Kyle Kirkwood – Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach – Photo by Chris Owens

By John Sturbin, Raceday San Antonio

Andretti Global teammates Kyle Kirkwood and Colton Herta temporarily upstaged three-time/reigning INDYCAR champion Alex Palou on Saturday, locking-out the front row during qualifying for the 50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Kirkwood scored his first NTT P1 Award of the season and third of his career by touring the 1.968-mile/11-turn temporary street circuit in 1-minute, 6.1921-seconds/107.034 mph in the No. 27 PreFab Honda on his final Firestone Fast Six flyer. Kirkwood registered his first career pole at Long Beach in 2023, when he also won the crown jewel street race of the NTT IndyCar Series.

SEE: Qualifying Results

“When you’re in an Andretti Global car at Long Beach, you know you’re going to be quick,” said Kirkwood, a 26-year-old native of Jupiter, Fla. “You’ve got to be so happy with that, right? A front-row Andretti Global lockout here at Long Beach.

“I’m shaking. That was great. That was such a good lap, such a good qualifying. Fortunately, I didn’t put any wheel wrong or hit anything. That’s always a question here at street courses. You’ve got to send it to get that top spot.”

Southern California native Herta qualified second at 1:06.4232-seconds/106.662 mph in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda. Kirkwood and Herta secured the first front-row lockout for Andretti Global since the Honda Indy Toronto last July, when Herta qualified P1 and Kirkwood took second. Herta also went on to win Canada’s premier street race.

Winner of the first two events of this season, Palou qualified third at 1:06.6254-seconds/106.338 mph in the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. Felix Rosenqvist of Sweden took advantage of misfortune by a competitor in the second round to earn a spot in the Fast Six and qualify fourth at 1:06.6358-seconds/106.321 mph in the No. 60 SiriusXM Honda of Meyer Shank Racing.

“Pretty good, all-in-all,” Rosenqvist said. “I had a little miss in Turn 9, but honestly, I don’t think I would have placed it higher if I had put it all together. It was kind of what we had. I’m happy; we transferred to the Firestone Fast Six and then we gained another two spots. We definitely didn’t have the pace of Kirkwood today _ he was half-a-second in front _ so I’m bummed and excited at the same time. I think we’re in a pretty good spot for tomorrow.”

Marcus Ericsson of Sweden emerged as the third Andretti Global driver in the top-five, qualifying fifth at 1:06.7061-seconds/106.209 mph in the No. 28 Bryant Honda.

Native New Zealander Scott McLaughlin will share Row 3 with Ericsson after qualifying sixth at 1:07.0393-seconds/105.681 mph in the No. 3 DEX Imaging Team Penske Chevrolet. McLaughlin was best-in-class among the Team Chevy entries.

“Yeah, just stuffed it up a bit on my first lap in the Fast Six,” McLaughlin said. “Not a lot of tire left to make a run at it after that. Proud to carry the Chevy flag there and we will have a strong DEX Imaging Chevy to fight with. I love racing here and would the stoked to get the win in the 50th anniversary of Long Beach. It’s a premier race on our calendar, for sure.”

A pre-race warmup is scheduled for noon (EDT) Sunday (FS1, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network and SiriusXM Channel 218), followed by the 90-lap/177.12-mile race at 4:30 p.m. (FOX, FOX Deportes, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network and SiriusXM Channel 218).

Palou, a native of Spain chasing a third consecutive championship, took P1 in the Fast Six with about 30 seconds remaining in the session. Kirkwood, however, cranked out his pole-winning final lap seconds later, followed by Herta’s quickest circuit.

Palou is the only driver to finish in the top-five in both of this season’s events. Palou _ who won on the Streets of St. Petersburg (Fla.) and Thermal (Calif.) _ is one of six drivers to finish in the top-10 in each race, so far. The others are six-time series champion Scott Dixon, Kirkwood, Christian Lundgaard of Denmark, Rosenqvist and Alexander Rossi.

Herta ran out of time for a proper warmup lap for his final run. The delay in raising the temperatures of his Firestone Firehawk alternate tires, Herta said, could have been the reason for Kirkwood’s gap to the rest of the field _ the largest in qualifying this season through three races.

“The prep lap is what we do to try to get the temperatures in the right window, try to get the front and rear (tires) equal as we can,” Herta said. “I didn’t have that, so the tires started out a little cold. But they got there in the end, after maybe three or four corners.

“I’m guessing that maybe the time lost to Kyle is probably in those first few corners. Still can’t be mad at a front row, an Andretti 1-2, and Marcus is right there in fifth. All of us in the Fast Six. Shows we got a strong program here to go into the race with tomorrow.”

Pato O’Ward, who trails Palou by 39 points (102-63) in the championship standings, will start ninth after a best lap of 1:07.5440-seconds/104.876 mph in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.

“We can fight from ninth,” said O’Ward, a native of Mexico with family ties to San Antonio. “This track is really sensitive to track-position but we’re no strangers to starting not in the front row in Long Beach. This hasn’t been necessarily our best place in the past, so we’ll see what we can come up with.

“It’s five laps longer than last year. I say they should have done 10 laps because the two-stopper’s still very much in-play. So, I think that’s what you’re going to see the leaders do, and we’ll see what we come up with.”

David Malukas earned the 10^th grid spot for Waller, Texas-based A.J. Foyt Racing with a lap in 1:07.9818-seconds/104.216 mph in the No. 4 Foyt Racing Chevrolet.

“Overall, really, really happy with how things ended up turning out,” Malukas said. “We kind of had our heads twisted on setup changes from Practice 1 and Practice 2, but going into qualifying, we didn’t hit it perfect. There was a bit of understeer in the car, but we did an incredible job getting the car where it needed to be. Scraped through in Q1 and going into that Fast 12, we had a very fast car for the short four corners I did.

“Unfortunately, luck is always a big play into it, and we had a really unlucky red (flag). They didn’t give us the extra lap in the end. We couldn’t really show what we had, so I ended up with a P10. We can work from there. It feels very confident that we finished P10, but we know we have a fast car and it could’ve been a lot better. Heads are forward and we know that results are not in qualifying. Results are in the race, so we’ll get it done.”

Teammate Santino Ferruci faces a particularly difficult afternoon after qualifying 27^th/last via a lap in 1:08.6268-seconds/103.237 mph in the No. 14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet.

“We struggled all the way through the weekend,” said Ferrucci, a transplanted resident of Dallas. “Made some pretty big changes in the car going into qualifying. It felt really good. Honestly, I think we made some solid strides. The car was very capable of advancing. I just had a slight bauble in Turn 8, and I clipped the wall the wrong way. It unfortunately ended our session.

“I feel really good about being able to move forward. I think the car is in a really good spot at the moment. We’re not going to change anything going into the warm up, and we’re going to do what we got to do to advance. Hopefully, it’s entertaining.”

Dixon, a native of New Zealand and winner of this event in 2015 and 2024, will start 12^th after lapping at 1:07.3777-seconds/105.151 mph in the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda fielded by Chip Ganassi Racing.

Christian Lundgaard of Denmark, fourth in points, possibly lost a spot in the Firestone Fast Six when he hit the tire barrier in Turn 6 during his final qualifying lap in the second segment.

Lundgaard was fifth on the time charts when his No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet speared the barrier, triggering a red flag just moments after the checkered to end the session. INDYCAR qualifying rules state any driver who causes a red flag in qualifying loses their two quickest laps and cannot advance to the next session. That penalty placed Rosenqvist into the Firestone Fast Six.

“The lap times dropped a lot quicker than we thought they would, and we needed to continue to push and finish that lap,” Arrow McLaren General Manager Brian Barnhart said. “And Christian, we’re just trying to ensure that we transferred. We were in P5 and it was going to be really close, and just clipped the tire barrier at Turn 9 and ended the day.”

NTT IndyCar Series Point Standings _ 1, Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing, 102; 2, Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren, 63; 3, Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing, 61; 4, Christian Lundgaard, Arrow McLaren, 60; 5, Felix Rosenqvist, Meyer Shank Racing, 56; 6, Kyle Kirkwood, Andretti Global, 54; 7, Josef Newgarden, Team Penske, 53; 8, Colton Herta, Andretti Global, 47; 9, Alexander Rossi, Ed Carpenter Racing, 43; 10, Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske, 41;

11, Marcus Ericsson, Andretti Global, 37; 12, Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, 37; 13, Rinus VeeKay, Dale Coyne Racing, 35; 14, Will Power, Team Penske, 33; 15, Marcus Armstrong, Meyer Shank Racing, 33; 16, Christian Rasmussen, Ed Carpenter Racing, 33; 17, Santino Ferrucci, A.J. Foyt Racing, 32; 18, David Malukas, A.J. Foyt Racing, 29; 19, Kyffin Simpson, Chip Ganassi Racing, 27; 20, Conor Daly, Juncos Hollinger Racing, 27;

21, Devlin DeFrancesco, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, 18; 22, Robert Shwartzman, Prema Racing, 18; 23, Nolan Siegel, Arrow McLaren, 16; 24, Callum Ilott, Prema Racing, 16; 25, Sting Ray Robb, Juncos Hollinger Racing, 16; 26, Jacob Abel, Dale Coyne Racing, 12; 27, Louis Foster, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, 11.