Oilpressure

The 50th Running of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will take place this weekend on the Streets of Long Beach. This is also the 50th anniversary of the first race was run on those now-famous streets – a Formula 5000 race won by Brian Redman, that was actually run in September of 1975. Normally if this was the 50th anniversary, that would mean this year’s race would actually be the 51st running of the event – but COVID threw everything off by a year.

After that first race back in 1975, the event became a Formula One event and moved to the more traditional spring date that we have grown accustomed to – the only exception being in 2021, when Long Beach served as the season finale and a COVID precaution.

Long Beach remained on the Formula One schedule from 1976 through the 1983 season. Some of the more famous F1 winners at Long Beach were Mario Andretti, Clay Regazzoni, Carlos Reutemann, Gilles Villeneuve, Nelson Piquet and Niki Lauda.

In 1984, Long Beach switched to a CART event and served as the CART series opener. As head had done in 1977, Mario Andretti won the race, this time in dominating fashion. From CART, then Champ Car and finally today’s NTT IndyCar Series – Long Beach has been a staple on the IndyCar schedule.

Long Beach has produced very few fluke winners over the past half-century. Mario Andretti scored four wins at Long Beach, while son Michael won twice. The driver with the most success at The Beach was Al Unser, Jr, who won six times – including a stretch where he won four in a row from 1988 through 1991. He appeared headed for a fifth straight win in 1992, while driving the Galmer chassis. But teammate Danny Sullivan punted him into a spin late in the race. Sullivan ended up driving his own Galmer to Victory Lane, but it caused some hard feelings in the Galles-Kraco camp.

Since the 2000s, The Grand Prix of Long Beach had been owned by Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerry Forsythe – two of the stalwarts of Champ Car. After Kalkhoven passed away in 2022, Forsythe bought the other 50% stake from Kalkhoven’s estate in March of 2024 – with the goal of keeping the event an IndyCar event after NASCAR had shown interest in purchasing the event. Later last year, Penske Entertainment purchased the event from Forsythe, assuring its place on the IndyCar schedule for years to come.

Like most racing venues, Long Beach has produced some thrilling races, along with some duds. Last year proved exciting only because Scott Dixon was able to get more out of his final fuel stint than anyone thought possible. It was Dixon’s second win at Long Beach, and his first since 2015. Prior to Dixon’s win last year, the last multiple winner to win was Alexander Rossi, who actually won twice in a row – in 2018 and 2019.

Other notable winners in the CART/IndyCar years since 1984 include Paul Tracy (four times), Sébastien Bourdais (three times), Will Power (twice) and Alex Zanardi (twice). Notable single winners include Dario Franchitti, Helio Castroneves, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Juan Montoya, Danny Sullivan, Jimmy Vasser, Simon Pagenaud and James Hinchcliffe. Besides Dixon and Power, current drivers in this weekend’s race with at least one Long Beach win under their belt include Colton Herta, Kyle Kirkwood and Josef Newgarden.

I’m not sure how much you can take from the first two races of the season and apply it to Long Beach, but I would think more would transfer from St. Petersburg to Long Beach, than Thermal. The Andretti Global cars were fast at St. Petersburg and they have been very quick the last few years at Long Beach. I expect them to be near the front most of this weekend.

The Penske cars had a so-so weekend at St. Petersburg, despite Newgarden’s third-place finish. Even though Power charged from the rear to have a respectable finish of sixth at Thermal, the Penske cars were way off the pace most of the weekend at thermal. Chip Ganassi can’t complain too much about his team. Alex Palou has won both races so far, and Scott Dixon sits third in points.

Arrow McLaren was good at Thermal, just not quite good enough. Pato O’Ward and Christian Lundgaard finished second and third respectively, after they both locked out the front row. Still, they are both second and fourth in the championship standings. The highest Penske driver in the standings after two races is Josef Newgarden (seventh). The highest Andretti driver? Kyle Kirkwood in sixth. Both Penske and Andretti need to have some better results if they want to keep up with the Ganassi and McLaren cars, who occupy the first four places in the championship. Felix Rosenqvist (a quasi-Ganassi car) currently sits in fifth.

This will only the third race of the season, but several drivers need good results this weekend to take some pressure off. Both Foyt cars have been disappointing thus far. After finishing ninth in the 2024 standings, Santino Ferrucci is currently seventeenth in the standings after two races. That’s one spot better than his teammate, David Malukas. Both of these drivers need strong weekends to prevent the start of a downhill slide.

Will Power recovered nicely at Thermal to make up for his lack of a result at St. Petersburg. Still, he is mired in fourteenth in points – in a contract year. He needs to continue his momentum from Thermal to keep his season headed in the right direction. Scott McLaughlin needs a good finish at Long Beach, after being mauled at Thermal by the bumbling Devlin DeFrancesco. Alexander Rossi has had decent results, but needs a breakthrough weekend to get him out of ninth in the standings.

A lot is riding on this weekend for a lot of teams. With Barber being the only remaining race before the three weekends of May at IMS, there are a lot of big names that need to get their seasons going. Long Beach is a good place to do it.

For those of us watching on television, Practice One will begin this afternoon (Friday) at 6:00 pm EDT on FS1. Practice Two will start at 11:30 am EDT on Saturday, also on FS1. Qualifying will air on FS2, beginning at 2:30 pm EDT. FS1 will carry the Morning Warp-up Sunday at Noon EDT. The race coverage on FOX will begin at 4:30 pm Sunday.

Now for my first race prediction of the season. I think a lot of seasons will be temporarily salvaged this weekend. I’ve read some “experts” saying that Long Beach has been a rough track for Alex Palou. I’m not sure how they determined that except for the fact he’s never won there. His worst finish at Long Beach is fifth, back in 2023. He has two podiums in four starts. I would not classify that as a rough track for Palou. But if seasons need to be salvaged this weekend. Having Palou continue his Long Beach winless streak would be good news for every other championship contender – and for the series for that matter. A beatdown of the field is never good for ratings or fan interest.

So the first part of my prediction is that Palou will not win this weekend. The second part is that a driver in need of a good result will win. I said earlier that the Andretti cars have been fast at Long Beach for the past few years, when Rossi won in 2018-19, Herta won in 2021and Kyle Kirkwood won in 2023. This year’s winner will be the same driver that won the 2022 Indianapolis 500, and is in desperate need to kickstart his season and his tenure at Andretti Global – Marcus Ericsson. He’s due.

With this being such a late afternoon race, I am going to exercise my status as semi-retired and will not have a race recap on Monday. When I was fulltime, the late Sunday races were the worst. As soon as the coverage was over, I would get up and go to mu computer in the other room and write until time to go to bed – only stopping to eat dinner. I don’t miss those times. As we get closer to May, I will start picking up my frequency on how much I post. I need to get back in the swing for Every weekday in May. Enjoy the race, and I’ll be back here soon.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on April 11, 2025 at 4:04 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.