Long Beach IndyCar: Alexander Rossi dominant for Andretti Autosport – IndyCar

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Alexander Rossi put on a masterclass to win IndyCar’s Long Beach Grand Prix for the second consecutive year and claim Andretti Autosport’s 200th win across all categories.

Poleman Rossi led from the outset, with his only true challenges for the lead coming from Scott Dixon both at the start of the race and on the restart following an early caution period.

Josef Newgarden increased his championship lead to 28 points by finishing second – but was over 20 seconds back from Rossi.

Newgarden, who had to contend with a minor electrical issue at the start of the race, was able to cut Rossi’s lead twice by pitting later and making the most of the clear air ahead to set fast in-laps.

While he was able to cut the gap to Rossi on both occasions, it was never by enough to have any real bearing on the race lead.

But Newgarden’s pace prior to his second pitstop allowed him to emerge ahead of Dixon, who had run in second for much of the race but had a refuelling problem during his own second stop.

Though that cost Dixon considerably, he had never looked like a credible threat for the race win.

He lost out to Graham Rahal and Ryan Hunter-Reay as well as Newgarden in that pit delay on lap 56 of 80.

Rahal, who started sixth on the grid, pitted before the leaders during the final cycle of stops, and his strong pace on older tyres compared to his rivals allowed him to finish third on the road.

But immediately after the race he was relegated to fourth because the stewards judged that Rahal had blocked Dixon during a last lap battle between the pair.

Hunter-Reay ended up fifth, passed by Dixon while running on old tyres and needing to save fuel late on.

Simon Pagenaud took his best finish of the year so far in sixth, one spot ahead of Penske team-mate Will Power – who faced a pair of difficulties during the race that cost him a chance of a podium finish.

Power had an overboost issue shortly before half-distance that slowed him at the hairpin, then locked up at the first turn and went down the escape road on the following lap while trying to defend from a move by Dixon.

Takuma Sato, who dominated last time out at Barber Motorsports Park, finished eighth, ahead of James Hinchcliffe, while Felix Rosenqvist recovered from his qualifying shunt to complete the top 10.

Colton Herta was the only driver not to make it to the end of the race. IndyCar’s youngest-ever winner had shown strong pace and had ran in the top 10 for most of the race until contact with the Turn 9 wall on lap 50 ended his race.

Jack Harvey finished three laps down after being involved in a lap one collision at Turn 2 with Spencer Pigot and Marcus Ericsson.

The incident brought out the only caution of the race. Ericsson was judged to have caused the collision and was given a penalty. The Formula 1 convert was classified 20th and two laps down.

Race result

Pos Driver Team Car Laps Gap
1 Alexander Rossi Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 85 1h41m35.5999s
2 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 85 20.2359s
3 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 85 25.5745s
4 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 85 26.4589s
5 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 85 29.3447s
6 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 85 31.5193s
7 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 85 33.0529s
8 Takuma Sato Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 85 34.2879s
9 James Hinchcliffe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 85 40.4643s
10 Felix Rosenqvist Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 85 41.3241s
11 Sebastien Bourdais Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 85 49.9110s
12 Patricio O’Ward Carlin Dallara/Chevrolet 84 1 Lap
13 Marco Andretti Andretti Herta Dallara/Honda 84 1 Lap
14 Max Chilton Carlin Dallara/Chevrolet 84 1 Lap
15 Matheus Leist AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet 84 1 Lap
16 Ed Jones Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 84 1 Lap
17 Zach Veach Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 84 1 Lap
18 Spencer Pigot Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 84 1 Lap
19 Tony Kanaan AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet 83 2 Laps
20 Marcus Ericsson Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 83 2 Laps
21 Santino Ferrucci Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 83 2 Laps
22 Jack Harvey Meyer Shank Racing Dallara/Honda 82 3 Laps
23 Colton Herta Harding Racing Dallara/Honda 50 Contact

Drivers’ standings

Pos Driver Points
1 Josef Newgarden 166
2 Alexander Rossi 138
3 Scott Dixon 133
4 Takuma Sato 116
5 Ryan Hunter-Reay 96
6 Will Power 93
7 James Hinchcliffe 93
8 Sebastien Bourdais 91
9 Graham Rahal 90
10 Colton Herta 88
11 Simon Pagenaud 87
12 Felix Rosenqvist 80
13 Marco Andretti 78
14 Jack Harvey 65
15 Spencer Pigot 63
16 Marcus Ericsson 61
17 Patricio O’Ward 56
18 Santino Ferrucci 56
19 Tony Kanaan 56
20 Zach Veach 55
21 Ed Jones 50
22 Max Chilton 47
23 Matheus Leist 46
24 Ben Hanley 21
25 Charlie Kimball 13
26 Kyle Kaiser 12



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