Rossi Holds Off Dixon, Wins Pole on Full Day of Grand Prix Action

Alexander Rossi has a pretty good handle on Long Beach. The only question may be whether he loses his grip on a race that seems to be his to win. The California driver who won the pole and the race last season, has won the pole again. He will attempt to become a two-time winner from the best seat in the house when the green flag drops on Sunday, about 1:20 p.m., at the 45th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Rossi, who won the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 as a rookie in 2016 and has established himself as a major threat in the championship averaged 106.569 mph in the Fast Six qualifying around the 11-turn, 1.896-mile temporary street course in Long Beach. Rossi’s time of 1 minute 6.4811 seconds gave him the edge over fellow Honda driver and defending champion Scott Dixon at 1:06.7479 in the fourth round of the NTT INDYCAR Series Championship.

“I don’t think it’s that hard to pass (here),” said Rossi, who will attempt to become the 10th driver to win from the pole in the race’s storied history. “But starting from pole really opens up a lot of opportunities from a strategy standpoint and it just seems this year more than other years, clean air makes a pretty big difference in how you’re able to kind of manage the tires and whether or not you can make them last.

“Obviously, we’ve got to get to Turn 1 fast, which is a whole ‘nother challenge because it’s quite a long run down there. But yeah, it’s going to be a hard day for sure. I mean, there’s probably 15 pretty hungry and fast race cars right behind us.”

The top five in qualifying was rounded out by Team Penske Chevrolets driven by Will Power, Josef Newgarden, and Simon Pagenaud. Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver Graham Rahal closed out the qualifying in sixth with Honda power. Seventeen of the 23 drivers cracked the 1:08 barrier in three rounds of knockout qualifying, meaning they posted times within 1.62 seconds of Rossi’s pole position.

“It’s hard out there,” said Rossi, who was runner-up to Dixon in last season’s championship. “It’s amazing how tight it continues to be. And just the depth – I mean, we say it every year, but it’s crazy. That was exponentially harder than last year.”

Promising to make Sunday’s race interesting could be Ryan Hunter-Reay, who has been one of the fastest drivers of the weekend for Andretti Autosport. Hunter-Reay was first-, second-, and fourth-fastest in the three practice sessions before gambling with a set of scuffed alternate red tires while other drivers were on new tires, and not getting a second lap on them when a red flag ended the session. Hunter-Reay won the race in 2010 and will be starting alongside last week’s winner at Barber Motorsports Park, Takuma Sato.

In Row 5 will be two 19-year-old rookies, Patricio O’Ward and Colton Herta.

“It’s a good spot to start, there’s no denying that,” Dixon said of Rossi’s position on the point and the importance of passing him before he runs off and hides; three of Rossi’s five victories have come from the pole. “You just have to lead the last lap, so I don’t think it needs to be done the first lap, doesn’t need to be done the first corner. I think strategy is always pretty interesting here. … He’s fast. Their team is fast, and they’re going to be tough to beat.”

It was also a good day for Penske; Newgarden, who leads the championship by 27 points over Rossi, is the only Penske driver among the top seven in the series. Power is tied for eighth with Hunter-Reay, 66 points behind Newgarden.

“I think our street course cars have been pretty good,” Newgarden said of Team Penske’s showing in the top five. “We were solid at (St. Petersburg) so I think that’s what you’re seeing here.

And in St. Pete, Newgarden won from the second starting position.

IMSA

In the 100-minute Bubba Burger Sports Car Grand Prix, Joao Barbosa and Filipe Albuquerque won for the second year in a row as they held off Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor by 0.74 of a second. Albuquerque took the checkered flag in the Mustang Sampling Racing Cadillac DPi, preventing a 1-2 sweep by the Acura Team Penskes that were hoping to win in Acura’s first year of sponsorship of the 45th Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Juan Montoya and relief driver Dane Cameron finished third, 1.8 seconds behind Albuquerque, 19 seconds ahead of the fourth-place finisher in the 73-lap race.

In the GTLM class, Laurens Vanthoor and Earl Bamber piloted their factory Porsche 911 to a victory by 4.4 seconds over Corvette Racing’s two factory teams. Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen took second after getting into the back of the Ford GT of Chip Ganassi Racing. Dirk Mueller was at the wheel and might have slowed coming out of a corner when Magnussen ran over the back and turned the No. 66 co-piloted by Indycar driver Sebastien Bourdais into the wall. They were relegated to fourth as Tommy Milner avoided the carnage to take third place with co-driver Oliver Gavin.

STADIUM SUPER TRUCKS

Matt Brabham was the winner of Robby Gordon’s Stadium Super Trucks Series. There will be a second race this weekend on Sunday.

HISTORIC IMSA GTO

Pole-sitter Craig Bennett took first place in his 1990 Nissan 300 ZX by holding off second-place qualifier Joel Miller of Irvine in a 1991 Mazda RX7. Bennett averaged 81.231 mph and had a 0.259 margin of victory in the 13-lap race.