Long Beach IndyCar: Brilliant Rossi beats the Penskes to pole
Alexander Rossi scored the second pole position of his IndyCar career, his Andretti Autosport-Honda beating the Penske-Chevrolets of Will Power and Simon Pagenaud by 0.35sec and in just one flying lap of Long Beach.
Photo by: Scott R LePage / Motorsport Images
Rossi, who scored his first IndyCar pole at Watkins Glen last September, lapped the 1.968-mile track in 66.553sec to eclipse Power and Pagenaud by 0.3526 and 0.3579sec respectively. Power brushed the wall exiting Turn 8 on his fastest run, but teammate Josef Newgarden thumped it, bending a toe-link and relegating himself to sixth.
Scott Dixon was fourth fastest for Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, despite locking up into Turn 8 on what he believed might have been a pole-winning lap. As it transpired, he was almost half a second off top spot, with Graham Rahal’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda a mere 0.0792sec in arrears.
In Q2, a fuming Ryan Hunter-Reay was assessed a drive-through penalty for crossing the pit-exit blend line and missed out on a chance to get into the Firestone Fast Six.
He will still start ahead of defending Long Beach winner James Hinchcliffe (Schmidt Peterson), who is separated from rookie teammate Robert Wickens by St. Petersburg winner, Sebastien Bourdais, in the Dale Coyne Racing-Honda. Wickens bent a toelink brushing the wall in Turn 4.
Tony Kanaan’s AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy was 11th quickest, with Ed Carpenter Racing’s rookie Jordan King again impressing with 12th.
Ed Jones will roll off in 13th in the second Ganassi-Honda alongside Matheus Leist, who got bumped from progressing to Q2 by Bourdais and teammate Kanaan. Meanwhile Max Chilton will give Carlin’s IndyCar team its best start of the year with 15th on the grid.
Jack Harvey, whose last race was the season-opener, will start 17th in the Michael Shank Racing-run Schmidt Peterson-Honda.
Kyle Kaiser’s Juncos Racing-Chevrolet struck the exit wall in Turn 9 but managed to limp it to pitroad without causing a red flag. Marco Andretti was dropped one place to 20th for obstructing Takuma Sato’s flying lap, after recovering from running down the escape road and spin-turning to rejoin the track.
IndyCar 2018 Long Beach Q3
Cla | # | Driver | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | Mph |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 27 | Alexander Rossi | 2 | 1'06.5528 | 106.486 | ||
2 | 12 | Will Power | 4 | 1'06.9054 | 0.3526 | 0.3526 | 105.925 |
3 | 22 | Simon Pagenaud | 4 | 1'06.9107 | 0.3579 | 0.0053 | 105.917 |
4 | 9 | Scott Dixon | 4 | 1'07.0483 | 0.4955 | 0.1376 | 105.699 |
5 | 15 | Graham Rahal | 3 | 1'07.1275 | 0.5747 | 0.0792 | 105.575 |
6 | 1 | Josef Newgarden | 3 | 1'07.1922 | 0.6394 | 0.0647 | 105.473 |
IndyCar 2018 Long Beach Q2
Cla | # | Driver | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | Mph |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 12 | Will Power | 7 | 1'06.5709 | 106.425 | ||
2 | 27 | Alexander Rossi | 7 | 1'06.8326 | 0.2617 | 0.2617 | 106.008 |
3 | 9 | Scott Dixon | 7 | 1'06.8341 | 0.2632 | 0.0015 | 106.006 |
4 | 1 | Josef Newgarden | 7 | 1'06.8833 | 0.3124 | 0.0492 | 105.928 |
5 | 22 | Simon Pagenaud | 7 | 1'06.9057 | 0.3348 | 0.0224 | 105.892 |
6 | 15 | Graham Rahal | 6 | 1'07.0903 | 0.5194 | 0.1846 | 105.601 |
7 | 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 6 | 1'07.1415 | 0.5706 | 0.0512 | 105.520 |
8 | 5 | James Hinchcliffe | 7 | 1'07.1899 | 0.6190 | 0.0484 | 105.444 |
9 | 18 | Sébastien Bourdais | 3 | 1'07.1943 | 0.6234 | 0.0044 | 105.438 |
10 | 6 | Robert Wickens | 4 | 1'07.2289 | 0.6580 | 0.0346 | 105.383 |
11 | 14 | Tony Kanaan | 6 | 1'07.3478 | 0.7769 | 0.1189 | 105.197 |
12 | 20 | Jordan King | 6 | 1'07.6427 | 1.0718 | 0.2949 | 104.739 |
IndyCar 2018 Long Beach Q1 Group 2
Cla | # | Driver | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | Mph |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 27 | Alexander Rossi | 6 | 1'07.1718 | 105.473 | ||
2 | 22 | Simon Pagenaud | 7 | 1'07.5481 | 0.3763 | 0.3763 | 104.885 |
3 | 18 | Sébastien Bourdais | 7 | 1'07.5662 | 0.3944 | 0.0181 | 104.857 |
4 | 12 | Will Power | 7 | 1'07.5874 | 0.4156 | 0.0212 | 104.824 |
5 | 5 | James Hinchcliffe | 7 | 1'07.6893 | 0.5175 | 0.1019 | 104.666 |
6 | 14 | Tony Kanaan | 6 | 1'07.8917 | 0.7199 | 0.2024 | 104.354 |
7 | 4 | Matheus Leist | 6 | 1'08.1622 | 0.9904 | 0.2705 | 103.940 |
8 | 26 | Zach Veach | 6 | 1'08.1763 | 1.0045 | 0.0141 | 103.919 |
9 | 21 | Spencer Pigot | 6 | 1'08.2739 | 1.1021 | 0.0976 | 103.770 |
10 | 98 | Marco Andretti | 6 | 1'08.5294 | 1.3576 | 0.2555 | 103.383 |
11 | 30 | Takuma Sato | 6 | 1'08.6340 | 1.4622 | 0.1046 | 103.226 |
12 | 32 | Kyle Kaiser | 2 |
IndyCar 2018 Long Beach Q1 Group 1
Cla | # | Driver | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | Mph |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 6 | 1'07.7058 | 104.641 | ||
2 | 9 | Scott Dixon | 7 | 1'07.7897 | 0.0839 | 0.0839 | 104.511 |
3 | 1 | Josef Newgarden | 6 | 1'07.8123 | 0.1065 | 0.0226 | 104.477 |
4 | 6 | Robert Wickens | 6 | 1'07.9894 | 0.2836 | 0.1771 | 104.204 |
5 | 15 | Graham Rahal | 7 | 1'08.0364 | 0.3306 | 0.0470 | 104.132 |
6 | 20 | Jordan King | 6 | 1'08.2933 | 0.5875 | 0.2569 | 103.741 |
7 | 10 | Ed Jones | 7 | 1'08.3844 | 0.6786 | 0.0911 | 103.603 |
8 | 59 | Max Chilton | 7 | 1'08.7167 | 1.0109 | 0.3323 | 103.102 |
9 | 60 | Jack Harvey | 6 | 1'08.8207 | 1.1149 | 0.1040 | 102.946 |
10 | 88 | Gabby Chaves | 5 | 1'08.8623 | 1.1565 | 0.0416 | 102.884 |
11 | 19 | Zachary Claman De Melo | 6 | 1'09.1429 | 1.4371 | 0.2806 | 102.466 |
12 | 23 | Charlie Kimball | 6 | 1'09.7481 | 2.0423 | 0.6052 | 101.577 |
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