IndyCar: Kirkwood holds off Grosjean for Andretti team 1-2 in Long Beach

Andretti Autosport youngster Kyle Kirkwood, in only his 3rd race for the team, drove like a veteran to hold off teammate Romain Grosjean to win the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Starting from the pole, Kirkwood led early, lost the lead to Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden after being balked in traffic, kept his cool and saved fuel behind the veteran, then drove some rapid laps using the overcut to take the lead on his final pitstop.

After that, he controlled the lead at the front and drove to victory, his first-ever NTT  INDYCAR Series win.

Kirkwood led the most laps – 53 out of 85 laps.

Marcus Ericsson came home third in the #8 Chip Ganassi Honda, while Colton Herta gave Andretti Autosport three cars in the top-4 with a 4th-place finish.

Marcus Ericsson came home third in the #8 Chip Ganassi Honda, while Colton Herta gave Andretti Autosport three cars in the top-4 with a 4th-place finish.

Alex Palou rounded out the top-5 in the #10 Ganassi Honda as Honda finished 1-2-3-4-5.

Kyle Kirkwood

“I knew that we could go out there and do it. One thing that’s really nice about Michael, he obviously has so much information that he can share with us, but he knows that he’s hired a ton of good people that will get the job done, with that being Bryan Herta, who has kind of mentored me through this entire weekend.”

“Michael (Andretti) pretty much told me, like, This weekend, if you’re up front, we’ve already done the hard part, the rest of it is pretty easy for you. You’re going to be surprised how easy it is to win a race when you’ve already done the hard work, and you’re out front, and you’re doing all the right things and you have a fast car.”

“He’s exactly right.”

“It’s going to be just like the Road to Indy, anything you’ve ever done. You won a ton of races.”

“He was really the one that kept my head cool. Once Newgarden got in front of us at one point in that race, he had me push a few laps, then calm down, try to get Newgarden to use up his tires. I think we played a fantastic strategy with all that. Everyone at the team has been calm all weekend long. That helps me as a young driver just keep my head straight.”

Marcus Ericsson

” I think it was a great weekend for us. We had tying best qualifying results for me. I think we had a really good race going today.”

“The only sort of issue we had in the race was that restart when Pato decided to dive down there and try to take out a lot of cars. Got caught out in that. Had to almost stop the car. I think I lost five or six positions there. From there on, it was tough.”

“We had the pace in the car to fight for the win today. So it was a good recovery to come back and still finish on the podium. I think the pace on the last stint was amazing. Really, really happy.”

“Like Romain said, we had Honda one through five yesterday in qualifying, Honda one through five in the Long Beach Grand Prix. Well done to them.”

Romain Grosjean

Romain Grosjean was happy to have his second place finish finally.  The Frenchman talked about his day after the race.

“First thing we’ve got to say is congratulations to the whole team, first, second, fourth. It’s been awesome, a good weekend. Kyle has done an amazing job in qualifying and again in the race. I mean, he didn’t make any mistake in front of me.”

“We had a great strategy, did a very good job. Had a very fast car. Because the way the race turn up, I have to save a lot of fuel on the last stint. I had 188 second of push to pass left, but I was not allowed to use it. For once I saved too much, I guess.”

“It sucks. I just wanted to push the button and I wasn’t allowed to [in order to not run out of fuel].”

Lucille Dust reporting live from Long Beach

Race Results