Tag: Long Beach GP

Kirkwood grabs first career IndyCar pole at Long Beach

Kyle Kirkwood used a tire advantage to maximum effect to claim the first NTT IndyCar Series pole position of his career at Long Beach on Saturday. Kirkwood’s 1m06.2878s in the No.27 Andretti Autosport Honda was just enough to see off a late …

Kyle Kirkwood used a tire advantage to maximum effect to claim the first NTT IndyCar Series pole position of his career at Long Beach on Saturday.

Kirkwood’s 1m06.2878s in the No.27 Andretti Autosport Honda was just enough to see off a late challenge from Ganassi’s Marcus Ericsson — the Swede ultimately came up just 0.03s short — but the tone for the final battle for pole was actually set in the previous session, when Ericsson’s teammate Marcus Armstrong hit the wall in the final two minutes.

That set up a late scramble: under IndyCar’s qualifying rules, the remaining cars in the group were given 30s after the green flag to take the opportunity for a single final flyer. That, in turn, created an additional complication. Use the final set of stickered alternates to secure a spot in the Fast 6, or try to get into the Fast 6 with the tires that are already on the car and use the last set to try for pole?

Kirkwood went for Option B. Everyone else went for Option A. And by the time the Fast 6 was over, several of them were wishing they hadn’t.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Kirkwood immediately after climbing from the car. “Our car is on fire this weekend. We’re constantly chipping away at it, getting it better and better. Third weekend with the team and I’ve already got a pole. I couldn’t be happier.

“I knew this day would come. I didn’t know if it was going to come this early; there are a lot of tough guys out here. It’s kind of solidifying myself; it’s kind of, ‘He can do this.’ Starting from the pole, a lot of people win from the pole… It’s a good moment, no doubt.”

Ericsson, while just short of the ultimate prize, was still pleased to have earned a front row start for Sunday’s race, while Kirkwood’s teammate Romain Grosjean, who will line up third, was one of several who coulda, woulda, shoulda.

“I had it,” he said. “I messed up at the hairpin and I think I lost about three tenths. It’s my fault — I braked too late, got the rear locking and had to pull the clutch in the middle of the corner to try to keep it going. We didn’t have an easy session; we got really blocked in Q2 then we got the red flag and had to use the new tires to get into the Fast Six. I knew Kyle was going to be good, he’s been driving well all weekend. Really happy for him and all the Andretti team. I think I had it, I just didn’t put it together.”

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The driver on the other end of the blocking that Grosjean referred to was Ganassi’s Alex Palou, who had slowed because he had another car ahead of him. The incident was investigated and dismissed by race control, and Palou will line up alongside Grosjean on the second row.

Scott Dixon and Pato O’Ward completed the Fast Six, and it looked a lot like one that got away for O’Ward in particular. The Arrow McLaren driver had been fastest when the red came out, but the No. 5 team didn’t feel confident that his time would stand when everyone else did their last flyer on stickers, and sent him out — albeit at the back of the pack, where they could have the luxury of monitoring everyone else. As soon as it became clear that his passage to the Fast Six was safe, engineer Will Anderson sent repeated pleas over the radio for O’Ward to back off and save his tires. Those instructions appear to have gone unheeded.

O’Ward is far from the only driver left to ponder what might have been, though. Colton Herta took the same gamble to save the new rubber for the Fast Six as Kirkwood, but in his case it resulted in his being bumped to seventh at the end of the second round.

Just behind Herta are two-thirds of Team Penske, with Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin qualifying eighth and ninth respectively.

“Frustrating,” Newgarden said. “I think there’s time in the car, I just can’t extract it. I can’t put the lap together. I don’t know where we are at on the long run this weekend, but certainly in the short run it’s been hard to put together.”

Compounding Team Penske’s irritation, Newgarden had also been responsible for bumping Will Power out of the opening round.

“We had fuel for four plus three, and I did my three and didn’t do four in the first round because it went red,” said Power, who will start 13th. “I missed out by that amount to Newgarden last year for the top six. Same thing.

“It’s difficult (to try something with strategy) with the two stops. If it was three stops, you could do some big strategy stuff. The two stops with the small windows make it harder, but we’ll do what we can.”

The red flag that Power referred to was prompted by a big crash by David Malukas in the No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing w/HMD Honda. Malukas hit the wall at Turn 9 and continued on in the belief that the car had not been seriously damaged. The first indication that it had not came at Turn 4, when it speared itself into the outside wall as soon as he hit the brakes.

“I just have a little bit of a headache,” said Malukas after he emerged from the medical center.

“It was unfortunate. I started the lap previous and looked at the data and knew I had to brake a little bit deeper to catch up some time into Turn 9. So I tried braking a little bit deeper and was probably two laps too early, so I ended up losing the car and tapped the wall on the left.

“I gave the car a bit of a shake going down the straight and it felt OK but clearly it wasn’t, so going into Turn 4 I went in and hit the brake and it just whipped out on me and I couldn’t save it. At that point I was just letting go and taking the impact. My mistake. I had a chance to pit and maybe we could have fixed something and kept going, so two mistakes on my part.”

Malukas will need further evaluation before being cleared to race tomorrow.

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Juncos seething after altered track curbing leads to Ilott crash

Juncos Hollinger Racing is working to repair Callum Ilott’s No.77 Chevrolet in time for NTT IndyCar Series qualifying after the car sustained damage in a bizarre crash during practice at Long Beach on Saturday morning, and team co-owner Ricardo …

Juncos Hollinger Racing is working to repair Callum Ilott’s No.77 Chevrolet in time for NTT IndyCar Series qualifying after the car sustained damage in a bizarre crash during practice at Long Beach on Saturday morning, and team co-owner Ricardo Juncos is looking for an explanation as to how the incident was able to happen in the first place.

Ilott was launched into the wall at the outside of Turn 5 in the opening minutes of the session when his car bottomed out hard on a piece of curb. While the curb had been in place when teams did their track walk on Thursday, it was damaged during an IMSA session on Friday and removed before IndyCar’s opening practice session later that afternoon.

The curb was put back in place overnight, but according to IndyCar the repair was not communicated to the teams or series prior to Saturday’s session, meaning that most teams were alerted to its existence by seeing Ilott and then ECR’s Rinus VeeKay hit it and crash.

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“The damage [to Ilott’s car] is all the front-left corner, the nose is completely (destroyed)… it’s a shame. It’s something that we cannot believe happened,” Juncos told RACER.

“They just have a piece of curb that was not there for practice yesterday, and no one knew about it. It’s hard for the driver to see it from inside the car. So (Callum) did exactly the same line as yesterday, and suddenly he has a springboard into the wall. And then we talk about safety. It’s not right.”

With a broken car and virtually no running on the alternate tires, the incident is a massive blow to JHR’s preparations for qualifying, but Juncos is even more frustrated by what he considers to be a lack of accountability.

“The problem, the frustration, is that it was clearly it was not our fault,” he said. “We could have had a driver injured. We lost a lot of money. And nobody has even come to apologize. Nobody has come to give us an explanation. That’s not right. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

“At this level, it’s unacceptable. Everybody makes mistakes; you should admit it. It’s that simple, and that’s what I was expecting. When we make a mistake, we pay for it — we get penalized, we get DQ’d… every time the team or the driver makes a mistake, we pay for it. This time, whether it’s a mistake by IndyCar or by the track… it’s not a mistake by us, that’s for sure. Maybe it is miscommunication. Whatever. I would like to have someone here to explain it, and we haven’t had that yet.”

Penske Entertainment President and CEO Mark Miles was seen entering the JHR hauler shortly after Juncos’s conversation with RACER.

Ilott’s teammate Canapino showed encouraging speed for Juncos Hollinger Racing in practice.  Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images

While he waits for answers, Juncos’s focus is switching to turning the team’s weekend around.

“We made some changes from yesterday on both cars, and unfortunately with Callum, he couldn’t try it,” he said. “But Agustin (Capanino) said the car is really, really nice now. He was 0.6s off P1 with the blacks, and then with the greens we couldn’t even make one lap because of traffic. So today he needs to learn two things — one is the traffic and making the proper gap, and the other one is maximizing the grip on the greens. We had everybody improve by six or seven tenths, so if we put that into consideration we can be P8, P10 with him. So that’s good.”

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IndyCar and IMSA Long Beach stints and stops with Mike Hull

Mike Hull, Scott Dixon’s race strategist at Chip Ganassi Racing, breaks down the pit stop strategies and what we can expect for Saturday’s 100-minute IMSA GTP and GTD race and Sunday’s 85-lap IndyCar race.

Mike Hull, Scott Dixon’s race strategist at Chip Ganassi Racing, breaks down the pit stop strategies and what we can expect for Saturday’s 100-minute IMSA GTP and GTD race and Sunday’s 85-lap IndyCar race.

IMSA Long Beach race day news and notes

Neither of the GTD cars that crashed in qualifying Friday will start Saturday’s race. Ashton Harrison slapped the wall at the exit of Turn 8 in the No. 93 Racers Edge with WTR Acura NSX GT3 Evo22, and seconds later PJ Hyett nosed into the wall with …

Neither of the GTD cars that crashed in qualifying Friday will start Saturday’s race.

Ashton Harrison slapped the wall at the exit of Turn 8 in the No. 93 Racers Edge with WTR Acura NSX GT3 Evo22, and seconds later PJ Hyett nosed into the wall with the No. 80 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R in almost the same spot. AO Racing driver and team owner PJ Hyett was apparently unhurt in the incident, but the car was too damaged for the team to participate further. AO Racing promises to be back for the next event at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

While the damage to the NSX that Harrison was slated to share with Mario Farnbacher didn’t appear too bad, Harrison reports that the half-shaft was driven into the gearbox in the crash, ending the team’s only planned sprint race this season.

The GTP cars have only two sets of tires to get them through qualifying and race.

That’s historically what they would use anyway, the 100-minute affair being usually a one-stop race. Several teams used the first part of qualifying Friday to scrub the second set of tires for the race. Polesitter Filipe Albuquerque said he doesn’t envision any scenario where a team would try to go the whole race on a single set given the lap time delta between fresh and old rubber.

Speaking of tires, Albuquerque says the struggle to get heat into a new set of tires in the GTPs has been especially troublesome at Long Beach, although Friday was a touch cooler than it will be during Saturday’s race. Ultimately he hopes for a mid-race yellow that would allow everyone to go onto the second set of tires at the same time and get a little heat into them before a restart; if the pit stops among the GTP cars are staggered, it could get very interesting with the mix of cold and warm tires.

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“I said to Ricky (Taylor), like, ‘Good luck, because I’m not confident at all.’ It’s just super slippery in the beginning of FP1 when we started on new tires. I was talking with Katherine Legge today, and like, ‘Oh, you guys were so slow. I thought you were just warming up.’ No, I was just struggling and I thought it was the track. And she was saying the track was pretty grippy in the beginning.

“It’s something that I wasn’t really comfortable, and we can see as well the other guys moving once the car is going because you have you rely on (traction control) but then the car snaps on you. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody has a spin or something because then in the end of the day you need to push. But it’s so hard and in between walls there is zero room for mistakes. So let’s hope that there is a yellow so people can put some some energy to that. It still will be hard, but that’s racing.”

GTD polesitter looking to use starting order to his advantage

Marco Sorensen has several GTD PRO cars between his No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage and second-place GTD qualifier Frankie Montecalvo in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F, and he plans to use that to his and teammate’s Roman De Angelis’s advantage on the hard-to-pass Long Beach circuit.

“It was all basically all part of the plan,” he said. “I don’t see the cars as any different than any of the other cars out there. So I’m gonna race them for position – not in class in a way but to keep our track position – and if I can stay in front, depending on obviously a lot of things, then it’ll help us lay down our strategy. I think on a such a short race like this one, it’s going to be a good buffer to have because if we were having a good pace or whatever, then it’s good when you actually come to the pitstop.”

Taylors could separate or keep prior-win tie

In Saturday’s field, the leaders in the previous victory category are Jordan and Ricky Taylor, with three each. Each of those wins came together in a Wayne Taylor Racing prototype in consecutive years, 2015-’17. With Ricky in the polesitting WTR with Andretti Autosport Acura ARX-06 GTP car and Jordan in the GTD PRO No. 3 Corvette, it is possible that the pair could emerge from today’s race in a tie, although it looks pretty good for Ricky to break that stalemate given the strength of the No. 10 Acura so far this weekend. On the flip side, Corvette Racing has achieved a class victory eight times.

Minimum drive times for the 100-minute race are five minutes for GTP and GTD PRO, and 35 minutes for GTD.

How to watch

Saturday’s race will be broadcast on USA Network, as well as streamed on Peacock, at 5 p.m. ET. The green flag is scheduled for 5:05 p.m. ET, 2:05 p.m. local time. IMSA Radio will also carry the race (IMSA.com), and it can also be heard on Sirius 217, XM 207 or on the SiriusXM app on channel 992.

O’Ward stays ahead in chaotic second Long Beach IndyCar practice

Pato O’Ward laid down a marker ahead of qualifying for this weekend’s NTT IndyCar Series race in Long Beach by topping a bizarre Saturday morning practice session. Teams and drivers were forced to adjust on the fly as it became apparent that an …

Pato O’Ward laid down a marker ahead of qualifying for this weekend’s NTT IndyCar Series race in Long Beach by topping a bizarre Saturday morning practice session.

Teams and drivers were forced to adjust on the fly as it became apparent that an additional curb had sprouted overnight near the exit of Turn 5. The addition of the curb was not communicated to IndyCar or the teams beforehand, and the first indication that it was there came when Callum Ilott hit it and launched into the outside wall. The second indication came just a couple of minutes after Ilott’s car had been retrieved when Rinus VeeKay did exactly the same thing.

“Bottomed pretty hard,” VeeKay said over the radio immediately after the No. 21 ECR Chevrolet’s impact. “I feel like they almost moved the curbing — did they change anything?”

VeeKay escaped with minimal damage and was able to rejoin the session, but Ilott’s morning ended as soon as the No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Chevrolet pounded the wall.

“I was doing the same line yesterday and it was fine,” he said. “I don’t know. If they changed something and didn’t tell us, but that was strange. I didn’t understand what happened other than I took off when I hit the curb.

“If they did (change anything) and they didn’t tell us then they can pay for the damage, because that’s a joke.”

It later transpired that the curb in question had been in place for the track walk on Thursday, but then sustained damage during an IMSA session on Friday and was removed before IndyCar’s practice session later in the afternoon. It was then restored overnight, but it was not deemed necessary to inform the series because the curbing was considered to be a repair rather than a modification.

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As news of the change filtered through the field, drivers initially took a far more cautious approach into Turn 5 before gradually working the curb into their new lines.

With the two curb-induced reds out of the way, the rest of the session passed with nothing more serious than a few harmless lock-ups and spins, and driver concerns instead moved onto trying to find some clear track for a qualifying simulation on the alternate tires.

This caused a few near-misses at the hairpin — one almost took out two Andretti drivers when Kyle Kirkwood checked up hard to avoid rear-ending Romain Grosjean, and then triggered an accordion effect behind him as cars swerved to avoid a pile-up. Later, Kirkwood found himself on a receiving end of a hurry-up message at the same spot in the form of a tap in the rear from Will Power.

O’Ward’s best came during the final scramble on the green tires, and beat closest rival Kirkwood by just 0.0167s — a far cry from the 0.2s advantage that the Mexican had over the field on Friday.

Grosjean was third fastest, another 0.04s down on Kirkwood, while Herta continued a solid morning for Andretti by finishing fourth fastest.

“The session went pretty well for all of us,” Grosjean said. “We’ve got a strong package. I think the track temperature is going to change for qualifying so we have to keep an eye on that, but I think we have a strong car.”

Scott McLaughlin rounded out the top five, bringing Team Penske into the picture for the first time this weekend after all three of the team’s cars struggled to post a representative time on Friday due to traffic.

UP NEXT: Qualifying at 3:05pm

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Harvey riding an early Long Beach GP confidence wave with RLL

There was little to show for Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s trip to Texas Motor Speedway a couple of weeks ago, but Long Beach could be a happier hunting ground after a solid opening to the weekend from the team’s three cars. Christian Lundgaard and Jack …

There was little to show for Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s trip to Texas Motor Speedway a couple of weeks ago, but Long Beach could be a happier hunting ground after a solid opening to the weekend from the team’s three cars.

Christian Lundgaard and Jack Harvey finished Friday practice session 10th- and 12-fastest respectively, while Graham Rahal spent most of the afternoon inside the top 10 before dropping back to 16th on his second set of tires.

“I kind of felt coming into the weekend that our street circuit car was showing potential at St. Pete, so I was pretty optimistic, honestly, about what we can achieve this weekend,” Harvey told RACER.

“Compared to other weekends, we’ve unloaded with that speed and it’s just come a little easier than it has at some other races. Straight away, I looked down and thought, ‘Oh, that’s not a bad lap,’ and I think there’s still quite a bit more to come.

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“On the No. 30 car we’re just chasing a little bit of rear stability, but I think the track will rubber in and perhaps give us that. So tonight we’ll sit down and figure out how much or how little we want to do.”

Friday’s running was defined in part by much cooler conditions than the IndyCar field has dealt with at Long Beach over the last couple of years; the ambient temperatures in the 80s and 90s of the recent past making way for conditions in the low 60s. Saturday is forecast to be cooler still, and one of RLL’s priorities overnight will be ensuring its performance won’t be adversely affected.

“One thing we need to do tomorrow is try to activate the tire a little sooner,” Harvey said. “That’s probably going to be our biggest focus overnight (because of the cooler temperatures). It’s something we’ve struggled with before; just trying to activate the tires quick enough. The Andretti cars are very good at that. It’s just something we have to try to figure out tonight – see if we can put the energy into the tires a bit sooner. But I think we’re in pretty good shape.”

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Albuquerque blasts WTR Acura onto IMSA Long Beach GP pole

As was to be expected based on the two practice sessions today, the battle for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach pole in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship came down to Acura vs. Acura. This time it fell to Filipe Albuquerque and the Wayne …

As was to be expected based on the two practice sessions today, the battle for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach pole in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship came down to Acura vs. Acura. This time it fell to Filipe Albuquerque and the Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport team, Albuquerque getting the No. 10 ARX-06 into the 69s range with a 1m9.909s lap, an average of 101.34mph around the 1.968-mile, 11-turn temporary circuit. Albuquerque’s time was half a second off the DPi record set by Sebastien Bourdais last year.

“We knew we had a good car, and we had a little bit of an edge on on the competitors, other manufacturers,” stated Albuquerque. “But we’ve seen as well, the No. 60 was very competitive, so this pole position would not come for free and easily. So obviously the tension was there between us. But yeah, I really wanted this pole position and, for sure, the No. 60 wanted it as well. But at the end of the day, I was super pleased with pole position by half a second. It’s pretty good.”

For several teams, the first half of the 20-minute GTP-only qualifying session was dedicated to scrubbing the second set of tires for tomorrow’s race, and then getting the qualifying set up to temperature. Representative times didn’t begin to appear until about five minutes left, and Albuquerque set the pole time on his 11th of 13 laps.

“The boys were a bit nervous in the garage about that as well. But I knew what I was doing. I must say that here specifically in Long Beach, cold tires, it’s just a nightmare. So hard to bring up the temperature. So I’m glad that tomorrow, I’m not going to get in second and go with cold tires into the to the race because it’s hard; it’s very hard. It’s way harder than Daytona and Sebring. and here you do a mistake, you go sideways and you hit the wall, you’re done. So I took my time there to get the tires up to temperature. It’s about being patient and knowing what what you’re doing. So I was pretty sure about what I was doing, but as well a bit concerned because if there is a yellow, I could not post a lap and then that was it. But the car was good later on,” he explained.

Tom Blomqvist in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian ARX-06 could only manage to get within 0.674s of Albuquerque’s time to sweep the front row for Acura. Sebastien Bourdais and the Chip Ganassi Racing team found some pace in the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R to claim the inside of the second row with a 1m10.981s lap. The next two cars were the two M Hybrid V8s from BMW M Team RLL, Nick Yelloly claiming the outside of the second row for the No. 25 and claiming intra-team honors over Augusto Farfus.

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Records fell in the GTD classes, Marco Sorensen claiming the GTD and outright pole with the best lap for a GTD car in Long Beach history. In his first visit to Long Beach, his 1m17.811s (91.05mph) in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 set the new mark for the class around the street circuit as he edged GTD PRO polesitter Jack Hawksworth by 0.06s.

“I think always when you’re coming to a new-to-you track, basically for me it was just learning the whole day,” Sorensen explained. “For sure they have all the setups and all this from last year. But we all know that everything always changes during the seasons and during the years. For sure the car was in the right window for today.”

Not only is this Sorensen’s first time at Long Beach, but his first time driving a GT car on a street circuit.

“It’s the first proper street circuit in a GT. I’ve done a lot in formula cars back in the day…I feel old when I say that, but it’s the first time in a GT and I freaking love it,” he declared.

Two teams have a lot of work ahead of them to get their cars ready for tomorrow’s race after contact with the wall that brought out a red flag. First Ashton Harrison pancaked the No. 93 Racers Edge with WTR Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 against the wall at the exit of Turn 8. As the red flag came out to end the session with less than four minutes to go, PJ Hyett nosed into the wall at almost the same spot.

Hawksworth set the new GTD PRO mark with a 1m17.817s in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 to start alongside Sorensen, leading three other GTD PRO cars, starting with Sorensen’s teammate Ross Gunn in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin. Patrick Pilet was third in GTD PRO in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche, followed by Antonio Garcia in the No. 3 Corvette.

“We kind of gambled a little bit on going out a bit later in the session then, knowing the track evolution was going to be important in terms of the track was getting faster the whole time. Maybe that hurt us a little bit because obviously it just got cut short at the end,” Hawksworth said.

Hawksworth admitted consternation about not getting the overall pole, but was buoyed by the progression the team made at this track compared to last year.

“It’s obviously a little bit frustrating to be on the outside and not on the inside going down to Turn 1, but if we look at the day last year, it was kind of a bit of a struggle for us at this track. We raced forward, but it was more through good fortune rather than speed, so it was really good to come back here and see the work the guys have done. We really kind of concentrated on trying to find a way to extract the most from the car and the minute we rolled off the truck, the car has been in a window,” he said.

Frankie Montecalvo will start sixth overall in the GT field, second in GTD, having turned a 1m18.376s lap in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus. Madison Snow, who had a pole streak going at Long Beach, will instead start the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 on the inside of the fourth row, with the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG of Mike Skeen alongside.

UP NEXT: The 100-minute Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, with green flag scheduled for Saturday at 5:05 p.m. Eastern.

RESULTS

Friday IndyCar wrap-up with Marcus Ericsson and Marshall Pruett

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson joins RACER’s Marshall Pruett to break down Friday’s practice session at Long Beach where the Swede spent the afternoon inside the top four.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson joins RACER’s Marshall Pruett to break down Friday’s practice session at Long Beach where the Swede spent the afternoon inside the top four.

O’Ward continues blitzing IndyCar field in Long Beach first practice

NTT IndyCar Series points leader Pato O’Ward carried his early-season form into the opening practice session on the streets of Long Beach on Friday. On an afternoon where the field spent the 75-minute session trading hundredths of a second, O’Ward …

NTT IndyCar Series points leader Pato O’Ward carried his early-season form into the opening practice session on the streets of Long Beach on Friday.

On an afternoon where the field spent the 75-minute session trading hundredths of a second, O’Ward popped up in the final three minutes with a 1m06.6999s in the No.5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet that shaded the rest of the pack by more than 0.2s. Scott Dixon, who also kept his powder dry until the last couple of minutes, came closest with a 1m06.9649s.

“We just kept chipping at it,” O’Ward said. “We rolled off strong, but we’ve been making adjustments to get it a bit more in the window, and so far it’s good. We’re going to look into it and see where we can make improvements, but I think we’re in good shape for tomorrow. It’s all about executing; it’s going to be tough.”

Prior to claiming the top spot on the timing screens, the standout moment in O’Ward’s session had been a massive lock-up after catching a bump where new and old asphalt meet at Turn 8 and flat-spotting the heck out of his right-front tire.

He was hardly alone in that regard: True to Long Beach form, the session was peppered with incidents, although unusually almost none of them resulted in car damage. The sole exception was Josef Newgarden, who grated a few layers of carbon fiber off the left edge of his floor with a brush against the wall, but even then he was able to complete the bulk of the session after the damage was patched up with some tape.

“I about did that four or five times,” he said. “Some of the settings we started with were probably aggressive. I’m not too stressed out about it for session one, but it would have been ideal not to ruin that first set of tires. We didn’t want to get bad data (so we parked a few minutes early); we just wanted to be conservative.”

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Up front, Colton Herta enjoyed a brief spell at the top before eventually being shuffled back to third-fastest in the No. 26 Andretti Autosport Honda, just 0.01s down on Dixon’s time.

“It’s sweet,” Herta said. “Car feels great; everything feels fantastic.”

Marcus Ericsson held the top spot for the majority of the afternoon before ultimately finishing fourth-fastest, leaving Romain Grosjean to round out the top five.

On a day when the top of the screens were largely dominated by Honda, Arrow McLaren backed up O’Ward’s P1 with Alexander Rossi in seventh and Rosenqvist ninth-fastest. Juncos Hollinger continued to punch above its weight with Callum Ilott finishing up eighth-fastest, while Rahal Letterman Lanigan had a solid start with Christian Lundgaard 10th-fastest, Jack Harvey 12th-fastest, and Graham Rahal running well inside the top 10 for most of the session before fading back to 16th as the cars around him switched to their second sets of Firestones.

The only red flag of the session came with just under half an hour left on the clock when Helio Castroneves and Agustin Canapino stalled at different points on the track. Both were rescued quickly, and practice returned to green after just a couple of minutes.

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