LONG BEACH, Calif. (Sunday, April 10, 2022) – Josef Newgarden kept Team Penske unbeaten in three NTT INDYCAR SERIES races this season with his second consecutive win of 2022, capturing the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in a taut, three-way tussle under brilliant Southern California sunshine Sunday.

Newgarden earned his first career Long Beach victory in the No. 2 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet, holding off Romain Grosjean in the No. 28 DHL Honda and reigning series champion Alex Palou in the No. 10 NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. Grosjean tied a career best by finishing second, with Palou rounding out the podium finishers in third.

The race ended under caution after Takuma Sato speared the tire barrier in Turn 8 on Lap 84 of the 85-lap race.

“This was a fight today,” Newgarden said. “This was not an easy race to win. I was working my butt off with Grosjean at the end there on the used reds (Firestone alternate tires). This Hitachi car was on it. I’ve been trying to win a race here for 11 years, so I’m so happy to get it done.”

2014 series champion Will Power finished fourth in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet as Team Penske has claimed at least two of the first four spots at the finish in all three races this season. The last time Team Penske won the first three races of the season was 2012, and Chip Ganassi Racing in 2020 was the last NTT INDYCAR SERIES team to open a season with three straight wins.

Pato O’Ward rounded out the top five in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet, his first top-10 result of the season.

Two-time series champion Newgarden took the series points lead with his 22nd career INDYCAR SERIES victory. He leads teammate Scott McLaughlin, who won the season opener at St. Petersburg, 118-113. McLaughlin finished 14th in the No. 3 Snap-on Team Penske Chevrolet.

Newgarden took the lead for good on Lap 55 when leader Palou made his final pit stop for fuel and primary Firestone tires. Newgarden pitted for the last time two laps later, also taking fuel and Firestone primary tires, and upon pit exit narrowly stayed ahead of Palou, who was screaming down the main straightaway on Shoreline Drive trying to win a drag race for the lead.

The two series champions went side by side in a duel for the lead on Newgarden’s out lap after his pit stop, making slight hip check contact in Turn 5 of the 11-turn, 1.968-mile street circuit. But Newgarden stayed in front.

“I think the out lap with Palou was more risky,” Newgarden said. “We got together in T5 going in deep, and that almost didn’t work out when we were side by side in that corner. We were side by side in Turn 6.

“That was the difficult battle. But I think Grosjean, overall, just had a better shot of getting it done. But fortunately, we just held on.”

Grosjean was on a different strategy than all the other leading cars, as he took Firestone alternate tires on his final pit stop on Lap 56, the lap between Palou and Newgarden’s last stops. The “red” tires offer more traction with their softer rubber, but they wear more quickly.

Still, Grosjean was able to save his grippier but less durable tires over the final stint because two of the race’s four caution periods took place between his final stop and the race-ending caution after Sato collided with the tire barrier in the No. 51 Nurtec ODT Honda on Lap 84 after a joust for position with Rinus VeeKay’s No. 21 Alzamend Neuro Chevrolet.

Grosjean took advantage of the extended tire wear to pass Palou with an outside move into Turn 1 on Lap 70. He then set his sights on Newgarden, pulling close while using all his available push-to-pass boost.

A caution triggered by Jimmie Johnson spinning into the tire barriers in Turn 8 on Lap 76 in his No. 48 Carvana Chip Ganassi Racing Honda and collecting the No. 18 HMD Honda of rookie David Malukas bunched the field one last time and gave Grosjean his best chance at passing Newgarden.

Newgarden got a strong jump on the restart, but an alert Grosjean also got a great restart and stayed on Newgarden’s gearbox, with Palou in tow. But Grosjean never got close enough before the race-ending caution.

“Very close, but not close enough,” Grosjean said. “That was fun. With the right tire strategy and with the last caution, I thought it was going to be great. He (Newgarden) did one mistake, but I just couldn’t use it.”

NTT P1 Award winner Colton Herta led 28 laps – just four shy of Newgarden’s race-high total of 32 – but his No. 26 Gainbridge Honda was eliminated from the race in a crash in Turn 9 while running third on his in lap to the pits on Lap 56.

Newgarden is just one step away from winning the PeopleReady Force for Good Challenge with his victory. The challenge offered by the industrial staffing giant is a bonus of $1 million to be awarded to the first NTT INDYCAR SERIES driver who can win on all three unique styles of tracks – street circuits, road courses and ovals – this season. The reward, if earned, will be divided, with $500,000 shared by the driver and his team and $500,000 presented to their chosen charity.

Newgarden already has won this season on an oval (Texas Motor Speedway) and a street circuit (Long Beach). His first opportunity for a road course victory comes at the next event, the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama presented by AmFirst on May 1 at Barber Motorsports Park, where he has three career INDYCAR SERIES victories (2015, 2017, 2018).

PeopleReady is offering an additional $10,000 to the winner of every race this season, also to be split with their selected charity. Newgarden is splitting his award from today’s race with SeriousFun Childrens Network and Wags & Walks Nashville.

Results Sunday of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach NTT INDYCAR SERIES event on the 1.968-mile Streets of Long Beach, with order of finish, starting position in parentheses, driver, engine, laps completed and reason out (if any):

1. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 85, Running
2. (6) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 85, Running
3. (3) Alex Palou, Honda, 85, Running
4. (7) Will Power, Chevrolet, 85, Running
5. (11) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 85, Running
6. (16) Scott Dixon, Honda, 85, Running
7. (13) Graham Rahal, Honda, 85, Running
8. (5) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 85, Running
9. (14) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 85, Running
10. (12) Kyle Kirkwood, Chevrolet, 85, Running
11. (4) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 85, Running
12. (17) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 85, Running
13. (15) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 85, Running
14. (9) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 85, Running
15. (20) Jack Harvey, Honda, 85, Running
16. (26) Tatiana Calderon, Chevrolet, 84, Running
17. (22) Takuma Sato, Honda, 83, Contact
18. (19) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 83, Running
19. (10) Simon Pagenaud, Honda, 81, Running
20. (25) Jimmie Johnson, Honda, 73, Contact
21. (18) David Malukas, Honda, 72, Contact
22. (8) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 66, Contact
23. (1) Colton Herta, Honda, 55, Contact
24. (21) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 55, Contact
25. (23) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 35, Contact
26. (24) Dalton Kellett, Chevrolet, 5, Contact

Race Statistics
Winner’s average speed: 93.977 mph
Time of Race: 1:46:48.0102
Margin of victory: Under caution
Cautions: 4 for 14 laps
Lead changes: 5 among 5 drivers
Lap Leaders:
Herta, Colton 1 – 28
Newgarden, Josef 29
Power, Will 30 – 31
DeFrancesco, Devlin 32
Palou, Alex 33 – 54
Newgarden, Josef 55 – 85

NTT INDYCAR SERIES Point Standings: Newgarden 118, McLaughlin 113, Palou 103, Power 102, Dixon 83, Grosjean 75, VeeKay 67, Ericsson 66, O’Ward 63, Rahal 60.

CHEVROLET RACING IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH
STREETS OF LONG BEACH
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE QUOTES
APRIL 10, 2022

LONG BEACH, Calif. (April 10, 2022) – Josef Newgarden delivered Chevrolet its first victory at Long Beach in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES since 2016 with a thrilling victory in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach – the first of his career at the street circuit and second in a row on the season in the No. 2 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet.

Newgarden withstood a furious final 28 laps and two full-course caution periods before winning under yellow-flag conditions at Long Beach. It gave Team Chevy its third straight win to open the 2022 INDYCAR season for the first time in six years.

Team Chevy recorded three of the first five finishing positions. Team Penske teammate Will Power was fourth in the No. 12 Verizon 5G Chevrolet, followed in fifth by Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward in the No. 5 Vuse Chevrolet.

A.J. Foyt Racing’s Kyle Kirkwood wrapped up the top-10 with his best finish of his rookie season in the No. 14 Rokit Chevrolet.

TEAM CHEVY QUOTES

JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 2 HITACHI CHEVROLET, TEAM PENSKE – RACE WINNER:
IS THIS ONE OF YOUR GREATEST WINS?
“This is definitely up there on the list. This was a fight today. This is not an easy race to win. I don’t know what it looked like from the outside, but I was working my butt off with Grosjean there at the end on the used reds. I was hoping he would fade a little bit, Holding him off on that restart was super difficult. This Hitachi car was on it. I knew coming in to the race we had a great strategy and with Team Chevy we were going to be alright. With pit stops helping me get around Alex (Palou), I’m so proud of Team Penske. I have been trying to win a race here for 11 years so I’m so happy to finally get it done.”

WHAT WAS HARDEST BATTLE?
“I think the out lap with Palou. We got together in Turn Five and that almost didn’t work. We went side-by-side in that corner and then again in Turn Six. That was the difficult battle, but I think overall Grosjean had the best shot at getting it done. Fortunately we just held.

DID YOU HAVE HERTA COVERED?
“Yes, I think we had him covered. I was pretty determined.”

MORE ON THE WIN.
“When I was walking out of the press conference room after qualifying, a reporter from the LA Times pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey Josef, real quick… at what point does Herta just check out tomorrow?’ I took total offense to that. The guy assumed Colton was going to run away with the race. So I was pretty determined. Alex (Palou) was fast but I think we had them both covered for sure.”
IT’S BEEN FIVE YEARS SINCE YOU WON CONSECUTIVE RACES. IS SOMETHING SPECIAL HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?
“It’s too early to say. It’s only three races in. We could have a horrible rest of the year. I’m not trying to wish bad juju on us, just looking at both sides of the argument. What I feel like we are building on the 2 car. We’ve got a good engineer in Eric Leichtle and all our crew plus everyone else at Team Penske that works on this team. I’m feeling positive about where we are going, but we have a long way to go. Indianapolis is where we have to perform for Team Penske. I want a Borg-Warner so bad. So let’s see what we can do during the Month of May.”

WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON 5G CHEVROLET, TEAM PENSKE – FINISHED FOURTH: “It was a very solid day for the Verizon 5G Chevy. We’re playing the long game and banking those points. When we get a chance to win, we’ll go for it. At the start we said if we got in the top-five we’d be really happy. A podium would have been awesome, but I’m happy with this.”

PATO O’WARD, NO. 5 McLAREN VUSE CHEVROLET, ARROW McLAREN RACING SP – FINISHED FIFTH: “We had a rough start to the weekend so this fifth-place feels really good. We wanted to just get a solid foundation for the rest of our year, and we’ve done this today. I’m happy and proud of the boys. We should be very satisfied with fifth because we started 11th. We went forward and not just one or two positions. We went up a handful so we can be proud of that.”

KYLE KIRKWOOD, NO. 14 ROKIT CHEVROLET, AJ FOYT RACING – FINISHED 10TH: “The race went exceptional for us at A.J. Foyt Racing. It’s a sweet win for us because we’ve had a couple of finishes we didn’t want with the pace we had. Today we had the pace and we were able to show that. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make some passes happen but we got into the top-10. We were absolutely solid on the red tires. I felt like we could make some passes but everyone was a little too bunched up in the first stint to make that happen. Once we went to the black tires, we were able to run with everyone else who was in front of us but it was a bit of a fuel-saving game so we were all kind of sitting in limbo. The restarts here are just so tough because you come out of the last corner and it’s a massive accordion effect. You can’t make passes happen into Turn One. It’s so tight between the walls to make the passes anywhere else. It’s just so difficult. We’re right there with the big dogs and we’re right there with the big teams. We were quick today and we showed that. All we did was go forward. It was solid points for the team. I’m super happy and everyone is smiling. We’re look forward to going testing at Indianapolis here in a couple of weeks.”

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN, NO. 3 PPG CHEVROLET, TEAM PENSKE – FINISHED 14TH: “We had good pace but I made a mistake on the second exchange. It was bad judgement. I clipped the inside wall which spun me out. Once you lose track position like that, you’re pretty done. We managed to claw our way back to 14th and passed the most cars. We just didn’t have track position. I felt like it was a pretty good weekend overall pace-wise. We were right there but didn’t put it together. I’ll keep my head up and keep working and we’ll be OK. Team Penkse still won, which is the main thing. We’re in a good spot. Until that mistake, we made a good start, were in a good spot and in front of Grosjean who ultimately finished second. It’s disappointing, but we’ll keep building. We’re still second in the championship, which isn’t a bad thing.”

TATIANA CALDERON, NO. 11 ROKIT CHEVROLET, AJ FOYT RACING – FINISHED 16TH: “I’m really happy with the steps have we made since St. Petersburg. I feel much more confident in the car, even on pit stops and making little adjustments and learning how to deal with the tires better. I’m really thankful for the team. They did a fantastic job. Of course we want to be fighting more people in the next couple of races. The steps we took were huge and I’ll carry that confidence into Barber.”

CALLUM ILOTT, NO. 77 DYNAMIC EDGE CHEVROLET, JUNCOS HOLLINGER RACING – FINISHED 24TH: “Unfortunately, our race ended early with a little bit of contact with the wall in Turn Eight. We just knocked the rear out and had to retire. Otherwise, it was a weird race. There was so much grip on the track and the rubber was building up massively. It was a real shame to finish like that. We didn’t have a massive amount of pace which is something we need to work on, the different feelings with the tires from reds to blacks. We have a lot to look at after this weekend, some pros and some cons. We have Barber in two weeks, which I believe is a physical one, so I need to train a bit for that one. Overall, Long Beach was a challenge, but we will analyze and look to improve for the next one.”

DALTON KELLETT, NO. 4 K-LINE INSULATORS CHEVROLET, AJ FOYT RACING – FINISHED 26TH: “I got a little deep into the brake zone for Turn One and carried too much speed through the entry to the corner, got wide and hit the barriers. I was trying to shift into fuel-saving mode and kind of misjudged it on the brakes.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, available in 80 countries with more than 3.2 million cars and trucks sold in 2020. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

Pagenaud caught in mid-race tangle and finishes 19th

LONG BEACH, CA (10 April 2022) – Helio Castroneves took a ninth-place finish for Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) in Sunday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, the third race of the 2022 NTT INDYCAR SERIES.

Driving the No. 06 AutoNation / SiriusXM Honda, the four-time Indianapolis 500 winner started 14th and made the most of MSR team execution and a well-balanced car to move up to ninth in the 85-lap race. While many of the top contenders experienced problems on the tight 11-turn, 1.968-mile street course, Castroneves capitalized on his clean driving style to gain two additional positions in the final laps of the race.

MSR teammate Simon Pagenaud was not as fortunate as he was credited with a 19th-place result. Pagenaud had strong early weekend pace, topping the charts in first practice. Starting 10th in the No. 60 AutoNation / SiriusXM Honda Pagenaud advanced to seventh before making his first pit stop on lap 28.

Unfortunately, with just under 30 laps to go, Pagenaud and another competitor made contact in the tricky fountain section, leaving him stranded off track. Pagenaud was able to restart after the AMR Safety team got him back on track to drive back to the pits. Returning to the race four laps in arrears, Pagenaud gained three positions in the closing laps to take 19th at the checkered flag under the final caution of the event.

Next up for MSR and the IndyCar competitors is the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham on Sunday, May 1. In the provisional championship standings Pagenaud holds 12th with Castroneves 13th.

Driver Quotes:

Helio Castroneves:

“The car was pretty good today and we had good pace. It was a typical race here at Long Beach – saving fuel in the beginning, then finding out when the best time to try to move up would be. It’s a shame what happened to Simon, he’s had a heck of a weekend, his car was really strong. We got caught up in traffic but we got a top 10 finish, so we’re very pleased. It’s not a win or a podium, which is what we’re always going for, but at the end of the day, it was a good points day – and we need those points, especially given what happened in Texas. Great job by the team today, we’ll look forward to building up more points starting at Barber later in the month.”

Simon Pagenaud:

“Well it certainly wasn’t the best race for us. We went from being super fast all weekend long to not getting the result that we wanted. The strategy was fantastic, but as you saw the incident with Sato was not ideal – but we did get a lot of TV time for that! I don’t think I would do anything different on the Sato move if I had to do it all over again. Other than that, we had tremendous pace all weekend. Thank you to AutoNation, SiriusXM , Arctic Wolf and Honda.”