Grand Prix: Rossi's the Man to Beat at Long Beach

Alexander Rossi has made it perfectly clear that if there is a driver to fear this weekend at the 44thToyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, it's him.

Rossi has been fast all weekend, and he punctuated his performance through three practice sessions by winning the pole Saturday with a gap of more than 3/10ths of a second in the Verizon Indycar Series' second-most prestigious race.

"It's a big deal to win a pole anywhere, they're hard to come by," said Rossi, a native of Nevada City, Calif. "This is kind of like a secondary home race for me. We've got 50-odd, 60-odd guests here with us this weekend, so that's pretty cool. I have a lot of family and extended family down, and that's nice to be able to have some performance for them. It's a special place. I mean, this track has been around for so long for a lot of reasons. Southern California, the weather is pretty hard to beat. The fans are amazing, the atmosphere, the vibe, the energy, I mean we've already seen massive crowds already, and I wouldn't be surprised tomorrow to see even more people.

"This is for sure one of our flagship races, and we're very proud to be able to come here."

Rossi, who won the 2016 Indianapolis 500 for team owners Bryan Herta and Michael Andretti, won the second pole of his three-year career in his NAPA-sponsored Honda; the first pole, at Watkins Glen last season, ended with Rossi's second career win.

But Scott Dixon, a four-time Indycar champion, has been doing some research.

“I read a stat that the pole-sitter hasn't won here since the mid-2000s,” said Dixon, who will start fourth for owner Chip Ganassi – also in a Honda. “We'll see if that still plays true, but I think this race definitely throws a bit of a curveball. … If you can start near the front, that's going to give you the best opportunity to have clear pit stops, clear start, stay out of trouble, et cetera. …

"[Rossi's] been super fast all weekend.”

With its unforgiving walls and the yellows that are likely to fall, it's possible to win from deep in the field by going off strategy, and drivers seem to think there will be plenty of action throughout the race.

• 44th Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach
• TV: NBCSN, 1 p.m.
  
• Race Start: 1:42 p.m.

Rossi averaged 106.454 mph on the 11-turn, 1.968-mile temporary street course that consumes Shoreline Drive and Seaside Way around the Long Beach Convention Center. He navigated the course in 1 minute 6.552 seconds, and will start ahead of Will Power, who clocked 1:06.905. Power was the first of three Chevrolets for owner Roger Penske who made their bid for pole in the Fast 6 qualifying format that determined the first three rows. Teammate Simon Pagenaud starts third, and defending series champion Josef Newgarded starts sixth after slapping the Turn 8 wall with his best set of tires.

“I wanted to make the most of the first lap and got a little greedy,” said Newgarden, who won last week's oval race at Phoenix and leads Rossi by five points in the championship after two races. “That's close enough to the front to make something happen.”

Newgarden will take the green flag outside fifth-place starter Graham Rahal, who thinks Long Beach is going to be an action track.

“The fans will be in for an amazing show,” Rahal said. “The race was good here last year, and now with this car and the tire degradation that we're talking about, I think it's going to be a pretty awesome show.”

Rossi's Andretti Autosport teammate, Ryan Hunter-Reay, appeared to have one of the fastest cars in qualifying, but a penalty wiped out his best lap in the second round of qualifying and prevented him from advancing. RHR will start seventh, directly in front of Sebastien Bourdais, who was the last polesitter to win at Long Beach (in 2006 and 2007) and the winner of the season-opening race in St. Petersburg – also a street course. Bourdais, who finished second to James Hinchliffe last year at Long Beach, trails Newgarden by seven points in the championship. Hinchcliffe will start eighth.

“It was a great day,” Rossi said. “It's been a great weekend for the whole team, and I think Ryan without his penalty for the pit exit there, he could have been on the front row with me.”

Rossi will try to finish what he started last season when he might have won had his Honda not expired from third place on Lap 62 of 85 laps. There's been talk of this being a weekend of redemption for the driver who made news in the opener when he wiped out rookie race leader Robert Wickens in the closing laps at St. Pete. Wickens qualified 10th.

“We saw last year that you can have a fast race car and be in the position, but it doesn't quite work out,” said Rossi, the only driver to finish on the podium in the first two races following two third-place finishes. “This sport has a way of humbling you pretty quick, so we have to execute again tomorrow, and hopefully we can get that redemption we're talking about.”

Power, who has 50 career poles and 32 victories, said “the race is a different story [than qualifying], it's trickier.” But he was wondering the same thing many people were wondering after Rossi ruled the streets of Long Beach for a second consecutive day, joking in the post-session press conference, “I was just asking Rossi how the hell he went so fast.”

Rossi has been fast from the outset. He was third-fastest (behind Dixon and Hunter-Reay) in the first practice session, and led the second and third sessions.

“The whole organization has done an amazing job, and it is satisfying to do this because this is the first task of the weekend, but we've got … 90 laps tomorrow to get it done,” Rossi said. “None of these 23 guys are going to be easy to beat, and we've all seen how easy it is to not win an Indycar race. We need to definitely bring our A game tomorrow.”

IMSA Sports Car Championship

Joao Barbosa and Felipe Albuquerque led the final 31 laps and scored a narrow Prototype victory in their Cadillac DPi for Mustang Sampling Racing in the Bubba Burger Sportscar Grand Prix. They finished ahead of Scott Sharp and Ryan Dalziel in their Tequila Patron ESM Nissan, and Renger Van Der Zande and Jordan Taylor in their Konica Minolta Cadillac in the 100-minute timed race in which they completed 70 laps.

Juan Pablo Montoya started on pole for Acura Team Penske, but he and teammate Dane Cameron finished fifth despite leading 23 laps, while teammate Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor were sixth.

Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner scored the GTLM class victory and took 11th overall for Corvette Racing in a C7.R, completing 69 laps. They beat two Ganassi Ford GT entries, thye second-place duo of Richard Westbrook and Ryan Briscoe, and third-place Joey Hand and Dirk Mueller. Th

Stadium Super Trucks

In the 100th race of Robby Gordon's Stadium Super Truck Series, Gavin Harlien went from 11th place to first place to beat out Gordon and third-place Arie Luyendyk, Jr. The race was red-flagged after six laps after a crash by Apdaly Lopez, who was uninjured but the lengthy cleanup created a time restriction that prohibited its conclusion. Matt Brabham was fourth and Davey Hamilton Jr., was fifth.

They will race again Sunday, 4:05 p.m., after the Indycar race.

Historic Trans Am Challenge

Jimmy Hague of Santa Clara drove his 1970 Ford Boss 302 Mustang to victory, averaging 60.707 mph as he held off Bill Ockerlund of Holland, Mich., in a 1968 Ford Boss Mustang. Ockerlund laid down the best lap time, 1:40.396 for a speed of 70.569 mph. Chad Raynal was third in a 1969 Chevrolet Camara. Steve Link of nearby Laguna Beach took seventh, also in a '69 Camaro.

Photo by Chris Jones: Alexander Rossi won the Verizon P1 Award and will start first at the 44th Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.