Two-time series champion takes over the NTT IndyCar Series points lead.
Josef Newgarden kept Team Penske in the win column for 2022 with his second consecutive victory and the third for Team Penske Sunday in Long Beach. Here’s what we learned from a sunny Southern California Sunday afternoon:
1. Daddy Dearest, Team Penske Style
Josef Newgarden won his second consecutive race.
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Josef Newgarden came into Sunday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on baby watch. Determined to compete in the race, Newgarden feared he might not be there with wife Ashley due to give birth to the couple’s first child any day now.
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IndyCar Results
Well, Ashley is still holding on, and Josef made a quick exit after post-race festivities to return to their Tennessee home, but not before winning Sunday’s race, his second consecutive win of the season and the 22nd of his IndyCar career.
Newgarden won under caution after Takuma Sato crashed in Turn 8 with one lap to go in the 85-lap event.
Team Penske has now won all three races to start the season—the third time it has done so in the last 12 seasons, having done the same to start the 2010 and 2012 campaigns. And by virtue of Sunday’s win, Newgarden takes over the points lead from teammate Scott McLaughlin, who began the season for the organization with a win at St. Petersburg.
Not only was Sunday’s triumph Newgarden’s first career win at Long Beach after nine previous winless tries there, it also elevated him after enduring back-to-back close runner-up finishes in the last two races at the track in 2019 and 2021 (there was no race in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). He also was third in 2017.
“It’s definitely up there on the list,” Newgarden told NBC when asked if this was one of the biggest wins of his career. “This was a fight today. This is not an easy race to win. I don’t know if it looks easy simple from the outside, but I was working my butt off with (runner-up Romain) Grosjean there.
“This Hitachi car was on it. We came into the race with a good strategy, had good fuel (mileage) with Team Chevy. I had everything I needed with pit stops and to get around Alex (Palou). I’m so proud of Team Penske. I’ve been trying to win a race here for 11 years, so I’m so happy to finally get it done.”
Newgarden becomes the ninth different winner at Long Beach in the last 10 years, a win that also was the 601st in Team Penske victory annals. While he takes over the points lead, the battle got considerably closer after Sunday’s race as well.
Coming into Sunday, McLaughlin held a 29-point lead over his closest challenger, Newgarden. Now, McLaughlin slips to second place, five points behind Newgarden, and there are now four drivers all within 16 points: defending series champ Alex Palou is third (15 points behind Newgarden), while another team Penske driver, Will Power, is fourth, 16 points behind Newgarden.
It’s been five years since Newgarden won back-to-races, but he’s not putting the cart before the horse about his championship hopes just yet.
“It’s too early to say, we’re just three races in (to a 17-race schedule)” Newgarden told NBC. “We could have a horrible rest of the year. I don’t want to wish bad juju on us, but I look at both sides of the argument. Right now, I feel like we’re building on the 2 car with (engineer) Eric Leichtle and all our crew and everybody else that works on it.
“I feel positive about where we’re going, but we have a long way to go. Indianapolis is where we need to perform at Team Penske and I want a Borg Warner (trophy) so bad, so let’s see what we do in the month of May.”
Alex Palou was among the six Honda’s that finished in the top 10.
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2. No Need to Panic
Is Honda getting a little frustrated?
Hmm, maybe. After all, Chevrolet has won the first three races of the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season.
In Sunday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach—by the way, Acura is a division of Honda—Honda once again failed to reach victory lane. But there still was some good news for the top executives back at Honda’s headquarters: the Japanese automaker saw six of its Indy cars finish in the top 10 at Long Beach.
What’s more, Honda now has five drivers in the top 10 in the driver standings.
Honda really hasn’t been all that bad this season, all things considered. In addition to what it did at Long Beach, it placed seven drivers in the top 10 in the season-opening race at St. Petersburg, Florida, and six drivers in the top 10 three weeks ago on the 1.5-mile oval at Texas Motor Speedway.
So, there’s no need to panic or even throw a fit. All they have to do is just win. Sure, it may sound simple, but as this season has proven so far, it’s not simple at all – although Chevrolet just has made it kind of look that way
3. No Push to Pass Needed
Honda saw six of its Indy cars finish in the top 10 at Long Beach led by Romain Grosjean in second.
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Moving to Andretti Autosport for this season has definitely been a good thing for Romain Grosjean.
He started the season with a fifth-place finish at St. Petersburg. While he suffered engine problems that prematurely sidelined him at Texas three weeks ago, Grosjean came back with an exceptionally strong performance Sunday at Long Beach, finishing runner-up, 1.2869 seconds behind Newgarden.
It was Grosjean’s fourth career podium in IndyCar. He finished second twice last season in both editions of the Indianapolis Grand Prix, and he was third at Laguna Seca.
While finishing second Sunday at Long Beach was certainly an achievement, an even greater accomplishment is he did it on old tires and with no push-to-pass in reserve for the final laps.
“It was very close, but not close enough, right?” Grosjean, who turns 36 on April 17, told NBC. “It was fun. We had the right tire strategy, the last portion was going to be great. … Josef made one mistake but I just couldn’t use it (push-to-pass).
“Our Chevy was fast on the straights but I couldn’t quite keep up. Very happy to be P2 today, and the first podium in the DHL colors. It’s a great day and looking forward to tomorrow.”
Pole sitter Colton Herta’s day ended early.
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4. Patience Is a Virtue
Too much aggressiveness and frustration proved to be a bad combination that knocked pole-sitter and defending race winner Colton Herta out of Sunday’s race.
After dominating much of the first half of the race, Herta was running third on Lap 55, trying to draw closer to race leaders Palou and Newgarden, when he came into Turn 9 too hot and sideswiped the left side retaining wall, causing damage that ended his day.
“I just broke a little bit too late, got in there, locked the right front and that was about it,” Herta told NBC Sports. “It’s just a stupid mistake. We were definitely in that thing. We were running third and keeping up with Alex and Josef, so it’s unfortunate. I feel really bad, yeah.”
In a sense, Sunday’s race was kind of like déjà vu for Herta. He was in position to win last year’s debut street race at Nashville, but crashed with six laps to go, similar to what happened in Sunday’s race.
“They gave me a good car,” Herta told NBC. “We just overdid it a bit today.”
Simon Pagenaud wound up in the flower bed Sunday.
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5. Flower Power
While you never want to make fun of someone’s misfortune, you couldn’t help but laugh at one incident late in the race when Simon Pagenaud wound up in the flower bed adjacent to the water fountain that the track runs around.
After making contact with Takuma Sato, Pagenaud spun around. He saw Rinus Veekay and Scott McLaughlin coming hard and fast and not slowing down fast enough, so in an attempt to avoid being collected in the inevitable contact that Veekay and McLaughlin had, and which brought out a full-course yellow, Pagenaud drove his car straight into the flower garden.
Only he drove in a bit too deep, and his car got stuck in the beautiful foliage, a rarity that many observers believe may be the first time that’s happened in IndyCar annals.
We don’t know if Pagenaud was looking to get an early start on his own gardening or what, but it was a chuckling moment—maybe not for the Frenchman, though, who ultimately finished a disappointing 19th.
Alexander Rossi finished a quiet eighth Sunday, a season best for him.
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6. Step Forward for Rossi
Alexander Rossi needed a good run in Sunday’s race. There was no ifs, ands or buts about it. And while he would have preferred a win or a podium at least, the northern California native finally got his season back on track with an eighth-place finish.
He showed strong pace and appeared to be much more aggressive than he has thus far this season. He did have minor contact with Felix Rosenqvist on Lap 27, but it didn’t seem to impact Rossi’s car by much.
It was his best showing of the season thus far, following weak finishes of 20th in the season-opening race at St. Petersburg and 27th three weeks ago at Texas (due to an electrical issue just 11 laps into the race).
Even though it wasn’t exactly the type of finish Rossi wanted, he did make some significant upward movement in the driver standings. Coming into the race, he was sitting 27th in the points, the lowest-ranked full-time driver on the circuit.
Rossi leaves Long Beach 18th in the points.
But even with the promising effort and finish, there’s still some unavoidable bad news to bring up for the Andretti Autosport driver: he’s still a massive 78 points behind new points leader Newgarden.
And his winless streak is now at 40 races, his last triumph coming in 2019 when he won back-to-back races at Detroit’s Belle Isle.
Graham Rahal finished seventh Sunday.
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7. Say What?
Another driver who didn’t have quite the race he wanted, but who still had a decent run, was Graham Rahal, who finished one spot higher than Rossi in seventh place.
While he showed some moments of aggressiveness, for the most part it was a routine race for Rahal.
But afterwards, the son of 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner and three-time CART champion and team owner Bobby Rahal, threw down the gauntlet when he was asked about the upcoming test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 10 days.
“I expect to win the Indy 500,” Rahal said emphatically to NBC. “I thought last year we were very good (until he was involved in a race-ending crash on Lap 118 of the 200-lap event) and the year before (2020) that we finished third and won as a team (then-Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver Takuma Sato won the 500 for the second time in his career).”
The younger Rahal then double-downed on his Indy 500 prediction:
“I think we’ll be very competitive as a team,” he said. “I expect RLL and the 15 car in particular to be very strong on race day.”
Scott McLaughlin finished 14th.
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8. McLaughlin’s Hit and Run
One of the best moves of the race which was actually also arguably one of the best recoveries that avoided potential disaster came just before Lap 40. Australian driver Scott McLaughlin was closing in on Tatiana Calderon heading into the hairpin Turn 11 on the track.
While trying to avoid contact with Calderon, McLaughlin inadvertently clipped the tire wall with the rear of his Team Penske Chevrolet.
McLaughlin went for a complete 360-degree spin, but recovered immediately and got back going, losing just one position at the time. But his car never seemed completely right from that point on, leaving McLaughlin with a 14th-place finish.
Pato O’Ward finished a solid fifth at Long Beach.
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9. O’Ward’s Look of Determination
Pato O’Ward typically has a big smile on his face most times. But coming into Sunday’s race, he had a much more serious demeanor and outlook—and it showed up in more ways than one.
After finishing 12th at St. Pete and 15th at Texas, the Mexican driver had a strong run and finished an impressive fifth at Long Beach.
“Today was honestly very solid for us,” O’Ward told NBC. “I know it’s not a win and we’ve had a very rough start to the year. All I wanted to do today together with the team was just let’s get a nice, solid foundation and I’ll take care of the rest.”
Taking care of the rest not only meant in Sunday’s race, but also going forward to Barber in two weeks, followed by the Indianapolis Grand Prix and then the Indianapolis 500.
“We will build on momentum from today and we should be proud of that and satisfied of what we accomplished today,” O’Ward said. “We went forward not just a couple positions but a good handful. We stayed patient, picked them off one-by-one, we had great pit stop sequences, the guys were great on the pit stops, and we’re heading to Barber, one of my favorite places.”
O’Ward moved up from 13th to ninth in the point standings. He said there’s still plenty of racing for him to continue his upward climb and potentially get into championship contention.
“There’s 14 races to go, there’s plenty of racing to go,” he said. “Today was a significant step forward, considering where we started in the beginning of the week. … I had a great race car today. Unlucky we (didn’t start) a little bit further upfront (he started Sunday’s race from the 11th), but just eyes forward. I think we’re going to do some good stuff in the next few races.”
Dalton Kellett had another rough weekend at Long Beach.
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10. Mixed Bag for Foyt Racers
Struggles this season for A.J. Foyt Racing driver Dalton Kellett continued Sunday, as the Canadian native was the first driver to bring out the caution flag, and also was the first driver to make an early exit.
Kellett’s No. 4 came into Turn 1 on Lap 6 a bit too fast, he locked up his brakes, and plowed into a tire wall barrier on the right side of the turn’s exit area, destroying the front end of his AJFR Chevrolet.
Kellett finished last in the 26-car field. That extends his very rough start to the 2022 season for him, He finished 25th in the season-opening race at St. Petersburg, Florida (due to gearbox failure two-thirds of the way through the event), and 17th three weeks ago at Texas.
However, there was some very good news for the Foyt camp: rookie Kyle Kirkwood hung around the top 10 for much of the second-half of the race—and 10th was where he finished, his best showing thus far in the series.
Fellow rookie Tatiana Calderon also had her best day in her second start in the series (she missed Texas because she’s not competing on ovals, including Indianapolis), finishing 16th.
Keyword: What We Learned from Josef Newgarden's IndyCar Win at Long Beach