{"id":50933,"date":"2025-04-13T08:47:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T13:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=50933"},"modified":"2025-04-13T08:47:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T13:47:17","slug":"andretti-global-aces-qualify-1-2-on-streets-of-long-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/13\/andretti-global-aces-qualify-1-2-on-streets-of-long-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"Andretti Global aces qualify 1-2 on Streets of Long Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kyle Kirkwood – Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach – Photo by Chris Owens<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

By John Sturbin, Raceday San Antonio<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

SEE: Qualifying Results<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re in an Andretti Global car at Long Beach, you know you\u2019re going to be quick,\u201d said Kirkwood, a 26-year-old native of Jupiter, Fla. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be so happy with that, right? A front-row Andretti Global lockout here at Long Beach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m shaking. That was great. That was such a good lap, such a good qualifying. Fortunately, I didn\u2019t put any wheel wrong or hit anything. That\u2019s always a question here at street courses. You\u2019ve got to send it to get that top spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s premier street race.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty good, all-in-all,\u201d Rosenqvist said. \u201cI 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\u2019m bummed and excited at the same time. I think we’re in a pretty good spot for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, just stuffed it up a bit on my first lap in the Fast Six,\u201d McLaughlin said. \u201cNot 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\u2019s a premier race on our calendar, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

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\u2019s quickest circuit.<\/p>\n

Palou <\/strong>is the only driver to finish in the top-five in both of this season\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s gap to the rest of the field _ the largest in qualifying this season through three races.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Herta said. \u201cI didn\u2019t have that, so the tires started out a little cold. But they got there in the end, after maybe three or four corners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m guessing that maybe the time lost to Kyle is probably in those first few corners. Still can\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pato O\u2019Ward, 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can fight from ninth,\u201d said O\u2019Ward, a native of Mexico with family ties to San Antonio. \u201cThis 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s five laps longer than last year. I say they should have done 10 laps because the two-stopper\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Malukas earned the 10th<\/sup> 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, really, really happy with how things ended up turning out,\u201d Malukas said. \u201cWe kind of had our heads twisted on setup changes from Practice 1 and Practice 2, but going into qualifying, we didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, luck is always a big play into it, and we had a really unlucky red (flag). They didn\u2019t give us the extra lap in the end. We couldn\u2019t 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\u2019ve been a lot better. Heads are forward and we know that results are not in qualifying. Results are in the race, so we\u2019ll get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\u201cWe struggled all the way through the weekend,\u201d said Ferrucci, a transplanted resident of Dallas. \u201cMade 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel really good about being able to move forward. I think the car is in a really good spot at the moment. We\u2019re not going to change anything going into the warm up, and we\u2019re going to do what we got to do to advance. Hopefully, it\u2019s entertaining.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“The lap times dropped a lot quicker than we thought they would, and we needed to continue to push and finish that lap,\u201d Arrow McLaren General Manager Brian Barnhart said. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

NTT IndyCar Series Point Standings _<\/strong> 1, Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing, 102; 2, Pato O\u2019Ward, 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;<\/p>\n

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;<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":678,"featured_media":50935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[742,677,172,22,1002,173,672],"class_list":["post-50933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indycar","tag-acura-grand-prix-of-long-beach","tag-colton-herta","tag-grand-prix-of-long-beach","tag-indycar","tag-kyle-kirkwood","tag-long-beach","tag-ntt-indycar-series"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Kyle-Kirkwood-Acura-Grand-Prix-of-Long-Beach-By_-Chris-Owens_Ref-Image-Without-Watermark_m124990.jpg?fit=1080%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-dfv","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/678"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50933"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50937,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50933\/revisions\/50937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}