The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach has brought us many entertaining and exciting races over its 51-year history. Yesterday’s race was not one of them. The box score shows that there were five lead changes among four drivers. That was from the pit stop shuffles during the first set of pit stops. Yet, if you subjected yourself to all 90 laps of Sunday’s race; you know that it was between two drivers – pole-sitter Felix Rosenqvist and Alex Palou, who started third.
It didn’t take long for Palou to dispense with front-row starter Pato O’Ward – perhaps by the end of the first lap. Then for the next 59 laps, we watched Palou casually sit about two seconds behind Rosenqvist – who drove an absolutely flawless race. Somehow, as each lap rolled off with Rosenqvist in front, we all knew how this was going to end up. If Palou ever got the slightest opening, he would pounce on the opportunity and win the race.
That opportunity came in the form of a piece of carbon-fiber debris, lying in the middle of the track just beyond the fountain complex. Contrary to what a few trolls were saying on social media last night, the series was correct and justified to throw the yellow. In fact, they would have been negligent had they not thrown it.
This race needed a caution to spice things up. I was thinking that this would be a good chance for drivers I was pulling for in mid-pack to make their move. Unfortunately for those that are suffering from Palou-fatigue, the biggest move came from Alex Palou. When all the teams came in for their final pit-stop on Lap 59, Palou needed a perfect pit-stop from his crew if he was going to get past Rosenqvist. He got it. Palou also needed Rosenqvist to have a bobble, in order to pull that off. It happened. Rosenqvist had already shown he could hold Palou at bay. All he needed was a stop just as good as Palou. It didn’t happen.
The Meyer-Shank Racing No. 60 crewman on the left-rear for Rosenqvist had a slight bobble getting his new tire back on. That extended the Rosenqvist stop by 1.1 seconds beyond what Palou’s stop took. That was the difference between winning and losing. Palou got out on track just ahead of Rosenqvist and that was it. For the remainder of the race, the only suspense was if then-points leader Kyle Kirkwood might overtake Scott Dixon for third. That didn’t happen either.
Alex Palou won by over 3.9 seconds, but at one time I saw a lead of over 5.2 seconds. Once Palou got in front, there was no doubt who was going to win the race. Alex Palou has now won three out of the five races this season heading into the Month of May. Going further back, he has also won 11 out of the past 22 races – which is an insane statistic. That is knocking on the door of AJ Foyt’s 10 out of 13 races in 1964.
Fans owe a big thank-you to Rinus VeeKay for his overly ambitious move on Palou at Phoenix back in March, causing Palou to receive a rare DNF and bringing him back to the field some. It made things interesting for a while. Palou was out of the points lead for more than a month. First it was Josef Newgarden who assumed the points lead leaving Phoenix. Then Kyle Kirkwood took command for the next two races, although you always knew Palou was lurking in the distance. Sunday he pounced and is now leading the points again.
It’s still April and it’s already looking like a two-man race for the 2026 championship. Kirkwood trails Palou by a manageable 17 points. That can be more than made up in one race. But look at third-place in the championship standings. It’s David Malukas, who already trails Palou by a whopping 63 points. No one behind Kirkwood has mounted any type of consistency, which is required if you are going to seriously challenge Palou.
Not only did we get a very boring race on Sunday, but we also got a possible preview of what the rest of the season is going to look like – what the last few have looked like. Unless someone can mount a charge and Palou can run into some unbelievably bad luck – we are looking at another Alex Palou beatdown for 2026. Nothing against Alex Palou personally, but this has grown tiresome and needs to stop!
TV Coverage: I am really growing comfortable with the pairing of Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe. There was a point two or three years ago, when I felt like they were trying too hard – especially Townsend Bell. But they are no longer forcing things and they have really developed some natural chemistry with each other. I’m still not a fan of Will Buxton and his over-the-top delivery. He is knowledgeable and has learned IndyCar, but I still find him personally irritating. I know I am in the minority on that, but that’s just me.
I did find Bell’s new saying this weekend a little tiresome and a bit creepy. I think three times I heard Bell use the phrase A Kiss and a Cuddle in describing a driver barely brushing the wall or barely making contact with another driver. I had never heard him use that phrase before this past weekend. After hearing it three times over all of the weekend broadcasts, that’s enough. He needs to put that one back in the box and let it stay there.
I could also do without his pet nickname for Christian Rasmussen – The Sultan of Sketch. Please.
As far as the pit reporters go, Jack Harvey is really coming into his own. When you look back to St. Petersburg in 2025, he looked and acted scared to death. He has come a long way in showing his true sense of humor, as well as his depth of racing knowledge. Kevin Lee and Georgia Henneberry continue to shine. They both come off as likeable and very knowledgeable. I would stack this trio of pit reporters up against any in motorsports.
Red vs Soft: You can tell that FOX has made a concerted effort to change everyone’s vocabulary when it comes to discussing primary and alternate tires. Way back in the day, when alternate tires first made their appearance; the sidewalls were painted red to differentiate them from the primary tires, which kept the original black sidewalls. For years, we all called the primary tires the blacks, and the alternate tires the reds.
When Firestone introduce the guayule tires at the Music City Grand Prix in 2022 for all street races; they gave them green sidewalls to differentiate them from the alternates still used at natural terrain road courses. I’m guessing FOX was concerned because teams and drivers were still calling the guayule tires “the reds” even though their sidewalls were clearly green; and that may have caused confusion for viewers. It didn’t confuse me, and probably didn’t confuse a single reader of this site; but I can see where a very casual viewer might not have understood.
Because of this, I’m figuring that last year FOX instructed all of their on-air staff to call the primary tires hard, and the alternate tires soft to avoid confusion with reds and tires that were green, but still called red.
This year, the guayule tires are discontinued and there is only one alternate tire for all aces that utilize alternate tires, and they are always red.
I am a visual person. When I hear Kevin Lee say a driver is swapping to reds, I can automatically visualize a red sidewall and I immediately know it is the softer alternate. But when I hear him say a driver is switching to soft tires – I find myself stopping for a split-second to determine if he’s referring to a black or red tire.
Maybe I’m the only person whose brain operates that way, but we are in our second season of hearing hard and soft instead of black and red, and I still find it cumbersome to listen to. After so many years of hearing about the red tires, it is tough to change my way of translating this in my brain. Change is Bad!
Sloppy Start: I have been watching IndyCar races for a very long time, probably longer than some readers here have been alive. I can truly say that I have never seen a sloppier start than what we saw yesterday. The first three rows pulled away from the rest of the field and took off, leaving the remaining nineteen cars to fend for themselves. Was Will Power asleep at the switch in Row Four or did he purposely hold back to avoid chaos as James Hinchcliffe suggested?
A strung-out field has always been a problem at Long Beach, due to cars having to navigate the hairpin. Some have suggested moving the start/finish line further down. That makes sense, but I’m sure race organizers want the start/finish line in front of grandstands. Those seats can bring a nice price. Even if they moved the starting line to the bend in Shoreline Drive, there are no stands there. I believe that is a park of some sort and stands are not allowed to be erected there.
Sloppy starts are common at Long Beach, but yesterday was the worst. In my opinion, Race Control should have thrown the yellow flag and made them go around again. It was not a good look and prevented fans from seeing the usual funneling of all cars into Turn One. Watching six cars battle it out didn’t do it for me.
Hybrid Issues Return: We had gone so long without hearing about hybrid issues, I had forgotten that they were even a thing. In fact, after such an overhyped debut in the middle of the 2023 season – we hardly even hear a mention of the hybrids.
That all ended this weekend when we had not one, but two cars affected with hybrid gremlins. Curiously enough, they were both from the same team – Andretti Global. Kyle Kirkwood dealt with hybrid issues during qualifying and again during Sunday’s morning warm-up. They eventually changed out the unit before ethe race, so all was well.
Marcus Ericsson was not so lucky. I’m not sure if the hybrid cause his poor qualifying effort, but his issues were definitely going on in the race. Ericsson ended up finishing dead-last, and being the only car to completely drop out of the race.
I’m hoping this is the last of hybrid issues we hear of for a while – especially for the Month of May.
Back to Normal: Longtime readers of this site know that I have always made race win predictions prior to each race. If you know that, then you also know that my record for picking winners is absolutely abysmal. In a good year, I might pick two wins in an entire season. I once went through a three-year (plus) stretch without picking a single winner. Usually my picks are a kiss of death, sending a driver inexplicably into the wall within the first five laps. In the seventeen years of this site, I have picked two Indianapolis 500 winners; Tony Kanaan in 2013, and Alex Palou in 2025. Usually my pick is out before my first trip down the stairs to the IMS restroom.
This year was highly unusual for me. I started out 2 for 3 (mainly because I didn’t make a pick for Arlington since I was out of the country). I missed the opening pick for St. Petersburg, but I predicted Newgarden at Phoenix and Palou at Barber. I was on an unprecedented roll.
Things got back to normal this weekend, as I picked Marcus Ericsson to win. He finished last. All is right with the world.
Andretti Woes: Hybrid issues aside, just what happened to Andretti Global this weekend? They were the prohibitive favorite to win Long Beach headed into the weekend, having won five of the last seven races there. The general consensus was that this is not a good track for Ganassi and Palou had never won there. The only question was which Andretti driver would be the winner; Kirkwood, Power or Ericsson.
Power made contact with a Foyt crew member in pit lane and was rightfully penalized. Ericsson had hybrid issues end his day, but he had a poor qualifying effort. Kirkwood had won two of the past three races at Long Beach, but was doing good to finish fourth.
Meanwhile, Pato O’Ward put McLaren on the front row. Malukas made the Firestone Fast Six for Penske and Palou and Dixon finished first and third to take two steps on the podium. I have an idea the Andretti team will be scratching their heads all the way back to Indianapolis.
Drive of the Day: Contrary to popular belief, there was some movement throughout the field in yesterday’s race, and there were some stellar drives among a few drivers. I was tempted to give the Drive of the Day award to Alexander Rossi. He overcame starting eighteenth to finish ninth. But he is an Indianapolis 500 winner driving a car that was supposed to get a massive upgrade this weekend. He should be finishing in the Top-Ten at races.
Instead, I am going with Dennis Hauger. He is driving for one of the smallest teams in the paddock (Dale Coyne racing). His engineer, Michael Cannon, was not even at the race this weekend – and he is a rookie. Yet he still managed an eleventh place finish after starting nineteenth, on a track where passing is at a premium.
Dennis Hauger is only five races into his IndyCar career, but he has already collected the coveted Oilpressure.com Drive of the Day award.
All in All: Every year, we know going into Long Beach that there is a pretty good chance the race will be a dud. There have been many exciting and compelling races at Long Beach, yesterday’s race just didn’t happen to be one of them.
But it looked great on television. The stands were packed! I remarked to Susan that 10 or 15 years ago, there would have been more empty seats than filled in the stands. The stands were packed all weekend. The entire venue looked like a world class event, because it was. I am guessing that even though the race itself was not exciting, the ratings will be good for Long Beach. Let’s hope so. The NTT IndyCar Series needs a lot of momentum to go into the Month of May.
George Phillips
