Winners and Losers: Grand Prix of Long Beach

Morgan Holiday
8 hours ago
6 min read

Written by Morgan Holiday

IndyCar's 50th Grand Prix of Long Beach saw Kyle Kirkwood smoothly claim both pole position and the race win. But who else had a good weekend at Long Beach, and who struggled? Let's walk through the winners and losers of the past weekend.

Winner - Kyle Kirkwood

It was a near perfect weekend for Andretti’s Kirkwood. He finished in the top five in both practice sessions before setting the fastest times in all three qualifying sessions he took part in on his way to his first pole position since the final race of the 2024 season.

Sunday went as well as it could have gone for Kirkwood as he didn’t put a foot wrong in the race, holding off Álex Palou to take his first win since 2023 and become the first non-Palou driver to win in 2025.

Long Beach has long been a track favoured by the American driver, as he scored his first top 10 finish in IndyCar at the track in his rookie season. His following visit to the track saw him win his first race in the category in a similarly dominant fashion to this year’s performance. His worst Long Beach finish came in 2024, but seventh place put him still inside the top 10, meaning his four visits to this historic track have always seen him finish in the top 10.

This weekend’s perfectly clean performance puts Kirkwood 34 points off the lead in the championship, closing the gap to rival Palou. He also scores the accolade of being the first driver of the year to prove that, no matter how difficult it may be, beating Palou can be done.

Winner - Chip Ganassi Racing

What Kirkwood’s perfect weekend proved is that it takes a lot to beat Palou. Kirkwood started first to Palou’s third in the race and didn’t put a foot wrong the whole time, but still barely came out on top of the Chip Ganassi Racing driver.

Palou was no match for the Andretti team of Kirkwood and Colton Herta, who took a 1-2 finish in qualifying, but he stuck right behind them and was able to finish second on Sunday. Amidst early speculations as to whether or not this year’s title fight could even be considered a fight, Palou continued to prove why he’s a three-time champion. After all, he doesn’t need to win every race, he just needs to be up there when it matters, which he was this weekend.

An eighth place finish for Palou’s teammate Scott Dixon sounds more impressive when you see he came from 14th on the grid after a qualifying incident put him outside of the Fast 12. A good recovery drive gives him another top 10 finish on the board and a solid result for the team.

Despite finishing the lowest of the CGR drivers, Kyffin Simpson’s unassuming 10th place finish marks his best IndyCar result to date. Simpson started 17th after finishing ninth in Group 1 of qualifying, but made up ground in the race and even led briefly during one of the later pit cycles to round out CGR being the only team to have all of their drivers finish in the top 10 at Long Beach.

Winner - Sting Ray Robb

Strategy paid off this weekend in Long Beach along with a solid drive to give Robb his second top 10 IndyCar finish in his three years in the category.

Robb finished 10th in Group 1 of qualifying (just behind Simpson), putting him 19th on the grid for the start. Starting further back, he was one of six drivers who opted for the alternate strategy of starting on the primary tyres instead of the softer alternates.

Instead of swapping for alternates in his first stop, Robb stayed on another set of primaries, a strategy call that saw him lead 12 laps of the 90 lap race at Long Beach.

Robb sailed home to a ninth place finish, equalling his best IndyCar result, and his first top 10 on a street circuit.

As his Juncos Hollinger Racing teammate Conor Daly languished at the back all weekend, Robb’s performance may, in part, be attributed to mere strategy, but stood out all the same as a great weekend for the young American driver.

Loser - Josef Newgarden

Team Penske was looking to rebound after a disappointing weekend at Thermal that saw all three drivers knocked out of the first round of qualifying.

While Scott McLaughlin started and finished the race in sixth place and Will Power made up ground for a fifth place finish on Sunday, unfortunately for Newgarden, he saw a repeat performance of Penske’s woes at Long Beach.

Newgarden finished eighth in the first round of qualifying, knocking him out and putting him 15th for the start. In the race, he opted for a different strategy to the majority of the grid, starting on the softer alternate tyre and diving back into pit lane after just two laps to switch to the primaries.

In fairness, the strategy call paid off, and Newgarden was on pace for a solid recovery drive before a seat belt issue towards the end of the race cost him valuable time. In the end, he finished dead last, two laps down from the leader.

The two-time Indy 500 champion currently sits just 10th in the standings. His third place finish at the season opener in St. Petersburg remains his only top 10 finish of the season after 13th at Thermal and now 27th at Long Beach.

Loser - Callum Ilott

It hasn’t been the start to the season that PREMA Racing or Ilott had been hoping for, and their woes continued this past weekend at Long Beach.

Ilott finished 23rd in Practice 1 and 25th in Practice 2. He then took part in the second group of the first round of qualifying, where he finished 11th, six tenths off the pace of Kirkwood in that session.

His qualifying result put him 22nd at the start, two places ahead of his rookie teammate Robert Shwartzman. But he missed out on the pre-race warmup session as the team was changing the clutch in his car.

In the race, Ilott spent seven laps on the alternate tyre before coming in to change. Shwartzman’s strategy put him in a better place, and the rookie managed to jump ahead of Ilott in the running, eventually taking an 18th place finish (his best IndyCar result so far) over Ilott’s 21st.

Ilott is used to running towards the back of the field in his IndyCar career after his two year stint with Juncos Hollinger Racing, but the disappointments that PREMA has suffered early on in its first IndyCar campaign are sure to sting for the British driver.

Loser - Arrow McLaren

Arrow McLaren’s weekend had ups and downs for sure, but when you look at the whole picture it paints an ultimately disappointing weekend for the papaya team.

Nolan Siegal topped Practice 2 on Saturday and finished fourth in his first qualifying session of the weekend. Pato O’Ward also finished fourth in his first qualifying session. Christian Lundgaard topped the group that O’Ward was in, and all three drivers advanced into the Fast 12.

But it was in the Fast 12 that McLaren’s woes really began, O’Ward’s ninth place elimination being the best result for the team. Lundgaard crashed during that session and finished last of the runners, Siegal just ahead of him in 11th.

And so the McLaren team started the Grand Prix of Long Beach in ninth, 11th and 12th respectively, while their rivals Andretti had scored a 1-2 result in qualifying with Championship leader Palou right behind them.

Lundgaard could easily be classified as one of the winners of this weekend after his race strategy catapulted him up the order and a late pass on Felix Rosenqvist in the final laps of the race saw him take his second consecutive third place finish.

But Lundgaard’s excellent recovery was the only bright spot in what otherwise was a dismal weekend for McLaren. O’Ward and Siegal both suffered in the race, the pair languishing to finish just 13th and 20th respectively.

In a category where every race matters crucially in the championship battle, McLaren came up short this weekend in Long Beach.