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Qualifying report

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.

Polesitter Alexander Rossi, Andretti Autosport

Polesitter Alexander Rossi, Andretti Autosport

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

ClaDriverLapsTimeGapIntervalMph
1 27 united_states  Alexander Rossi  2 1'06.5528     106.486
2 12 australia  Will Power  4 1'06.9054 0.3526 0.3526 105.925
3 22 france  Simon Pagenaud  4 1'06.9107 0.3579 0.0053 105.917
4 9 new_zealand  Scott Dixon  4 1'07.0483 0.4955 0.1376 105.699
5 15 united_states  Graham Rahal  3 1'07.1275 0.5747 0.0792 105.575
6 1 united_states  Josef Newgarden  3 1'07.1922 0.6394 0.0647 105.473

IndyCar 2018 Long Beach Q2

ClaDriverLapsTimeGapIntervalMph
1 12 australia  Will Power  7 1'06.5709     106.425
2 27 united_states  Alexander Rossi  7 1'06.8326 0.2617 0.2617 106.008
3 9 new_zealand  Scott Dixon  7 1'06.8341 0.2632 0.0015 106.006
4 1 united_states  Josef Newgarden  7 1'06.8833 0.3124 0.0492 105.928
5 22 france  Simon Pagenaud  7 1'06.9057 0.3348 0.0224 105.892
6 15 united_states  Graham Rahal  6 1'07.0903 0.5194 0.1846 105.601
7 28 united_states  Ryan Hunter-Reay  6 1'07.1415 0.5706 0.0512 105.520
8 5 canada  James Hinchcliffe  7 1'07.1899 0.6190 0.0484 105.444
9 18 france  Sébastien Bourdais  3 1'07.1943 0.6234 0.0044 105.438
10 6 canada  Robert Wickens  4 1'07.2289 0.6580 0.0346 105.383
11 14 brazil  Tony Kanaan  6 1'07.3478 0.7769 0.1189 105.197
12 20 united_kingdom  Jordan King  6 1'07.6427 1.0718 0.2949 104.739

IndyCar 2018 Long Beach Q1 Group 2 

ClaDriverLapsTimeGapIntervalMph
1 27 united_states  Alexander Rossi  6 1'07.1718     105.473
2 22 france  Simon Pagenaud  7 1'07.5481 0.3763 0.3763 104.885
3 18 france  Sébastien Bourdais  7 1'07.5662 0.3944 0.0181 104.857
4 12 australia  Will Power  7 1'07.5874 0.4156 0.0212 104.824
5 5 canada  James Hinchcliffe  7 1'07.6893 0.5175 0.1019 104.666
6 14 brazil  Tony Kanaan  6 1'07.8917 0.7199 0.2024 104.354
7 4 brazil  Matheus Leist  6 1'08.1622 0.9904 0.2705 103.940
8 26 united_states  Zach Veach  6 1'08.1763 1.0045 0.0141 103.919
9 21 united_states  Spencer Pigot  6 1'08.2739 1.1021 0.0976 103.770
10 98 united_states  Marco Andretti  6 1'08.5294 1.3576 0.2555 103.383
11 30 japan  Takuma Sato  6 1'08.6340 1.4622 0.1046 103.226
12 32 united_states  Kyle Kaiser  2    

IndyCar 2018 Long Beach Q1 Group 1

ClaDriverLapsTimeGapIntervalMph
1 28 united_states  Ryan Hunter-Reay  6 1'07.7058     104.641
2 9 new_zealand  Scott Dixon  7 1'07.7897 0.0839 0.0839 104.511
3 1 united_states  Josef Newgarden  6 1'07.8123 0.1065 0.0226 104.477
4 6 canada  Robert Wickens  6 1'07.9894 0.2836 0.1771 104.204
5 15 united_states  Graham Rahal  7 1'08.0364 0.3306 0.0470 104.132
6 20 united_kingdom  Jordan King  6 1'08.2933 0.5875 0.2569 103.741
7 10 united_arab_emirates  Ed Jones  7 1'08.3844 0.6786 0.0911 103.603
8 59 united_kingdom  Max Chilton  7 1'08.7167 1.0109 0.3323 103.102
9 60 united_kingdom  Jack Harvey  6 1'08.8207 1.1149 0.1040 102.946
10 88 colombia  Gabby Chaves  5 1'08.8623 1.1565 0.0416 102.884
11 19 canada  Zachary Claman De Melo  6 1'09.1429 1.4371 0.2806 102.466
12 23 united_states  Charlie Kimball  6 1'09.7481 2.0423 0.6052 101.577

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