Practice report

IndyCar Long Beach: Newgarden leads race day warm-up

Team Penske’s defending Long Beach winner led the field in final practice ahead of the 2023 Grand Prix of Long Beach, with Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta as his nearest challengers.

In 57degF ambient temperatures the IndyCar Series teams tried out primary and alternate Firestones, and on the softer ‘greens’, first-time pole-winner Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Autosport set quickest time in the opening 20 minutes of the half-hour session. He turned a 1m07.0492s lap of the 1.968-mile course, an average speed of 105.666mph.

Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing was Kirkwood’s closest challenger – albeit 0.3sec away – for much of the session, until Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay slotted into second, 0.22s adrift, before Meyer Shank Racing’s Simon Pagenaud – who won here for Team Penske in 2016, his championship year, cut Kirkwood’s advantage to 0.13s.

Fastest driver on primaries, initially, was defending Long Beach winner Josef Newgarden who was less than half a second off top spot.

With five minutes remaining, one of Kirkwood’s teammates, Colton Herta, jumped to the top of the times with a 106mph lap, a 1m06.8118s effort, while 2015 Long Beach winner and six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon went second fastest – and quickest on primaries – a mere 0.22s off Herta’s benchmark time on alternates.

Marcus Ericsson, who will start alongside Kirkwood on the front row, was another driver impressing on primaries, getting up to sixth with a 1m07.2926s.

On their final flyers on alternates, Newgarden and two-time Long Beach winner Alexander Rossi of Arrow McLaren jumped to the top of the times with, the Penske driver delivering a 1m06.5611s, two-tenths ahead of his compatriot.

There were a few mistakes from drivers visiting escape roads, but there was no obvious damage, aside from Christian Lundgaard scraping along the Turn 8 wall.

Green flag for the 48^th running of the Grand Prix of Long Beach will wave at 12.45pm.

P	Name	FTime	Diff	FL	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Team
1	Josef Newgarden	1:06.5611	-	21	22	106.441	Chevy	Team Penske
2	Alexander Rossi	1:06.7540	0.1929	22	23	106.133	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
3	Colton Herta	1:06.8118	0.2507	15	20	106.041	Honda	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
4	Scott Dixon	1:07.0286	0.4675	19	22	105.698	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
5	Kyle Kirkwood	1:07.0492	0.4881	8	21	105.666	Honda	Andretti Autosport
6	Simon Pagenaud	1:07.1783	0.6172	13	19	105.463	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
7	Rinus VeeKay	1:07.2746	0.7135	15	23	105.312	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
8	Marcus Ericsson	1:07.2926	0.7315	16	20	105.283	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
9	Alex Palou	1:07.3403	0.7792	8	21	105.209	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
10	Scott McLaughlin	1:07.3574	0.7963	22	22	105.182	Chevy	Team Penske
11	Helio Castroneves	1:07.3962	0.8351	18	23	105.122	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
12	Jack Harvey	1:07.4416	0.8805	15	19	105.051	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
13	Callum Ilott	1:07.4538	0.8927	17	21	105.032	Chevy	Juncos Hollinger Racing
14	Pato O'Ward	1:07.4837	0.9226	19	23	104.985	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
15	Benjamin Pedersen	1:07.5953	1.0342	19	21	104.812	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
16	Graham Rahal	1:07.6628	1.1017	17	19	104.707	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
17	Marcus Armstrong	1:07.7054	1.1443	10	22	104.642	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
18	Christian Lundgaard	1:07.8383	1.2772	17	18	104.437	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
19	Romain Grosjean	1:07.9318	1.3707	18	23	104.293	Honda	Andretti Autosport
20	Devlin DeFrancesco	1:07.9766	1.4155	11	19	104.224	Honda	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
21	Conor Daly	1:08.0931	1.5320	15	17	104.046	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
22	David Malukas	1:08.1403	1.5792	11	15	103.974	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
23	Felix Rosenqvist	1:08.2001	1.6390	5	16	103.883	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
24	Santino Ferrucci	1:08.2980	1.7369	16	16	103.734	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
25	Will Power	1:08.7769	2.2158	7	23	103.011	Chevy	Team Penske
26	Sting Ray Robb	1:08.8898	2.3287	15	22	102.843	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
27	Agustin Canapino	1:08.9203	2.3592	8	16	102.797	Chevy	Juncos Holling Racing