Newgarden Nabs Elusive Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach Victory
Anne Proffit
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Chevrolet and Team Penske continued their mastery of the 2022 NTT INDYCAR SERIES this weekend during the 47th annual Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Racing through the `1.968-mile, 11-corner street course next to the Pacific Ocean, Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden earned his second straight victory of the year in his No. 2 Hitachi Chevy-powered Dallara, leading “The Phoenix” Romain Grosjean (No. 28 Andretti Autosport DHL Honda) to the checkered flags by a scant 1.2869 seconds under caution, Newgarden brought home Team Penske’s first victory at the Long Beach race since 2016, when Simon Pagenaud was the winner. 2021 champion Alex Palou was third, only 1.7594 seconds behind Newgarden.
Of the race’s 26 starters, fully 15 cars completed the 85-lap distance, which was impacted by four caution periods - all for contact on this walled street course. There were eight retirements, again all for contact of one sort or another, with the final one coming on the last lap for former Long Beach victor Takuma Sato’s impact with the eighth-turn tire wall in his No. 51 Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Honda. T8 was a popular spot in the closing laps, as the third caution flew for rookie David Malukas (No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Honda) and Jimmie Johnson, the latter’s No 48 Caravan Honda incurring three accidents this weekend.
Johnson’s initial impact on Friday resulted in his fractured right hand and the Ganassi crew built him a carbon fiber brace to be comfortable in the car for Saturday’s practice, qualifying, Sunday’s warmup and race. While the 7-time NASCAR champ managed to move his hands from the steering wheel during that initial impact, he wasn’t far enough away from the wheel that he was able to escape this injury. Johnson was, as you might expect, sorely pissed at himself for the first two impacts. But he still managed to drive through until that last, third incident Sunday afternoon.
Thankfully the final two cautions didn’t change or really impact the finishing order of this race, held slightly more than six months after the 2021 contest, Long Beach’s 46th race, marking the event as the longest-running street race in the United States. Pole position went to last year’s victor, Colton Herta in Andretti Autosport’s No. 26 Gainsbridge Honda. He, however, had a problematic first pit stop on the 30th lap and emerged in third, having to make up time to regain the lead from Palou and Newgarden. Herta smacked the wall in the ninth turn, a hard right and still managed to keep going, using the “back door” before the hairpin, 11th turn to keep the field green. He’d lead 28 laps but not the ones that counted.
Once Herta was out of the picture, Palou and Newgarden continued their battle for the victory, with the 2017 and 2019 champ leading the most, 32 laps, while Palou had clean air for 22 laps. He, on the other hand, had to deal with Grosjean, who came from sixth starting spot into the front five after getting past six-time champ Scott Dixon. The former F1 pilot put his head down and went to work, moving up to challenge Palou and getting past the Spaniard with 15 laps remaining. There wasn’t much of an opportunity to catch or pass Newgarden, though, as Grosjean had used up his push-to-pass getting to second place.
Amidst all this action, Pagenaud ended up in the flowers that surround Long Beach’s iconic fountain turn, having been turned around in his No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing AutoNation/SiriusXM Honda during a disagreement with Sato. This brought out the second caution - the first was an early stoppage for Dalton Kellett, who had a hard hit at the first turn in the No. 4 A.J. Foyt Racing K-Line Chevy after only five laps, necessitating a five-lap cleanup. Later, Rinus VeeKay’s Ed Carpenter Racing Sonax Chevy got tapped by St. Pete winner Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske, which took both of them out of contention. They’d finish 13th and 14th, respectively.
Following the podium came Will Power’s #12 Verizon Chevy - he’s now 4th place in points behind teammates Newgarden, McLaughlin and Ganassi’s Palou - in fourth at this race, while Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward brought his No. 5 Chevy home fifth from 11th on the grid. Sixth through tenth belonged to Scott Dixon, who moved from 16th in his No. 9 PNC Bank Ganassi Honda, Graham Rahal’s No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda (gridded 13th), Alexander Rossi’s No. 27 NAPA/AutoNation/SiriusXM Andretti Honda, Helio Castroneves’ No. 06 AutoNation/SiriusXM Honda and Kyle Kirkwood, the best starting and finishing rookie in A.J. Foyt’s iconic No. 14 ROKiT Chevy completed the top 10.
For a series that has a bumper crop of rookies - there are six this year - there is one newcomer, in particular, to watch. A.J. Foyt Racing hired the most recent Indy Lights champion, Kyle Kirkwood, who has won titles in all Road to Indy ladder series: USF2000, Indy Pro 2000 and Indy Lights. Kirkwood has impressed in each series with his abilities behind the wheel and outside the car. He’s impressed his bosses, A.J. and Larry Foyt and his engineering (Mike Colliver-led) and mechanical crew with Didier Francesia as crew chief. And he’s performing well above expectations. At Long Beach, Kirkwood qualified 12th and finished tenth. Who knows? Maybe we might see the vaunted No. 14 ROKiT-sponsored car on a 2022 INDYCAR podium?
Among the rookies, Kirkwood’s teammate Tatiana Calderon finished 16th from the final starting spot, 26th, while Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Christian Lundgaard (Honda) took 18th from 19th grid spot, Malukas was classified 21st in his Dale Coyne Racing No. 18 Honda, Callum Ilott of Juncos Racing (No. 77 Chevy) was 24th and Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport’s No. 29 Power Tap Honda with Devlin DeFrancesco was classified 25th.
Newgarden is exceeding some expectations as he breaks in a new engineer this year, his third since joining Team Penske in 2017. First he worked with Brian Campe, then Gavin Ward and now Eric Leichtle. The new partnership is showing immediate results with both an oval and street course victory in only three races, and the championship lead. Leichtle arrived at Team Penske after working with Pratt & Miller Engineering as project leader for INDYCAR.
This win was Newgarden’s 22nd in his career and he gifted Team Penske with its 601st overall win. “This was a fight today,” Newgarden said. “This is not an easy race to win… I was working my butt off with Grosjean there at the end on the used reds (alternate tires)! I knew coming into this race we had a great strategy; with pit stops helping me get around Alex (Palou). I’m so proud of Team Penske. I have been trying to win a race here for 11 years, so I’m so happy to finally get it done.”
The weekend ended with typical Long Beach weather but began in a massive heat wave, with temps in the middle 90s on Friday, but down to the mid-70s a day later, continuing through the weekend. The ensuing comfort brought out an excellent crowd, who got to see Newgarden beat Grosjean and Palou on a sun-filled, breezy and cool afternoon.
What the watching crowd didn’t know, though, is that Newgarden is now two-thirds on his way to securing the Force for Good Challenge that offers a $1 million prize for any driver who can win at least one race on an INDYCAR permanent road course, street circuit and oval. With this victory, Josef Newgarden is two-thirds of the way there and has six more opportunities to make that million. With wife Ashley about to give birth to their first child - Newgarden was on “baby watch” all weekend - there was a lot of tension involved, but the cool Tennessean carried on and pulled off the big victory before heading home to be with Ashley for the birth.
Both Newgarden and the balance of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES community will be back in action in just a few weeks for the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at picturesque Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama the final weekend of April. Can Team Penske and Chevrolet keep up this rampage? Or will Honda, which had two of three podium spots in Long Beach, get back to its winning ways? We’ll have to watch to find out.
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