Grand Prix: Rossi Adds Another Mt. Rushmore Victory at Long Beach

The Indianapolis 500? Check.

Watkins Glen? Check.

Long Beach? Check.

Alexander Rossi is checking off the most historic races in Verizon Indycar Series history as he builds his growing resume. Rossi's Andretti Autosport Honda was the best car all weekend and he punctuated a dominant performance by winning the 44th Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday with a 1.24-second victory over Will Power.

Rossi excelled on the 11-turn, 1.968-mile temporary street circuit while his closest challengers experienced various struggles.

But Rossi was picture perfect NAPA-sponsored Honda and held off Team Penske's Power through two restarts over the last 15 laps even though Power had nearly twice the amount, 116 seconds, of increased push-to-pass horsepower to Rossi's 69 seconds.The last restart was with five laps remaining, but Power's Chevrolet was no match.

Rossi now has victories at the great Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Watkins Glen road course, and the Long Beach street course as the first three wins of his three-year career. The way he's going, his next victory should come at Road America to complete the Mt. Rushmore of historic Indycar venues.

“Those are three good ones,” Rossi said. “That's pretty spectacular. I certainly hope I haven't peaked too early with those three. I mean, if you're going to hit the wish list, those are the three. I don't really have anything more to say than it's kind of hard to believe.”

The only driver on the podium through the first three races, Rossi took possession of the series championship; he holds a 22-point lead over defending series champion Josef Newgarden.

“I think he's going to be tough to beat in the championship,” said Power, the 2014 champion. “He's definitely what I'd call a standout in the series right now in every respect. … You'll have to beat him, I think.”

Rossi countered that drivers are only as good as their last track, but dating back to last season, the driver from Nevada City has been on the podium six of the last nine races, and finished lower than sixth in only one of those. Rossi was third in the first practice session of the weekend, and was first every other time he steered onto Shoreline Drive in what he called his "second home race," one in which he had dozens of friends and family on hand.

“Now is the most competitive, talented group of drivers that the series has seen,” Power said. “When you look at how Rossi has come on, and the rookies that are here this year, guys like [Robert] Wickens and so on, it just gets harder. … To win and be on the pole these days, you've got to get it so right.”

Robby Gordon of Orange, who was the quintessential “California driver” of the 1990s and had a career in Indycar and NASCAR before creating his Stadium Super Truck Series, said the impressive thing about Rossi is that “he's proved that Indy wasn't a fluke. He definitely has the talent. That was a commanding performance. There's a lot of good drivers out there, and I don't want to misrepresent anything, but you have to land in the right seat at the right time.”

And Rossi, who won the 2016 Indy 500 by saving fuel like a miser, seems to be the right man at the right time for Andretti Autosport.

Trailing Rossi and Power was third-place Ed Jones of Chip Ganassi Racing, who held off Andretti Autosport rookie Zach Veach and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's Graham Rahal, who bounced back nicely after what appeared to be a disastrous beginning. Starting fifth, Rahal served a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact when he spun out and ended the day of third-place starter Simon Pagenaud on the first turn of the first lap. It's the first time Penske's Pagenaud hasn't finished on the lead lap since Pocono in 2016, a span of 23 races.

Yet much of the attention for the podium mid-race was aimed at two four-time champions, St. Petersburg winner Sebastien Bourdais and Scott Dixon. Bourdais had made a brilliant thread-the-needle pass of Dixon and two other drivers in Turn 1 for second place on Lap 54, but his tires crossed a blend line from pit road and it was deemed illegal; Bourdais gave back the position to Dixon on the backstretch, but then regained the spot in Turn 1.

After Rossi had pitted, Bourdais and Dixon were running 1-2 on Lap 59 and were on the verge of making their final pit stops when Bourdais teammate Zachary Claman De Melo hit the wall. Bourdais and Dixon hit the pits, which had just closed because of the crash. Bourdais drove through but Dixon pitted for full service. Once the race restarted, Bourdais had to pit and Dixon had to serve a drive through penalty, dropping them outside the top 10. Bourdais had moved up to 10th when he was spun at the hairpin by Jordan King on Lap 71 in a crash that also included 2016 race winner James Hinchcliffe and Ryan Hunter-Reay. Bourdais was awarded 13th by virtue of a blocking penalty against him by Matheus Leist on the final lap. Both four-time champions, Bourdais finished 13th and Dixon 11th.

"Race Control could have waited a couple seconds before closing the pits, but they didn't, and we went to the back where we had to race idiots," Bourdais said, citing run-ins with Charlie Kimball, King and Matheus Leist.

When things cycled through on the Lap 76 restart, Rossi was followed by Power, Jones, Zach Veach, Rahal and Marco Andretti – and that's how they finished. The rest of the top 10 included Josef Newgarden, Tony Kanaan in a good run for owner A.J. Foyt, Hinchcliffe, and Camarillo driver Kimball driving for new Indycar team Carlin Racing.

There were seven lead changes, and Rossi led 71 of the 85 laps. Power led six, and Bourdais four. There were four cautions for 14 laps. The average speed was 88.622 mph.

Former Orange County resident Hunter-Reay deserved a better finish than 20th, but Veach finished fourth and Marco Andretti sixth, giving team owner Michael Andretti a pretty successful stable after a miserable 2017 peformance in which his cars ran well but retired with electrical or mechanical gremlins; Rossi was running third when his Honda engine expired, for example.

“This is one that was circled on the calendar for us for awhile, and last year was heartbreaking,” Rossi said. “If I … didn't have the opportunity to win, Ryan had the opportunity to win. And to have all four drop out with mechanical issues, that's the way of the sport sometimes. I'm glad that the balance of luck, if you will, kind of came back to us a little bit this year.”

Pirelli World Challenge

Daniel Mancinelli drove a Ferrari 488 GT3 to a 2.1 second victory over another Ferrari driven by Toni Vilander to win his first GT Sprint class race in the Pirelli World Challenge. Mancinelli averaged 75.15 mph in the 32-lap race as he made a winner of TR3 Racing.

Yuki Harata drove a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 to the GTA victory, fifth overall, just ahead of 17-year-old Parker Chase in an Audi R8 LMS.

Paul Holton won the GT4 Invitational in a McLaren 570S finishing 14th overall, and Bob Michaelian of Seal Beach won the GT4 Invitational Am class in a SIN R1 in 17th.

Stadium Super Trucks

Matt Brabham defeated Cole Potts by 1.7 seconds in the 10-lap Stadium Super Trucks Series. Gavin Harlien, who won Race 1 on Saturday, took third. Robby Gordon and Paul Morris rounded out the top five.

Photo by Craig Takata: Alexander Rossi leads Will Power through the turns en route to victory in the 44th Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Photo by Craig Takata: Top three finishers, left to right, in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach: Will Power, Alexander Rossi, and Ed Jones.

Photo by Craig Takata: Matt Brabham won the Stadium Super Truck Series event on Sunday following the Indycar race.