NBCSN authentication.

Banner Year for Ganassi

Barring a dramatic turn of events, Chip Ganassi Racing is going to celebrate yet another INDYCAR championship, its 14th in the sport, second only to Team Penske’s 16. But CGR’s season will be defined as much by depth as a single car’s accomplishment.

Palou heads to the finale with a chance to win his fourth race; he already leads the series with three, and he finished second to Helio Castroneves in the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge. Dixon (No. 9 PNC Bank Grow Up Great Honda) and Marcus Ericsson (No. 8 Huski Chocolate Honda) are positioned to give the Indianapolis-based organization three of the top five season finishers, and the trio already have combined for six wins.

Palou would be Chip Ganassi’s sixth different driver to win an INDYCAR title, following Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi (twice), Juan Pablo Montoya, Dixon (six times) and Dario Franchitti (three times). But dive deeper and consider the decisions Ganassi and managing director Mike Hull made last year as the pandemic-impacted season was wreaking havoc with the schedule.

Ganassi and Hull chose to bring Palou to the team even though statistically there wasn’t much to foretell this kind of success. Palou had only one top-five finish and three top 10s and one podium finish last season with Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh. Palou ended the year 16th in points with only one lap led, that coming through pit cycles late in the season-ending race in St. Petersburg. He finished 13th.

Ericsson joined CGR in 2020, but he, like Palou, didn’t have a basket full of impressive results last season. The Swede failed to score a podium finish, crashed out of the “500” early and led only four laps during the season. Yet, like Palou, he took a big step this year, winning twice (in Detroit and Nashville), the latter impressive for the way he held back Colton Herta, the NTT P1 Award winner dominating the weekend in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda of Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian.

CGR also deserves high marks for the way it brought along Jimmie Johnson, the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion driving the No. 48 Carvana Honda. The difficulty of Johnson’s acclimation process can’t be overstated, yet he has improved seemingly with each outing and handled last weekend’s challenge at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca like a pro, scoring his best finish of the season (17th). The way he handled contact from Romain Grosjean at the top of the Corkscrew showed incredible car control.

Add it up. Ganassi likes winners, and he has a cast of them this season.

The End of a Winning Combination

Sunday, Ryan Hunter-Reay will compete for the final time in the No. 28 DHL Honda of Andretti Autosport.

Hunter-Reay joined Michael Andretti’s organization for the start of the 2010 season in what was initially described as a three-race deal. But Hunter-Reay finished second to Team Penske’s Will Power in his maiden race and then scored his fourth career INDYCAR victory at Long Beach in his fourth start with Andretti.

“Luckily, he won Long Beach that year and that turned it into a full-year sponsorship,” Andretti said in a video recently released by the team.

That win was personally gratifying for Hunter-Reay as it came five months after his mother, Lydia, lost her battle with colon cancer. In her memory, Hunter-Reay formed Racing for Cancer, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing the motorsports community together to promote early detection and prevention initiatives that support the global fight against cancer.

Sponsored by DHL since 2011, Hunter-Reay has amassed 15 victories with the Indianapolis-based team, including the 2014 Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge in which he held off Helio Castroneves by .0600 of a second, the second-closest finish in “500” history.

Hunter-Reay won the 2012 series championship with four race wins. He enters his 198th start with the team possessing six poles, 1,276 laps led and 42 podium finishes.

Alexander Rossi (No. 27 NAPA AUTO PARTS/AutoNation Honda) has called him “without a doubt, the best teammate I’ve ever had.”

Hunter-Reay has the third-longest tenure with the same team among active drivers. Dixon has been with Chip Ganassi Racing since the middle of the 2002 season while Power joined Team Penske for the first race of 2009.

Fun Watching the Rookies

Think back to the start of the season and the enthusiasm building for this rookie class, easily the most decorated in INDYCAR history.

Johnson arrived sixth in NASCAR history with 83 Cup Series victories and the seven championships that has him tied with Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. Scott McLaughlin had just finished winning his third consecutive Australian V8 Supercars title. Grosjean was a 10-year Formula One veteran with 10 podium finishes. The group has not scored a victory this season, but they have been in contention for a win on several occasions.

Grosjean (No. 51 Nurtec ODT Honda of Dale Coyne Racing with RWR) won the NTT P1 Award in qualifying for the GMR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in May, then delivered the first of two second-place finishes on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile circuit. Grosjean’s late-race march through the field last weekend at Laguna Seca earned him his third podium finish in 12 races, and he has finished in the top 10 six times.

McLaughlin (No. 3 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet) was new to the oval tracks, but he has handled them in impressive fashion. He finished second and eighth at Texas Motor Speedway and finished fourth at World Wide Technology Raceway. At Indy, he stayed on the lead lap, completing all 200 laps despite finishing 20th.

The 82 points McLaughlin scored in the four oval races is the reason why he has a 20-point lead over Grosjean for the Rookie of the Year Award. McLaughlin can clinch the crown by finishing third or better.

Should McLaughlin hang on, he will become the first Team Penske driver to win the award that dates to 1979.

Eyes on Harvey, Pagenaud, Too

Jack Harvey has already announced this will be his final race with Meyer Shank Racing, a pairing that began with the 2017 Indianapolis 500.

Harvey was to drive a different Andretti Autosport entry in that race, but the team asked its partner, Michael Shank, to take Harvey’s Indy-only program to accommodate Fernando Alonso’s interest in competing in the race in a joint venture between McLaren and Andretti.

Harvey has helped MSR grow into a full-time, two-car operation, and a byproduct was Castroneves’ “500” victory in May. Further sign of MSR’s growth, a new 43,000 square-foot race shop is under construction in Pataskala, Ohio.

MSR has announced that Castroneves will continue in the No. 06 Meyer Shank Racing Honda in a full-time role in 2022, and there is media speculation that Simon Pagenaud will replace Harvey in the No. 60 AutoNation/SiriusXM Honda. Pagenaud has driven for Team Penske since the beginning of the 2015 season, winning 11 races, including the 2019 “500,” and the 2016 series championship.

Castroneves and Pagenaud were INDYCAR teammates at Team Penske for three seasons (2015-17).

Additional Awards at Stake

Honda clinched its fourth consecutive Manufacturers Award and 10th overall at last weekend’s race at Laguna Seca, an ideal punctuation to the 25th anniversary of the company’s first manufacturers’ title in 1996. Honda-powered cars have won nine of the 15 races this season, and its drivers occupy five of the top seven positions in the standings.

The driver’s championship and the Rookie of the Year Award are still up for grabs, but there are two other honors to be secured this weekend.

Herta leads Newgarden and O’Ward in the three-driver chase for the NTT P1 Award, presented to the pole winner that scores the most points after winning the NTT P1 Award at a race. Each of these drivers has won three poles this season, but Herta’s lead in the category is based on winning two of the three races in which he has started from the top spot. Newgarden won the award in 2018, and Team Penske drivers have captured the past seven awards.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan drivers Takuma Sato and Graham Rahal are the top contenders for TAG Heuer’s “Don’t Crack Under Pressure” Award given to the driver who advances the most cumulative places during the season. Sato has advanced 87 positions, Rahal 80. Also in contention are Ericsson (78) and Hunter-Reay (65).

Entry List

	CAR	DRIVER	HOMETOWN	CAR NAME	TEAM	ENGINE
1	2	Josef Newgarden	Nashville, Tennessee	Hitachi Team Penske	Team Penske	Chevrolet
2	3	Scott McLaughlin (R)	Christchurch, New Zealand	PPG Team Penske	Team Penske	Chevrolet
3	4	Dalton Kellett	Stouffville, Canada	K-Line Insulators / A J Foyt Racing	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	Chevrolet
4	5	Pato O’Ward	Monterrey, Mexico	Arrow McLaren SP	Arrow McLaren SP	Chevrolet
5	06	Helio Castroneves	Sao Paulo, Brazil	Meyer Shank Racing	Meyer Shank Racing	Honda
6	7	Felix Rosenqvist	Värnamo, Sweden	Arrow McLaren SP	Arrow McLaren SP	Chevrolet
7	8	Marcus Ericsson	Kumla, Sweden	Huski Chocolate Chip Ganassi Racing	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda
8	9	Scott Dixon	Auckland, New Zealand	PNC Bank Grow Up Great	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda
9	10	Alex Palou	Barcelona, Spain	NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda
10	11	Charlie Kimball	Camarillo, California	Tresiba / A J Foyt Racing	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	Chevrolet
11	12	Will Power	Toowoomba, Australia	Verizon 5G Team Penske	Team Penske	Chevrolet
12	14	Sebastien Bourdais	Le Mans, France	ROKiT / A J Foyt Racing	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	Chevrolet
13	15	Graham Rahal	New Albany, Ohio	Total Quartz	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda
14	18	Ed Jones	Dubai, United Arab Emirates	SealMaster	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan	Honda
15	20	Conor Daly	Noblesville, Indiana	U.S. Air Force	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevrolet
16	21	Rinus VeeKay	Hoofddorp, Netherlands	Sonax / Autogeek	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevrolet
17	22	Simon Pagenaud	Montmorillon, France	Menards Team Penske	Team Penske	Chevrolet
18	26	Colton Herta	Valencia, California	Gainbridge	Andretti Autosport w/ Curb-Agajanian	Honda
19	27	Alexander Rossi	Nevada City, California	NAPA AUTO PARTS / AutoNation	Andretti Autosport	Honda
20	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Fort Lauderdale, Florida	DHL	Andretti Autosport	Honda
21	29	James Hinchcliffe	Toronto, Canada	#ShiftToGreen	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport	Honda
22	30	Takuma Sato	Tokyo, Japan	Panasonic / Shield Cleansers	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda
23	45	Oliver Askew	Jupiter, Florida	Hy-Vee	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda
24	48	Jimmie Johnson (R)	El Cajon, California	Carvana Chip Ganassi Racing	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda
25	51	Romain Grosjean (R)	Geneva, Switzerland	Nurtec ODT	Dale Coyne Racing with RWR	Honda
26	59	Max Chilton	Reigate, England	Carlin	Carlin	Chevrolet
27	60	Jack Harvey	Bassingham, England	AutoNation/SiriusXM	Meyer Shank Racing	Honda
28	77	Callum Ilott (R)	Cambridge, England	Juncos Hollinger Racing	Juncos Hollinger Racing	Chevrolet

All cars use fourth-generation NTT INDYCAR SERIES chassis (Dallara IR12) with universal IR-18 aerodynamic bodywork, Chevrolet or Honda engines and Firestone tires.

(R) – Denotes Rookie of the Year candidate Issued: 9/21/2021

Fast Facts

Race weekend: Friday, Sept. 24 – Sunday, Sept. 26

Track: 1.968-mile, 11-turn temporary street course (clockwise) in Long Beach, California

Race distance: 85 laps / 167.28 miles

Push-to-pass parameters: 200 seconds of total time with a maximum time of 20 seconds per activation.

Firestone tire allotment: Seven sets primary, four sets alternate. Rookie drivers are allowed one extra primary set for Practice 1.

Twitter: @GPLongBeach, @IndyCar, #AGPLB, #IndyCar

Event website: www.gplb.com

INDYCAR website: www.IndyCar.com

2019 race winner (most recent): Alexander Rossi (No. 27 NAPA AUTO PARTS Honda)

2019 NTT P1 Award winner (most recent): Alexander Rossi (No. 27 NAPA AUTO PARTS Honda), 1:06.4811, 106.569 mph

Qualifying lap record: Helio Castroneves, 1:06.2254, 106.980 mph, April 8, 2017

NBCSN telecasts: Qualifying, Saturday, Sept. 25 (3 p.m. ET, live); Race, Sunday, Sept. 26 (3 p.m. ET, live). Leigh Diffey will be the play-by-play announcer for NBCSN’s telecast of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach alongside analysts Townsend Bell and Paul Tracy.

Peacock Premium Live Streaming: This weekend’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES practice sessions and NTT P1 Award qualifying will stream live on Peacock Premium, NBC’s direct-to-consumer livestreaming product.

INDYCAR Radio Network broadcasts: Mark Jaynes will be the lead announcer alongside analyst Davey Hamilton. Jake Query, Nick Yeoman and Michael Young are the turn announcers. Ryan Myrehn and Alex Wolff will report from the pits. The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will air live on network affiliates, SiriusXM 205 and 211, indycar.com and the INDYCAR Mobile app powered by NTT DATA. All NTT INDYCAR SERIES practices and qualifying are available on SiriusXM 205,  indycar.com and the INDYCAR Mobile app.

At-track schedule (all times local):

Friday, Sept. 24

3-3:45 p.m. – NTT INDYCAR SERIES practice 1, Peacock Premium (live)

Saturday, Sept. 25

9-9:45 a.m. – NTT INDYCAR SERIES practice 2, Peacock Premium (live)

12:05 p.m. – NTT INDYCAR SERIES Qualifying for the NTT P1 Award (three rounds of knockout qualifying), NBCSN/Peacock Premium (live)

Sunday, Sept. 19

9-9:30 a.m. – NTT INDYCAR SERIES warmup, Peacock Premium (live)

Noon – Driver introductions

Noon – NBCSN on air

12:38 p.m. – Start engines command

12:45 p.m. – Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach (85 laps/167.28 miles), NBCSN (live)

Championship Facts:

• Alex Palou leads the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship with one race to go for the first time in his career. Palou has led the point standings after 10 of the 15 races this season.
• There are three drivers mathematically eligible for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship: Alex Palou, Pato O’Ward and Josef Newgarden. Neither Palou nor O’Ward has won the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship. Newgarden has won the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship twice in the last four seasons (2017 and 2019).
• This is the 37th INDYCAR SERIES race on the streets of Long Beach and the first time that the INDYCAR SERIES championship will be decided at the track. The temporary street circuit routinely hosts an April race.
• The winner at Long Beach has gone on to win the championship in the same season 14 times: Mario Andretti (1984), Al Unser Jr. (1990 and 1994), Jimmy Vasser (1996), Alex Zanardi (1997 and 1998), Juan Pablo Montoya (1999), Paul Tracy (2003), Sebastien Bourdais (2005, 2006 and 2007), Dario Franchitti (2009), Scott Dixon (2015) and Simon Pagenaud (2016).

KEY CHAMPIONSHIP POINT STATISTIC: This is the 16th consecutive year that the NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion will be determined at the final race of the season.

CHAMPIONSHIP WITH ONE TO GO (2008-2021)

YEAR	LEADER	SECOND	LEAD	CHAMPION
2008	Scott Dixon	Helio Castroneves	30	Scott Dixon
2009	Scott Dixon	Dario Franchitti	5	Dario Franchitti
2010	Will Power	Dario Franchitti	12	Dario Franchitti
2011	Will Power	Dario Franchitti	11	Dario Franchitti
2012	Will Power	Ryan Hunter-Reay	17	Ryan Hunter-Reay
2013	Scott Dixon	Helio Castroneves	25	Scott Dixon
2014	Will Power	Helio Castroneves	51	Will Power
2015	Juan Pablo Montoya	Graham Rahal	34	Scott Dixon
2016	Simon Pagenaud	Will Power	43	Simon Pagenaud
2017	Josef Newgarden	Scott Dixon	3	Josef Newgarden
2018	Scott Dixon	Alexander Rossi	29	Scott Dixon
2019	Josef Newgarden	Alexander Rossi	41	Josef Newgarden
2020	Scott Dixon	Josef Newgarden	32	Scott Dixon
2021	Alex Palou	Pato O’Ward	35	?

Race Notes:

• There have been nine different winners in 15 NTT INDYCAR SERIES races this season. Alex Palou (Barber Motorsports Park, Road America, Portland International Raceway), Colton Herta (Streets of St. Petersburg, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca), Scott Dixon (Texas Motor Speedway-1), Pato O’Ward (Texas Motor Speedway-2, Raceway at Belle Isle Park-2), Rinus VeeKay (Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course-1), Helio Castroneves (Indianapolis 500), Marcus Ericsson  (Raceway at Belle Isle Park-1, Streets of Nashville), Josef Newgarden (Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, World Wide Technology Raceway) and Will Power (Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course-2) have all won in 2021. The modern record (1946-present) for most different winners in a season is 11 in 2000, 2001 and 2014.
• There have been seven different winners in the last 10 NTT INDYCAR SERIES races (Helio Castroneves, Alex Palou, Marcus Ericsson, Pato O’Ward, Josef Newgarden, Will Power and Colton Herta). The only repeat winners in that stretch are, Ericsson (Raceway at Belle Isle Park-1 and Streets of Nashville), Newgarden (Mid-Ohio and WWT Raceway) and Palou (Road America and Portland).
• This weekend’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will mark the 37th INDYCAR SERIES event on the historic street circuit. Mario Andretti won the first INDYCAR race there in 1984. Alexander Rossi won the race in 2018 and 2019. No race was held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sebastien Bourdais (2005-2007) was the last back-to-back-to-back winner at Long Beach.
• Al Unser Jr. has won the most times at Long Beach (six), while Sebastien Bourdais, Will Power and Alexander Rossi are the only entered drivers with multiple wins. Bourdais won three straight races from 2005-2007. Power won in 2008 and 2012, and Rossi won in 2018 and 2019. Other former race winners scheduled to compete are Helio Castroneves (2001), Ryan Hunter-Reay (2010), Takuma Sato (2013), Scott Dixon (2015), Simon Pagenaud (2016) and  James Hinchcliffe (2017).
• Five drivers have won the race from the pole – Mario Andretti (1984, 1985 and 1987), Al Unser Jr. (1989-90), Helio Castroneves (2001), Sebastien Bourdais (2006-07) and Alexander Rossi (2018-19).
• Twenty of the 28 drivers entered have competed in INDYCAR SERIES races at Long Beach. Sebastien Bourdais, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Will Power each have 14 starts, most among all entered drivers. Eleven entered drivers have led laps: Helio Castroneves 179, Bourdais 173, Power 170, Hunter-Reay 151, Alexander Rossi 151, Scott Dixon 103, Takuma Sato 67, Simon Pagenaud 54, James Hinchcliffe 25 and Josef Newgarden 4.
• Four California natives are entered: 2018 and 2019 race winner Alexander Rossi is a native of Nevada City, while Andretti Autosport teammate Colton Herta hails from Valencia. Charlie Kimball is from Camarillo, and NTT INDYCAR SERIES rookie Jimmie Johnson is from El Cajon.

Four NTT INDYCAR SERIES rookies – Romain Grosjean, Callum Ilott, Jimmie Johnson and Scott McLaughlin – are expected to compete. The four rookies, along with veteran drivers Oliver Askew, Dalton Kellett, Alex Palou and Rinus VeeKay, will all make their first INDYCAR SERIES start on the Streets of Long Beach.