The IndyCar series returns to Southern California this weekend with one of its marquee events and the gold standard for successful city street racing, the Long Beach Grand Prix.
The first two series races this year have been highlighted by too many laps run under yellow flag conditions. Thankfully, the weather forecast looks great, so rain won’t be an issue like it was last weekend in Louisiana. And let’s also hope the drivers are better at avoiding contact than they were in St. Petersburg.
Once again, the attention will be focused on the battle of Chevrolet versus Honda for success. In the season opener, Chevys were dominant while last week a variety of weather and track issues along with different race strategies didn’t reveal an advantage for either manufacturer. With the combination of the long high-speed section along Shoreline Drive and technical turns, we’ll be able to see if the clash is equal between the two.
The four Chevy-powered Penskes have all shown in the early season they should be contenders every weekend. Long Beach ‘99 winner Juan Pablo Montoya won the season opener and was followed to the line by his teammate Will Power, who is a two-time winner at Long Beach and runner-up last year.
Ganassi pilot Tony Kanaan and KVSH driver Sebastien Bourdais have also shown signs of success in the first two events.
Following a surprising victory a week ago at NOLA Motorsports Park with James Hinchcliffe and third place result from James Jakes, the Schmidt Peterson team needs to capitalize on that momentum. This confidence boost early in new partnerships can go a long way to helping a team, especially in a compact season of competition.
Like most temporary street circuits, Long Beach is a tight track with unforgiving concrete barriers surrounding the premises, which creates the potential for trouble. Things get particularly treacherous around the fountain section and the final hairpin turn that leads onto the long straightaway past the start/finish line.
Manufacturers have strengthened construction, but all drivers will still have to be extra vigilant to avoid contact this year with the extra body bits that have been added to the cars to avoid the resulting caution periods and lengthy clean ups we saw in the season opener.
A year ago, we saw what over aggression can do when Ryan Hunter-Reay attempted to pass in a space that wasn’t there and took out himself along with then-teammate Hinchcliffe and Josef Newgarden.
Hunter-Reay was also in the middle of a skirmish last weekend that saw Simon Pagenaud and Sebastien Bourdais collected. On Wednesday, he was penalized three championship points and put on probation for three races for avoidable contact. It will be interesting to see if the penalties delivered a message to RHR and the rest of the drivers.
This is the second of three races on consecutive weekends and any driver that’s serious about staying in the championship fight needs to have a solid result at Long Beach. While it’s still early in the season, another bad finish could put drivers in a big hole in terms of the title fight.