Second at Long Beach boosts Grosjean's confidence heading into month of May
Badly needing a strong result after disappointments in the first two NTT IndyCar Series races this season, the Andretti Autosport team was in a great position Sunday at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Colton Herta had shattered the track record in qualifying and turned his pole starting spot into a comfortable lead in the early laps. With teammates Romain Grosjean and Alexander Rossi lurking well inside the top 10, the possibility of an Andretti driver on the top step of the podium seemed likely.
Until it wasn’t.
Herta lost his lead after a hiccup on his first pit stop, then crashed out of the race 29 laps from the finish while trying to catch leader Josef Newgarden and second-place Alex Palou.
It left Grosjean and Rossi to give the Andretti team its best result of the season, and they delivered. Grosjean, who started sixth, harassed Newgarden to the end and finished second, and Rossi finished eighth to help ease the disappointment of his 20th-place finish at St. Petersburg and 27th (last place) at Texas. Andretti rookie Devlin DeFrancesco crashed midway through the race and placed 25th.
“I think it’s going well,” Grosjean said of the Andretti team’s performance to date, despite challenges in the first two races. “We had very, very little testing before we got to St. Pete. We (tested) one day in Sebring and then (raced at) St. Pete, and then two days that we wanted to test (at Texas), it snowed.”
Romain Grosjean had a big smile on his file in anticipation of a strong eventual runner-up finish in Sunday's Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Photo: Chris Owens/IndyCar.
Grosjean even missed considerable practice time Friday at Long Beach because “of a (unidentified) small issue, so we lost Friday as a session on my side. I think looking at the race, maybe there’s stuff we would have done slightly different, but I think we had the right strategy. We had a good pit stop from the guys, good communication and then a P2, so that’s pretty good.”
Grosjean’s crew changed to grippier alternate tires on his final stop and the fresh rubber helped him get close to Newgarden in the final laps, but not close enough.
“I think Josef had it,” Grosjean said. “I was looking at turn 11, the hairpin, making a last-lap lunge, maybe if I was close enough. But I don’t think I was close enough on that lap and Josef was driving well and not making any mistakes.”
Grosjean feels confident going into May, with races at Barber Motorsports Park on May 1, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course May 14 and the Indianapolis 500 May 29.
“The car is straightforward to drive,” Grosjean said. “There’s one thing I need to improve to make it a touch more to my liking, but I think we’ve got a very strong baseline and a car that can go super fast. If I had started P2 today (he started 8th), things would have been a little bit easier.”
Grosjean climbed to sixth in the IndyCar standings with 75 points, 43 behind leader Newgarden and eight behind fifth-place Scott Dixon.
Rossi had a nice day, especially compared with his first two races. He started sixth and climbed into third place on Lap 21 when he rubbed sidepods to pass Felix Rosenqvist entering Turn 1.
At that point, Herta maintained the lead he’d held since the start and all seemed right in the Andretti camp. But a fading right front tire worried Herta, and a slow first pit stop cost him the lead.
His 9.4-second stop was nearly two seconds slower than Palou, who’d pitted two laps earlier and held the lead over Newgarden and Herta once the pit cycle was complete.
Later, trying to close the gap as another round of pit stops approached, Herta told his crew on the radio that his right front again “was done.”
On lap 56, so was Herta.
Braking heavily at the end of the back straight, Herta’s right front locked up and he nosed hard into the Turn 9 wall. It left him with a 23rd-place finish, his lowest this season after a fourth at St. Pete and 12th at Texas.
“I got in there and locked the right front and that was it,” Herta told NBC. “It’s just a stupid mistake. We definitely were in that thing. We were … keeping up and Alex and Josef. I feel really bad. The car was fantastic. I just over-did it a little bit today.”
Herta, seventh in the season standings entering the race, dropped to 11th.
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