Morning Warm-Up: Long Beach 2023

Kyle Kirkwood won his first career IndyCar pole position with a lap of 66.2878 seconds in qualifying for the Grand Prix of Long Beach. Kirkwood becomes the fourth driver to win his first pole position at Long Beach. He joins Al Unser, Jr., Tony Kanaan and Michel Jourdain, Jr. Unser, Jr. won from that pole position in 1989. It was the only pole position of Jourdain, Jr.'s career. Kirkwood is looking to become the first driver to score his first career victory from his first career pole position since Scott McLaughlin did it last year at St. Petersburg. Kirkwood's only career top ten finish came at Long Beach last year. He has finished off the lead lap in three consecutive races and in 11 of the last 13 races.

Marcus Ericsson was 0.0375 seconds off his first career IndyCar pole position, ending up second to Kirkwood. This is only the second front row start in Ericsson's career, and only the seventh time he has started in the top five in 66 IndyCar appearances. His other front row start was at Gateway last year. The Swede has been ranked in the top ten of the championship for 30 consecutive races, starting back after the 2021 Indianapolis 500. Ericsson has been ranked in the top five of the championship for 20 of those 30 races.

Romain Grosjean qualified third, 0.2469 seconds off his Andretti teammate Kirkwood. This is Grosjean's fourth top five start in the last seven races dating back to last year. He has only one top ten finish in that stretch. The Frenchman has led laps in each of the first two races of the season. It is the first time Grosjean has led in consecutive races and he second time he has led in consecutive starts. In 2021, he led 44 laps in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and then led a lap in his next start at Belle Isle. 

Álex Palou is the top Ganassi starter in fourth. Palou was only 0.0202 seconds slower than Grosjean. Palou will be making his 50th IndyCar start this weekend. Palou has four victories and 16 podium finishes in his first 49 career starts. This is his 20th top five start in his IndyCar career. Palou's worst finish in the state of California is fourth. 

Scott Dixon starts in fifth position, missing out the second row by 0.0181 seconds. This is the seventh time in the last eight Long Beach races Dixon has qualified in the top five. He has five top five finishes in the last seven Long Beach races. Dixon has won the third races of the season in two of the last three years. He has won from fifth starting position four times in his career, most recently at Road America in 2017.  

Patricio O'Ward rounded out the Firestone Fast Six, ending up 0.3161 seconds behind Kirkwood. This is the tenth consecutive race O'Ward has started in the top ten and the sixth consecutive time he has made the Firestone Fast Six. He could become the first Mexican driver to win the Grand Prix of Long Beach. The best finish for a Mexican driver at Long Beach was second by Adrián Fernández in the 2003 race.

Colton Herta missed out on advancing to the final round of qualifying by 0.0644 seconds, and Herta will start seventh. This is the third time in four Long Beach appearances he has qualified in the top ten. Herta led four laps in the most recent race at Texas. It was the first time Herta had led in six races. He has not led more than 20 laps in a race since he led 50 on his way to victory in last year's Grand Prix of Indianapolis. 

Josef Newgarden puts the last two Long Beach winners on row four. Newgarden was only 0.0021 seconds slower than Herta in round two of qualifying. This is the ninth consecutive Long Beach race and tenth time in 11 Long Beach appeaances Newgarden has qualified in the top ten. He has three consecutive podium finishes at Long Beach and he has been on the podium in four of the last five Long Beach races with his worst finish being seventh. 

Scott McLaughlin will start ninth for the second consecutive year at Long Beach. McLaughlin is looking for his first top ten finish at Long Beach. He went backward last year, dropping to a 14th place finish. The only other track where he has made multiple starts and no top ten finishes are the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval and Belle Isle. 

Felix Rosenqvist rounds out the top ten, his third consecutive top ten start for this race. Rosenqvist has finished tenth, 13th and 11th in his three Long Beach starts. For the fourth consecutive season, Rosenqvist has started a season with consecutive finishes outside the top ten. In each of the previous three seasons, he started with three consecutive results outside the top ten. 

Alexander Rossi ended up 11th on the grid, the bottom of the three McLaren entries. Rossi had started in the top five of four of the last five Long Beach races. Rossi has won twice at Long Beach, it is the only street course he has won at. He could become the fifth driver with three Long Beach victories. The only time he has won from a starting position outside the top three was in the 100th Indianapolis 500, when Rossi started 11th.

Marcus Armstrong brought out a red flag with 53 seconds remaining in round two, nullifying his fastest two laps and placing Armstrong 12th on the grid. Armstrong will be making his second career start this weekend. Twenty-one drivers had their first career victory come in their second career start. The most recent was Rich Vogler in the 1981 USAC Gold Crown race held at DuQuoin. The next most recent was Jim Clark at Milwaukee on August 18, 1963.

For only the third time, Will Power did not make it out of round one in Long Beach qualifying, and Power will start 13th. Power missed advancing by 0.0067 seconds. He could become the fifth driver with three Long Beach victories. It would be the seventh track where Power has won at least three races. He has five victories on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and he has won three times at Pocono, São Paulo, Sonoma, Belle Isle and Toronto. 

Simon Pagenaud was 0.1177 seconds off advancing from group two and Pagenaud will start 14th. The Frenchman has eight top ten finishes in 11 Long Beach starts. He has finished outside the top fifteen in five consecutive races. Pagenaud has finished outside the top fifteen twice at Long Beach, including last year when he finished 19th. 

Jack Harvey was the top Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing qualifier in 15th. Each RLLR driver has been the top qualifier this season through the first three races. This snaps a four-race stretch of starting outside the top 15 for Harvey. He has one top ten finish in four Long Beach starts, and only one top ten finish in his last 18 starts. Harvey turned 30 years old yesterday.

Hélio Castroneves ended up 16th in qualifying. This will be the second consecutive Long Beach race Castroneves will start outside the top ten. The only other time he has started outside the top ten in consecutive Long Beach races were his first two starts on East Shoreline Drive in 1998 and 1999. He has four top ten finishes in his last five Long Beach starts, stretching back to 2015.

Christian Lundgaard takes 17th position on the grid. Lundgaard started in the top ten in three of the last four road and street course races in 2022. He has qualified outside the top ten in the first two street races of 2023. Lundgaard has finished in the top ten of the last two street course races, and he has top ten finishes in four of the last five road/street course events. 

Santino Ferrucci qualified 18th. This is the 14th consecutive time Ferrucci is starting outside the top ten. His most recent top ten start was second in the second Mid-Ohio race in 2020. In 13 career street course starts, Ferrucci has four top ten finishes with his best finish being ninth at St. Petersburg in 2019. His average street course finish is 15.923.

Rinus VeeKay gets his best starting position of the season, but it is unfortunately only 19th. VeeKay has not had a top ten finish in his last six starts. His longest top ten finish drought was eight consecutive starts during the 2021 season. The only street course where VeeKay has finished inside the top ten is St. Petersburg, where he has done it twice. 

Devlin DeFrancesco is making his 20th career start this weekend, and he will start from 20th position. DeFrancesco is still looking for his first career top ten finish. Only seven drivers have had their first career top ten finish come in their 20th start or later. Three of those occurred in the prior decade. DeFrancesco has not finished either race this season and he has finished off the lead lap in seven of his last nine starts. 

Sting Ray Robb will start 21st, the best starting position of his IndyCar career. Robb won once on a street course in his Road to Indy career. Robb won the first race of the 2020 St. Petersburg doubleheader in Indy Pro 2000. He had two podium finishes on street courses last year in Indy Lights. He was third in the second Belle Isle race and second at Nashville.

Callum Ilott starts on the outside of row 11. This is the fifth time in the last ten races Ilott will start 22nd. He has finished better than his starting position in all of them, but the only time he cracked the top ten was when he finished fifth at St. Petersburg last month. Ilott has three top ten finishes in his last four starts. Prior to this streak, Ilott had gone nine consecutive races without a top ten result.

Benjamin Pedersen will make his Long Beach debut from 23rd on the grid. After failing to complete a lap in St. Petersburg, Pedersen ran 248 laps at Texas, finishing two laps down but good enough to finish 15th. Pedersen was runner-up in two of four street course races last year in Indy Lights. 

Graham Rahal has gone 82 starts since his most recent victory, and Rahal will start from 24th position in this attempt to end the drought. This is his worst starting position at Long Beach in 16 appearances. He has only finished better than his starting position six times at Long Beach. It has also been 31 races since Rahal's most recent podium finish.

David Malukas had an accident in the first round of qualifying and he was relegated to 25th on the grid after his fastest two laps were deleted. This will be the worst starting position of Malukas' career. He has failed to finish three of six street course starts in his career. His tenth place finish at St. Petersburg last month was his first top ten finish on a street course in his IndyCar career. 

Agustín Canapino also has a career worst starting position this weekend. Canapino will start 26th. He could become the second Argentine driver to win the Grand Prix of Long Beach. Carlos Reutemann won the 1978 race driving for Ferrari. Reutemann won ahead of Mario Andretti. 

Conor Daly makes his 100th start this weekend from 27th on the grid. This is the third consecutive race Daly has qualified outside the top twenty. He has four top five finishes and 18 top ten finishes in his first 99 starts. No driver has ever had their first career victory come in their 100th start.

NBC's coverage of the 48th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:45 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 85 laps.

Track Walk: Long Beach 2023

The third race of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season will be the 48th Grand Prix of Long Beach. Coming off a race that saw over 1,000 passes at Texas Motor Speedway, Long Beach has averaged 162.75 passes since 2018. Last year's race had 152 total passes. When it comes to passes for position, the last four Long Beach races have averaged 103.25, but last year's race had only 88. Each of the first two races in 2023 have seen an increase in both total number of passes and passes for position compared to those races in 2022. With 27 cars entered for this year's Long Beach, it is the third consecutive year the race has drawn more than two-dozen entries, the longest streak since 2010-2013 when four consecutive Long Beach races had more than 24 cars.

Coverage

Time: Coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday April 16 with green flag scheduled for 3:45 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Marty Snider, Kevin Lee and Dave Burns will work pit lane.

IndyCar Weekend Schedule

Friday:

First Practice: 6:00 p.m. ET (75 minutes)

Saturday:

Second Practice: 11:45 a.m. ET (60 minutes)
Qualifying: 3:05 p.m. ET 
Sunday:
Warm-up: 12:00 p.m. ET (30 minutes)
Race: 3:45 p.m. ET (85 laps)

* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock

American Dominance

American drivers have won the last four Long Beach races. Prior to this stretch, only one American driver had won in the first ten Long Beach races held since reunification, and American drivers had only won twice in 21 Long Beach races. 

Entering 2023, the United States is on its longest Long Beach winning streak since Americans won the first nine Long Beach races under CART sanctioning from 1984 to 1992. 

Alexander Rossi was responsible for the first two victories in this four-race run. Rossi won in 2018 and 2019 driving for Andretti Autosport. It was the seventh time a driver had won successive years on the famed streets. In those two races, Rossi led 151 of a combined 170 laps, and he is one of ten drivers with at least 150 laps led at Long Beach. Both victories came from pole position.

After a year without Long Beach due to the pandemic, Colton Herta picked up his first career Long Beach victory, winning from 14th starting position in what was the 2021 season finale. It was the sixth time a Long Beach winner started outside the top ten. Last year saw Álex Palou leap to the lead under the first pit cycle, displacing Herta, but on the final set of pit stops, Josef Newgarden emerged ahead of the Spaniard, scoring Team Penske its first Long Beach victory since 2016.

Along with those three, six other American drivers will be competing in the Grand Prix of Long Beach. 

Of those six drivers, the only other one to make it to the podium at Long Beach is Graham Rahal. Rahal was second in the 2013 Long Beach race. He has four top ten finishes in the last five Long Beach events, including a pair of top five results. However, Rahal has only led four laps out of 1,155 completed in 15 starts. All four laps led came in the 2021 race.

Conor Daly has made five Long Beach starts, and his best Long Beach finish came last year, but it was only a 12th place result. Santino Ferrucci, Kyle Kirkwood and David Malukas have all only made one Long Beach start. This will be Ferrucci's first Long Beach appearance since 2019, where he finished two laps down in 21st. Kirkwood's only top ten finish in IndyCar came at Long Beach last year when he was tenth. Malukas was 21st after an accident with ten laps to go. 

Sting Ray Robb will be making his Long Beach debut. Robb never competed at Long Beach in Road to Indy competition. No Road to Indy series has run at Long Beach since 2015.

American drivers have won 19 of 47 Long Beach races. Al Unser, Jr. leads all drivers with six Long Beach victories. Mario Andretti won four times at Long Beach, once in Formula One and three times IndyCar competition. Andretti was the first repeat Long Beach winner. Michael Andretti and Rossi each won twice at Long Beach. Danny Sullivan, Jimmy Vasser, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Herta and Newgarden account for the remaining American victories. 

The Big Two

While Americans have been running the show on East Shoreline Drive, Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing have been manhandling the field in IndyCar over the last few races. 

The two teams have split the opening races of the 2023 season. Ganassi's Marcus Ericsson won at St. Petersburg with Penske's Josef Newgarden following with victory at Texas. Going back to last season, these two teams have combined to win six consecutive races, three apiece. Scott Dixon and Álex Palou won last year at Nashville and Laguna Seca respectively while Newgarden won at Gateway and Scott McLaughlin won at Portland. The teams combined to win 13 of 17 races in 2022.

In the championship, these two teams swept the top six positions in 2022. Through two races in 2023, the teams have four of the top five and six of the top ten. 

In the last six races, Penske and Ganassi have claimed 15 of 18 podium positions. The three exceptions are David Malukas' runner-up run at Gateway last year, and Patricio O'Ward has opened the 2023 season with a pair of second place finishes. Team Penske has had a podium finisher in nine consecutive races. The last IndyCar race not to feature a car from either Team Penske or Chip Ganassi Racing on the podium was the second race of the 2020 Mid-Ohio doubleheader when Andretti Autosport went 1-2-3 with Colton Herta, Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay, 38 races ago. 

If there is one driver ready to break the Penske/Ganassi winning streak it is O'Ward. He leads the championship after opening the season with a pair of runner-up finishes. It is the first time a driver has opened the season with consecutive second-place finishes since Simon Pagenaud in 2016. Pagenaud won the third race that season at Long Beach. O'Ward picked up his first top five result at Long Beach last year when he finished fifth, but he had finished 12th and 27th in his first two Long Beach appearances. 

Andretti Autosport has been knocking on the door of victory in the last two races, and Romain Grosjean has been pounding the hardest only for a pair of accidents to take him out of top five positions in the first two races of the season. Grosjean was runner-up to Newgarden last season at Long Beach, Grosjean's most recent podium finish. Andretti Autosport has won five of the last 14 Long Beach races, two more than any other team during that timespan.  

Andretti Autosport, Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing have each had one representative on the podium in the last four Long Beach races. The last time a team other than these three was on the podium was in 2017 when James Hinchcliffe won for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and Sébastien Bourdais was second for Dale Coyne Racing. Newgarden was third in his second Penske start. Hinchcliffe took the lead through a pit cycle after Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay both broke down in Andretti entries.

 

While Team Penske is the defending race winning team at Long Beach, Chip Ganassi Racing has not won at Long Beach since 2015. That was Scott Dixon's first, and so far only, Long Beach victory. Since 2009, Chip Ganassi Racing has only won this race twice. 

Top Ten Streaks

Two races into the season, one on a street course and one on an oval, and six drivers have finished in the top ten of both events. All six of those drivers rank in the top seven of the championship. Who will be the last one to keep his top ten streak alive?

While Patricio O'Ward was runner-up in the first two races of 2023, O'Ward has a five-race top ten streak dating back to last season. He had a pair of fourth-place finishes at Gateway and Portland and an eighth at Laguna Seca. While O'Ward has become known for being a front-runner, this five-race streak matches the longest top ten finish run of his career. He was in the top ten for five races from the Indianapolis 500 through Mid-Ohio in 2021. 

Marcus Ericsson has a three-race top ten streak dating back to last season. The St. Petersburg winner, this is the third consecutive season Ericsson has started with successive top ten results, but he has never had a three-race top ten streak to open a season, and Long Beach is not the place he was hoping to see on the schedule. His results in three Long Beach races are 20th, 28th and 22nd. 

Ericsson's Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon opened 2023 with a pair of top five results and now sits alone as the all-time leader in top five finishes in IndyCar history. Dixon's fifth-place result at Texas was the 194th top five finish of Dixon's career, breaking a tie with Mario Andretti. Dixon has opened the season with three consecutive top ten finishes in the last three seasons. In the past two seasons, Dixon has opened with five top ten finishes on the spin, only for the streak to be snapped in the Indianapolis 500.

 

Like Ericsson, Álex Palou has three consecutive top ten finishes dating back to last season. The Spaniard has 27 top ten finishes in 35 starts with Chip Ganassi Racing. In two Long Beach appearances, Palou has finished fourth and third. Last season, he began with four consecutive top ten results, three of which were podium finishes. He has finished in the top five in the third race of the season in all three of his IndyCar seasons. 

David Malukas quietly has himself up to sixth in the championship through two races after a tenth place result at St. Petersburg and a fourth at Texas. Malukas became the first Dale Coyne Racing driver to open a season with consecutive top ten finishes since Sébastien Bourdais in 2017. The only other Coyne driver with successive top ten results to open a season since reunification was Justin Wilson in 2013 when Wilson had a streak of three races. This is the first time Malukas has had consecutive top ten finishes in his IndyCar career. 

Another driver with consecutive top ten finishes for the first time in his IndyCar career is Callum Illot. The Juncos Hollinger Racing driver was fifth at St. Petersburg and ninth at Texas, his first top five finish and his first oval top ten finish respectively in his IndyCar career. Long Beach hasn't been kind to Ilott in his first two visits. He was 26th in 2021 and 24th last year. Ilott has yet to have a top ten finish on a street course in his IndyCar career. His average finish in five street course starts is 19.6.

Top Ten Droughts

While six drivers have finished in the top ten of both races this season, a dozen drivers have yet to pick up a top ten result. However, for the driver leading this bunch, he couldn't be happier with his performances.

The top driver in the championship without a top ten finish is Agustín Canapino. Canapino has finished 12th in each of the first two races this season, placing the Argentine fittingly 12th in the championship on 36 points. He is ahead in the championship of all of the drivers from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Ed Carpenter Racing, Meyer Shank Racing and A.J. Foyt Racing. 

Romain Grosjean likely should have had a pair of top five finishes to open this season, but accidents in each race has him 15th in the championship on 31 points. Grosjean has only one top ten finish in the last seven races dating back to last season. He has not had a top five result since Road America last June, 11 races ago. 

Rinus VeeKay was on the doorstep of his first top ten finish of the season at Texas but finished 11th. The Dutchman has not had a top ten finish in his last six races. That drought is half as bad as VeeKay's teammate Conor Daly. Daly has gone 13 races without a top ten finish and he has finished outside the top fifteen in nine of his last ten starts. 

Kyle Kirkwood has gone a full season without a top ten result. Sixteen races have come and past since Kirkwood was tenth at Long Beach last April. He has finished outside the top ten in all of them and outside the top fifteen in 13 of them. 

Benjamin Pedersen and Sting Ray Robb have both started their IndyCar careers with two finishes outside the top ten. A grand total of 110 drivers have had their first career top ten finish come in their third career start, including the likes of Johnny Rutherford, Michael Andretti, Paul Tracy, Jimmy Vasser, Hélio Castroneves and Scott Dixon.

Jack Harvey has gone fifth races without a top ten finish, but he has only one in his last 18 starts. 

Simon Pagenaud has not finished in the top fifteen in his last five starts, and he has finished outside the top fifteen in eight of the last nine IndyCar races. 

After ending 2022 with a pair of top ten finishes and five top ten results in the final six races, Felix Rosenqvist has opened 2023 with a pair of accidents in the first two races. 

Santino Ferrucci has yet to crack the top twenty in 2023 and he has not finished in the top twenty in his last three starts going back to last season.

If it wasn't for Takuma Sato, Devlin DeFrancesco would be sitting plum last in the championship. The third Andretti Autosport drover without a top ten finish through two races, DeFrancesco was 25th and 23rd in the first two events, leaving him with 12 points and 28th in the championship. DeFrancesco is still looking for his first top ten finish in IndyCar. Long Beach will mark his 20th career start.

IMSA

The only time IndyCar and the IMSA SportsCar Championship will share the same race weekend in 2023 is Long Beach. The sports car series is also running its third round of the year, but this will be the shortest race of the season after IMSA opened with the longest two events of the season. 

The 100-minute race will see 28 cars participate across the GTP, GTD Pro and GTD classes. 

Fresh off victory in the 12 Hours of Sebring, the #31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac of Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims lead the GTP championship with 670 points, ten points ahead of the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura of Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque. Chip Ganassi Racing is third in the championship, 70 points back with the #01 Cadillac of Sébastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande. 

After a surprise, and rather fortunate, runner-up finish at Sebring, the #25 BMW Team RLL entry of Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloy is fourth on 586 points, six ahead of the #6 Porsche of Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet and 30 points ahead of the #7 Porsche of Felipe Nasr and Matt Campbell. The #24 BMW of Philipp Eng and Augusto Farfus has 529 points. 

After its 200-point penalty for manipulating the tire pressure data at Daytona, Meyer Shank Racing is on 461 points with Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist in the #60 Acura. 

Five cars are entered in GTD Pro. The #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG of Jules Gounon and Daniel Juncadella lead the championship after finishes of first and third at Daytona and Sebring respectively. The Andorran-Spanish partnership has 708 points, 26 points clear of the all-British duo of Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth in the #14 VasserSullivan Lexus, which has been third and second in the first two races.

Sebring winners, the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche of Klaus Bachler and Patrick Pilet sit on 659 points while Antonio García and Jordan Taylor have 643 points in the #3 Corvette. Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas have scored 532 points in the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin. 

GTD will have 15 cars competing at Long Beach. Brendan Iribe and Frederuk Schandorff lead the championship with 629 points in the #70 Inception Racing McLaren, one point ahead of the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW of Bryan Sellers and  Madison Snow. VasserSullivan has 576 points for Aaron Telitz and Frankie Montecalvo in the #12 Lexus, 22 points ahead of the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin of Roman De Angelis and Ian James.

Notable GTD Pro and GTD entries not competing at Long Beach include the #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini, the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari, the #44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin and the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche.

General Motors has won seven consecutive Long Beach races. Bourdais and van der Zande won last year in the Ganassi Cadillac. Last year, Heart of Racing won in GTD Pro, Aston Martin's first Long Beach victory. Paul Miller Racing won in GTD for the second consecutive year, but it was two victories with two different manufacturers. After winning with Lamborghini in 2021, Paul Miller Racing won with BMW in 2022, the first victory for the new BMW M4 GT3. 

The IMSA race will be at 5:00 p.m. ET on Saturday April 15. 

Fast Facts

This will be the fourth IndyCar race to take place on April 16, and the first since Paul Tracy won at Long Beach in 2000.

The only other races to take place on April 16 were in 1922, when Harry Hartz won on the 1.25-mile San Francisco Speedway board oval, and in 1989, when Al Unser, Jr. won at Long Beach. It was Unser, Jr.'s second Long Beach victory in a four-year winning streak in the famed race.

Only twice in the 14 Long Beach races since reunification has the Long Beach winner gone on to win the championship: Dario Franchitti 2009 and Scott Dixon 2015.

The Long Beach winner won the championship in eight of the 12 seasons preceding reunification. 

The Long Beach winner has won the championship in 13 of its 38 seasons on the IndyCar schedule.

Four drivers have had their first career IndyCar victory come at Long Beach: Paul Tracy 1993, Juan Pablo Montoya 1999, Mike Conway 2011 and Takuma Sato 2013.

Six of the last seven Long Beach races have had an average speed faster than 90 mph. Only two of the previous seven Long Beach races had an average speed faster than 90 mph. 

Canada has won the second most Long Beach races with six (Gilles Villeneuve, Paul Tracy (four times), James Hinchcliffe). The United Kingdom has five Long Beach victories (Brian Redman, John Watson, Dario Franchitti and Mike Conway twice). France has four Long Beach victories (three for Sébastien Bourdais and one for Simon Pagenaud).

The average starting position for a Long Beach winner is 4.342 with a median of 2.5. 

Three of the last four Long Beach races have been won from the front row. Fifteen of the last 18 Long Beach races have been won from one of the first two rows. Sixteen of the last 21 Long Beach races have been won from one of the first two rows.

The average number of lead changes in a Long Beach race is 5.052 with a median of 5.5. 

The last eight Long Beach races have had five lead changes or more. 

The most recent Long Beach race with fewer than four lead changes was 2008, which only had three lead changes. 

The most recent Long Beach race with zero changes was 2001. In the IndyCar-era, only two other races have had zero lead changes (1984 and 1987).

The average number of cautions in a Long Beach race is 2.868 with a median of three. The average number of caution laps is 11.5 with a median of 12. 

Eight of the last 11 Long Beach races have had three cautions or more. Twenty-two of the last 27 Long Beach races have had three cautions or more.

There has never been rain on race day for the Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Predictions

Andretti Autosport's street course pace from St. Petersburg carries over to Long Beach, and this time Romain Grosjean is not taken out from contact with Scott McLaughlin and Grosjean gets his first career victory. Colton Herta will make it at least two Andretti cars in the top five and Kyle Kirkwood will finish in the top ten, but lose at least three spots from his starting position. Scott McLaughlin will not be the top finish Team Penske driver. Ed Carpenter Racing has one car start in the top twenty. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has at least one car make the second round of qualifying. There will be a new championship leader after Long Beach. Sleeper: Callum Ilott. 

Musings From the Weekend: Purity

Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...

Eli Tomac moved into sole possession of second all-time in Supercross victories after Tomac went 1-2-1 in the Glendale Triple Crown round, his seventh victory of the season. NASCAR's penalty inconsistencies continued.  NASCAR's caution inconsistencies were on full display at Bristol. The All-Star Race format was announced, and NASCAR got it right. The Indianapolis 500 could have 34 entries thanks to the Enerson family. Liam Lawson is going to do just fine in Japan. It was Easter weekend, and that makes this week's theme all the more fitting... 

Purity

The past few weeks have raised many conversations about how to end a race, what a race is meant to be, and how much rulebook interference should come in play. 

Jumping back a fortnight, NASCAR had an atrocious end to the Austin Cup race. After a flurry of late cautions, the race was extended multiple times as debris or damaged race cars kept bringing out a caution on the penultimate lap, before the leader had taken the white flag during an overtime attempt. 

Each subsequent restart played out with the same expected pile-up in turn one with seven to nine cars slamming together, some spinning, others heavily damaged, significantly swinging a race as a driver would be taken out because of a desperate move from another driver deciding to make it eight-wide for 12th. 

Jenson Button, who made his NASCAR debut that race, called it silly. In the aftermath, many are wondering if changes are necessary to prevent the end of these races becoming a regulated embarrassment. 

Just under seven days later, Formula One was winding down the Australian Grand Prix. At the climax for the most attended grand prix weekend ever, Max Verstappen comfortably had the race won. With four laps remaining, Kevin Magnussen lost a tire and was stranded on the circuit. Instead of finishing under the safety car or attempting to remove the stranded Haas vehicle in a hurry, race control displayed the red flag, bringing everyone to the pit lane and ensuring at least two laps would be remaining for a restart. 

The grid was set for the standing restart and into turn one, about eight cars collided, Fernando Alonso was spun off the podium from the front wing of fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz, Jr., the Alpines were totaled and Logan Sargeant drove over Nyck de Vries. Verstappen had held onto the lead ahead of Lewis Hamilton with Sainz, Jr. taking third while Nico Hülkenberg moved up to fourth, but another red flag was waved. 

In an attempt to have a race finish under green flag conditions, Formula One had a race ending under more confusion as still a lap remained when the cars were parked under what was the third red flag of the day. There wasn't going to be enough time for a proper restart, and a half-hour after the turn one incident, nearly an hour after Magnussen lost his right rear tire, the stewards reset the running order, placing Alonso back in third and dropping Hülkenberg down to eighth for what was essentially a ceremonially photo-op of a finish. 

Even after all that, the result wasn't final, as Sainz, Jr. received a five-second penalty for the contact on Alonso though Alonso was placed back in third position. 

Less than 12 hours after the champagne was sprayed in Melboune, IndyCar ran a 375-mile race around Texas Motor Speedway. After a lackluster five-year period at Texas, expectations were on the floor for this race, but it turned out to be one of the best races IndyCar ever had at Texas. Over 1,000 passes took place, and in the closing stages, it became a seven-car fight for the victory. As the race entered the final ten laps, it was a two-car battle between Josef Newgarden and Patricio O'Ward. 

The two drivers traded the lead four times in the final ten laps, and with two laps remaining, Newgarden pulled ahead of O'Ward exiting turn two. Seconds later, Romain Grosjean lost his car and hit the barrier, bringing out the caution and effectively ending the race. 

Of these three races, the one with the most satisfactory finish was the IndyCar race. Timing prevented IndyCar from throwing a red flag hoping for a final restart, but despite the lack of a green flag finish, there was a general view that the totality of the first 248 laps, especially the final 50, made Texas a great race, finish be damned. 

Everyone wanted a green flag finish with the victory coming down to a photo finish, but it wasn't the case. It didn't mean the race was bad. It is part of racing. Sometimes they end under caution. The Formula One race hours earlier finished under caution but it was a drawn out conclusion that could have been reached an hour earlier. 

NASCAR has made it its mission to end races under green flag conditions, willing to extend a race as long as needed to see such a finish, but Austin tested whether such a finish is really necessary. It took a half-hour for NASCAR to complete two green flag laps. Each restart was an abandonment of driving standards, reducing half the field to a demolition derby in turn one where innocent drivers became victims to another competitor throwing all respect out the window. 

Formula One is drunk on fanfare. Over 440,000 people went through the turnstiles at Albert Park over the four days in Melbourne. The Magnussen incident put the stewards in a precarious situation. A restart without a red flag had a slim chance of happening and running the final four laps behind the safety car would be an anti-climactic ending, but the race results were pretty much settled at that point. The top six were likely going to finish in those positions. Maybe there would have been a change for eighth. However, Formula One wanted to give the fans more, and somehow ended up giving everyone something less satisfying, from those watching as spectators to those competing in the field. 

IndyCar's race played out like thousands of races prior over the last 100 years of motorsports. Don't be mistaken, IndyCar tries to have a green flag finish as well, and if Grosjean had gotten into the barrier four laps earlier, a red flag would have definitely been shown and IndyCar would have set up a two- or three-lap dash for the victory, where an accident with two laps remaining or on the final lap would have ended the race under caution anyway. 

But these three races have raised questions about how much should be done to have a race end in an ideal circumstance. For two decades, NASCAR has been playing around to have a green flag finish to give the viewers a satisfying conclusion, but after all these years and all these changes made for the fans, viewership is down significantly. Formula One is starting to sip from the cistern NASCAR has been living at for most of the 21st century. Melbourne 2023 will be an inflection point. We aren't sure where Formula One will go from here. Will it choose not to repeat those decisions or make that the standard operating procedure? In 20 years time, will we be wondering whether Formula One really knew what the fans wanted?

As for IndyCar, purity only gets you so far. It doesn't draw a million television viewers for a Sunday afternoon race. It doesn't appear to draw 5,000 spectators either. The series has adjusted, but mostly stayed firmly planted on what a race is and how long it should go.

IndyCar CEO Mark Miles once said, "Purity is for the puritans." We will see how far the series gets entrenched in its ways. At the moment, it seems to be the most appealing to the masses, but while the series can survive, it cannot thrive on puritans alone. The last 20 years tells us so.

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Eli Tomac, but did you know...

Christopher Bell won the NASCAR Cup race from Bristol. Joey Logano won the Truck race.

Liam Lawson and Tomoki Noiri split the Super Formula races from Fuji.

Coming Up This Weekend

IndyCar is at Long Beach, as is IMSA. 

The FIA World Endurance Championship has its second round of the season in Portimão.

MotoGP is in the United States for its round from Austin.

NASCAR moves north, and back to pavement, at Martinsville. 

Super GT opens its season at Okayama.

Supercross will be at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

2023 Super Formula Preview

Many series have been competing for a month or so, but this weekend marks the opening weekend to the 2023 Super Formula championship season. Japan's premium single-seater series will see the introduction of the Dallara SF23 chassis, replacing the SF19 model. The SF23 chassis has been designed aerodynamically to increase the possibility of passing. Compromised of bio-composite material, the SF23 chassis sees a reduction of 90% in material CO2 emissions when compared to carbon fiber parts.

Along with the new car, adjustments have been made to the Overtake System in hopes of increasing passing. Each entry will have 200 seconds of OTS per race, but the cool-down period in which the system cannot be used after activation will vary at different circuits. The cool-down period will 120 seconds at Fuji and Motegi and 110 seconds a Sportsland SUGO, Suzuka and Autopolis. 

Honda and Toyota remain in the series and each will field 11 drivers apiece. Eighteen Japanese drivers will fill the grid, but there will be four international participants, three will be new to the series.

Schedule

Nine races will take place over seven race weekends for Super Formula. The season opener and finale will each be doubleheaders. 

Fuji opens with two races on April 8 and 9 and two weeks later the series will make its first trip to Suzuka. After Suzuka, Super Formula will contest one race, each essentially a month apart over the next four months. 

On May 21, Autopolis will host round three before round four takes place on June 18 at Sportsland SUGO. On July 16, the second Fuji weekend will take place before Motegi hosts the seventh round of the season on August 20. 

The season finale will take place over two months after Motegi with the Suzuka doubleheader closing the season over the weekend of October 28-29.

Teams:

Team Mugen

Tomoki Nojiri: #1 Red Bull Motul Mugen SF23-Honda

What did he do in 2022: Nojiri won his second consecutive Super Formula championship on 154 points from a pair of victories, eight trips to the podium and his worst finish being fourth over the ten race season. He won six pole positions and qualified in the top three in the final nine races of the season. He was also 12th in the Super GT GT500 championship with a victory at Fuji. 

What to expect in 2023: Nojiri topped the Suzuka preseason test. He isn't going anywhere. Will he be as dominant as he has been the last two seasons? It cannot be ruled out, but there are a handful of drivers in Super Formula that will make it difficult, and with it only being a nine-race season, a few days with bad luck are enough to unravel a championship. Nojiri will win multiple times. It is a matter if anyone can be better.

Liam Lawson: #15 Red Bull Motul Mugen SF23-Honda

What did he do in 2022: Lawson was third in the Formula Two championship on 149 points, 106 points behind championship Felipe Drugovich, but only 15 points behind Théo Pourchaire. Lawson was a point ahead of Williams F1 driver Logan Sargeant in the championship. Lawson won four races, all of which were sprint races. He had ten podium finishes, four in feature races. He also competed in Friday practice in three Formula One rounds, Beglium, Mexico and Abu Dhabi. 

What to expect in 2023: He might have been ninth in testing, but Lawson should be competitive this season. It is a new car and new circuits, but we have seen top European junior single-seater drivers enter Super Formula and run respectably. It doesn't mean there will not be growing pains. Lawson should be in the championship top ten and at some point be a threat for victory. It might not come and he might only have a few podium finishes, but there is a world where Lawson has it click and is the best in the series. 

Itochu Enex Team Impul

Yuhi Sekiguchi: #19 Itochu Enex Team Impul SF23-Toyota

What did he do in 2022: Sekiguchi won the second race of the Motegi doubleheader. It was his only podium finish all season and his only other top five result was a fourth in the Fuji season opener. Sekiguchi's 43 points earned him seventh in the championship.

What to expect in 2023: During both days at the Suzuka test, Sekiguchi was the clear second Impul driver. Consistency earned him seventh in the championship, but with this grid appearing to grow stronger, there is a good chance he will slip outside the top ten in the championship if he doesn't make an improvement from his testing pace. 

Ryō Hirakawa: #20 Itochu Enex Team Impul SF23-Toyota

What did he do in 2022: Despite being the first driver with multiple victories in the 2022 season, Hirakawa was third in the championship on 87 points. Though he won twice, he only had two other podium finishes all season and he finished outside the top five in five races, two of which were retirements. The good news for Hirakawa is he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the World Endurance Drivers' championship as well.

What to expect in 2023: Hirakawa had the fifth best time in testing. He should be in the championship fight. We know he can win, but with how Nojiri is driving, it will require flawlessness to win the title. Hirakawa's best days are good enough, but he cannot not afford the streakiness that we saw last season. 

Kondō Racing

Kenta Yamashita: #3 REALIZE Corporation Kondō SF23-Toyota

What did he do in 2022: With only three finishes in the points, his best being fourth in the second race of the season, Yamashita ended up 15th in the championship with 19 points, more than doubling his 2021 points total but slipping a spot in the championship. He was fifth in the Super GT GT500 championship with the highlight being victory in the Okayma season opener.

What to expect in 2023: Yamashita missed testing due to a back injury. Ukyo Sasahara had the car in tenth and 11th both days in the Suzuka test. Yamashita has been in a rut the last few seasons, but he should pick himself up. Championship top ten will be tough to get to, but he should have a few more points finishes.

Kazuto Kotaka: #4 REALIZE Corporation Kondō SF23-Toyota

What did he do in 2022: Kotaka won the Super Formula Lights championship with 114 points from eight victories and 11 podium finishes. He scored points in 17 of 18 races.

What to expect in 2023: The Kondō cars flipped being tenth and 11th over the two days at the Suzuka test. Kotaka replaces Sacha Fenestraz, who was second in the championship last season. Kotaka isn't going to match that level, but he can crack the top ten in the championship and he could do it while topping his veteran teammate. That would be quite the achievement.

Docomo Team Dandelion Racing

Tadasuke Makino: #5 Docomo Dandelion M5S SF23-Honda

What did he do in 2022: A career-best fifth in the championship on 61 points, Makino scored points in nine of ten races with two podium finishes and seven finishes in the top six. Along with Naoki Yamamoto, he was third in the Super GT GT500 championship with a victory at Motegi.

What to expect in 2023: Makino should be competitive and could improve on his best championship finish for a second consecutive season. He could also take a slight step back. He was sixth on both day of his testing and his fastest times each day were 0.099 seconds apart. Consistency could win him a championship if there is inconsistency around him, but looking at Nojiri's speed and the pace of others, Makino has to raise his consistency to take the title. 

Kakunoshin Ohta: #6 Docomo Dandelion M6Y SF23-Honda

What did he do in 2022: Ohta was second in the Super Formula Lights championship, finishing six points behind Kotaka. Ohta won four races and had 12 podium finishes. He competed in the Super GT GT300 championship and had two podium finishes with Takashi Kobayashi, placing them eighth in the championship. 

What to expect in 2023: It doesn't help that Ohta didn't get to participate in the Suzuka test due an accident in Super GT testing at the same track. I am not sure what he can do in this car. I don't expect him to be at Makino's level. Maybe he has a few points finishes. Hiroki Otsu scored 33 points in this car last year and his best finish was second in the season finale. If that is the benchmark, I will take the under on points for Ohta.

TCS Nakajima Racing

Naoki Yamamoto: #64 TCS Nakajima Racing SF23-Honda

What did he do in 2022: Yamamoto picked up his first victory in two season when he won the first race of the Motegi doubleheader, but it was his only top five finish in the entire season. He scored points in only three other races. His 32-point total snuck Yamamoto into the championship top ten. He was third in the Super GT GT500 championship with Makino. 

What to expect in 2023: After a pair of seasons fighting in the middle of the field, Yamamoto looks ready to be back at the front. He had the second fastest time in the Suzuka preseason test and both Nakajima cars were in the top three. Yamamoto is a master, and it would not be a surprise to see him and Nojiri go toe-to-toe for the championship. He will score more points than last season.

Ren Sato: #65 TCS Nakajima Racing SF23-Honda

What did he do in 2022: The rookie found himself on his first Super Formula podium in the penultimate race of the season. It was his only top five finish, but he score points in four other races to place him 12th in the championship on 25 points. 

What to expect in 2023: Sato might be at Nakajima at the right time. The team looks plenty quick to see him jump into the top ten in the championship. Is he quick enough to wind up taking the championship? That seems ambitious. Sato could be in the top five championship battle with possibly a race victory. A championship feels like a stretch considering the competition. 

Vantelin Team TOM'S

Giuliano Alesi: #36 Vantelin Team TOM'S SF23-Toyota

What did he do in 2022: The only time Alesi scored points was the second race of the season, an eighth in Fuji gave him three points, but he was 20th in the championship after three retirements. The Frenchman faired better in Super GT. He was tenth in the GT500 championship with Sho Tsuboi, scoring points in all eight races with his best finish being second.

What to expect in 2023: TOM's has lost its might. Alesi hasn't necessarily shown he is an outstanding driver either. He isn't dreadful, but there is no reason to believe he should be lighting up Super Formula. He should be doing better than three points in a season, yet that appears to be the best he can hope for again this season. 

Ritomo Miyata: #37 Vantelin Team TOM'S SF23-Toyota

What did he do in 2022: In his sophomore season, Miyata leaped to fourth in the championship on 64 points, with two podium finishes and six top five finishes. He was in the points in eight of ten races, but he finished all ten races.

What to expect in 2023: Miyata's testing results were a little more scattered than his teammates. He was 14th the first day and then fourth the next, but still over six-tenths off of Nojiri's fastest time. Miyata will slide back from fourth in the championship. There is a slim chance he falls out of the championship top ten, but he should have what it takes to cling to at least tenth.

TGM Grand Prix

Toshiki Oyu: #53 TGM GP SF23-Honda

What did he do in 2022: Driving for Nakajima Racing, Oyu scored 43 points, placing him eighth in the championship with his best finish being second at Sportsland SUGO. He had six points finishes and started on pole position for the second Motegi race.

What to expect in 2023: It feels like Oyu will be right around where he was last year. He was eighth in testing. It could be marginally better or marginally worse and yet not feel disappointing. The most difficult thing for Oyu is he is on, at best, the fourth best Honda team. In theory, there are six Honda entries ahead of him alone, two of which are rookies, which play into his favor but that would still only make him the fifth-best Honda driver. Podium finishes are possible, but would not be frequent if they happen. 

Cem Bölükbasi: #55 TGM GP SF23-Honda

What did he do in 2022: Bölükbasi competed in 16 Formula Two races with his best finish being 11th in the Monaco feature race. He scored no points. He ran the opening round of the Formula Regional Asian Championship in Abu Dhabi and retired from all three races.

What to expect in 2023: If he wasn't scoring points in Formula Two, Bölükbasi isn't going to be scoring in Super Formula. If he does, it is because weather or attrition. 

P.mu/Cerumo INGING

Shō Tsuboi: #37 P.mu/Cerumo INGING SF23-Toyota

What did he do in 2022: After scoring only three points in the first five races, Tsuboi picked up 27 points in the final five races, leading off with a runner-up finish in the third Fuji race, his lone podium finish, a bright spot for falling two points outside the championship top ten.

What to expect in 2023: Tsuboi was seventh on day one in testing. He will be in that fight for eighth to 12th in the championship again. If he can maximize his best days and minimize his off days, he can get into the top ten in the championship. If he doesn't do that, his season could look identical to 2022. 

Sena Sakaguchi: #38 P.mu/Cerumo INGING SF23-Toyota

What did he do in 2022: Sakaguchi dropped from seventh in the championship on 35.5 points down to 18th in the championship on six points. His best finish was eight at Autopolis while finishing ninth in the second Motegi race and tenth in the second Suzuka race. He was running at the finish of all ten races. 

What to expect in 2023: Better than 2022, but not close to the 2021 level. What is the middle of seventh and 18th and six points and 35.5 points? About 13th in the championship with 16 points. That is doable for Sakaguchi.

B-Max Racing

Nobuharu Matsushita: #50 BYOUBUGAURA B-Max Racing SF23-Honda

What did he do in 2022: Matsushita took a surprising but popular victory in the third race of the season at Suzuki, but his tenth in the next race at Autopolis was his final points finish in the season. Four retirements and a pair of 11th-place finishes left him 13th in the championship. Matsushita was fourth in the Super GT GT500 championship with a victory at Autopolis. 

What to expect in 2023: Matsushita will likely score fewer points mostly because I doubt he will get a victory in the third race of the season again. That Autopolis race was an anomaly. At best, he will have one or two points finishes and will likely score six points or fewer. 

Raoul Hyman: #51 BYOUBUGAURA B-Max Racing SF23-Honda

What did he do in 2022: Hyman won the Formula Regional Americas championship with 362 points after winning 11 of 18 races and having 16 podium finishes. The Formula Regional Americas championship earned Hyman a chance to compete in Super Formula this season. 

What to expect in 2023: Hyman is going to struggle. This is a big change from Formula Regional Americas. It is a much more powerful car. Imagine if he was leaping into IndyCar. You cannot expect him to do much, especially since all the tracks will be new.

Kids.com Team KCMG

Kamui Kobayashi: #7 Kids.com KCMG Cayman SF23-Toyota

What did he do in 2022: After opening the season with eight points in the first three races, Kobayashi's only other point was tenth in the final race at Suzuka. This left him 17th in the championship. Outside of Super Formula, Kobayashi was third in the World Endurance Drivers' Championship with a pair of victories and a pair of runner-up finish. 

What to expect in 2023: Kobayashi has now made 52 Super Formula starts and has yet to score a victory. It doesn't make any sense. KCMG has brought in former Super Formula driver Tetsuta Tanaka to be Kobayashi's race manager and Kobayashi has said about the changes, "If this doesn't work, it's over." It must work. Kobayashi was fourth in the Suzuka test, the fastest Toyota. He should get a race victory. As for the championship, his best result is sixth. If everything works, top five is possible, and based on Kobayashi's talent alone you cannot rule out a championship. 

Yuji Kunimoto: #18 Kids.com KCMG Elyse SF23-Toyota

What did he do in 2022: Kunimoto scored ten points, placing him 16th in the championship with his best finish being sixth in the first Suzuka race. He and Sakaguchi won four pole positions in Super GT competition, but their best finish was fifth. 

What to expect in 2023: While Kobayashi was at the top of the testing time sheet, Kunimoto was trapped in the middle. KCMG is putting most of the focus on Kobayashi. It is natural that Kunimoto will be left behind a bit, but if Kobayashi is competing for race victories, Kunimoto will have a few good days. It might not be enough to make the championship top ten though. 

ThreeBond Racing

Nirei Fukuzumi: #12 ThreeBond Drago Corse SF23-Honda

What did he do in 2022: Fukuzumi's only finish in the points was eighth at Sportsland SUGO. He was disqualified from the Autopolis round and retired four times. He was Nojiri's co-driver in Super GT, where they won a rain-shortened Fuji race.

What to expect in 2023: Something similar to 2022. One or two races where it clicks and he can finish in the top ten. Outside of that, he will be in the teens and not scoring many points. 

docomo business ROOKIE Racing

Kazuya Oshima: #14 docomo business ROOKIE SF23-Toyota

What did he do in 2022: The only pointless driver in 2022, Oshima was 21st in the championship with his best finish being 13th in the third Fuji race. Oshima saw the checkered flag in all ten races. He was fifth in the Super GT GT500 championship, where he won the opening race at Okayama with Yamashita. 

What to expect in 2023: If there is any encouraging sign, it is Oshima was seventh on the second day of the Suzuka test. He must score at least one point. His consistency should pay off in one race and get him a tenth-place result. It will likely be his only point, but a point deserved nonetheless. 

Other Notes:

Tomoki Nojiri could become the first driver to win three consecutive Super Formula championships. 

Honda has won the last three drivers' championships, the first time the manufacture has won three consecutive drivers' titles since a seven-year run from 1981 to 1987. 

Toyota has won 88 Super Formula races while Honda has won 87 races. Mugen leads all engine manufacturers with 160 Super Formula victories. 

When this season is over, Dallara will be second all-time in victories for a chassis manufacturer. Dallara enters 2023 with 70 victories. With nine races this season, Dallara will surpass Reynard (72) and March (75) in victories. Lola is the all-time leader with 124 victories. 

Naoki Yamamoto is one victory away from becoming the 11th driver to reach ten Super Formula victories. Nojiri is two victories away from the ten-victory milestone, and Yuhi Sekiguchi is three victories away from double figures. 

Yamamoto and Nojiri are tied with Tsugio Matsuda for sixth all-time in Super Formula pole positions on 13. Only five drivers have reached 15 pole positions in the series. 

The last European champion was André Lotterer in 2011. Lotterer's 2011 championship is also the last time the champion missed a race during the season. The German won five of seven races that year.

The most recent British winner was Richard Lyons in the 2005 season opener at Motegi.

Two New Zealanders have won in Super Formula (Mike Thackwell and Nick Cassidy). 

The last Super Formula season where Japanese drivers won every race was 2000. Toranosuke Takagi won eight of ten races that season, Tsugio Matsuda won once, and Satoshi Motoyama won the season finale. 

The first race of the Super Formula season from Fuji will take place at 1:15 a.m. ET on Saturday April 8. The second race will take place at 1:30 a.m. ET on Sunday April 9. Each race is scheduled for 41 laps or 75 minutes. 

Musings From the Weekend: Drivers and Teams

Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...

Josef Newgarden won what could have been a Texas revival. Romain Grosjean's two finishes this season do not match how well he has been driving. Will Power signed a contract extension through at least 2025. Supercross had a weekend off. MotoGP had a wet race with only 17 starters, as the sprint race took out another competitor. Formula One looked like fools trying to end a race, and that is saying something considering what NASCAR did last week. Haas had its protest rejected. Carlos Sainz, Jr. was not happy. The NASCAR Cup championship lead changed hands on a Wednesday, and that leads to what is on my mind.

Drivers and Teams

The reason the NASCAR Cup championship lead changed on a Wednesday was because Alex Bowman, along with his Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and William Byron, received back the 100 points they were docked after NASCAR punished all four Hendrick entries when it was found they manipulated louvers prior to practice at Phoenix. The drivers also received back ten playoff points that had been deducted.

Along with the drivers' penalties, all four entrants lost 100 owners' points while all four crew chiefs were suspended for four races and Hendrick Motorsports was fined $400,000. 

Hendrick Motorsports stated in the aftermath it did not manipulate the louvers for a performance gain, but because the pieces the team received from the single source provided would not fit in the cars. Instead of showing up to Phoenix with parts that did not fit, Hendrick modified the pieces to fit the cars. Kaulig Racing's #31 entry for Justin Haley also received the same penalty for the exact same offense at Phoenix. 

On Wednesday, Hendrick's appeal was heard on the penalties, and while the appeals panel agreed Hendrick broke the rules, it rescinded the points penalties to the drivers and teams, but the suspensions and fines remain. Kaulig Racing's appeal will be heard later this week. 

This decision caused quite an uproar in NASCAR circles, especially among the teams. It has caused many to question the power of NASCAR officials and the penalties issued. Many fear it will become the wild west in the garage area after this decision. 

The rulebook does make this a black-and-white offense, with a clear punishment spelled out if a team is found in violation. Hendrick Motorsports went from having three of its drivers and four of its teams carrying a hefty weight throughout potentially the entire season, including the playoffs, to basically having nothing happen at all. 

A suspension is a setback, but the crew chiefs have already been gone for two races, and $400,000 isn't a small chunk of change, but the team has a chance to make it all back and then some with a championship, and the team's championship hopes increased exponentially now that these points have been reinstated. 

However, there is an argument that NASCAR's original penalty went too far to begin with. Putting aside the improper parts being given to the team in the first place, the drivers didn't do anything wrong in this case. These altered parts were found before any of the cars took to the racetrack. Why should the drivers be penalized for something the team did?

The argument would be that NASCAR is a team sport and the drivers are a part of the team. If one gets a penalty the other should get a penalty. But what is the point of the owner's championship then? 

NASCAR has two championships. Basically every series does. There is one for the drivers and one for the teams. If both are going to be treated the same way and always receive the same penalties then there should just be one championship. There isn't a need for the other. This is a situation where one sweeping penalty should not be handed down for each of the two championships. 

The Hendrick drivers didn't manipulate the louvers themselves in the shop prior to heading out to Phoenix. The drivers didn't install them in the race car. The drivers didn't even drive with the improper louvers in any session. In no way is this infraction on the drivers nor did the drivers benefit from this. This should have always been a penalty only to the teams from the start, though still a questionable penalty as, again, the team received a faulty part from the supplier to start with. If the team had received proper pieces at the start then we likely aren't having this drag out for over two weeks. 

In the same penalty report where Hendrick Motorsports was issued its reprimands, Denny Hamlin was also punished for causing an accident with Ross Chastain in final laps at Phoenix. Hamlin lost 25 points and was fined $50,000 for the incident. Hamlin has appealed the penalty, but Hamlin was the only one to lose points or money. The #11 Joe Gibbs Racing entry didn't lose 25 points. Team owner Joe Gibbs was not fined. The penalty fell entirely on the driver for the driver's actions. 

If a team can avoid punishment if only the driver is guilty then the same should be true for the drivers if the infraction is on the team. 

This isn't a case of the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers ran in the race with the illegal part and it was found afterward. In that case, everyone losing something would make sense, but the drivers never benefitted from this. None of them likely knew the parts were on the car. Penalizing the Hendrick drivers was always excessive and unnecessary. 

Common sense is a good thing. It is ok to treat two separate championships as two separate championships. That is why they exist. They measure two different things. The drivers' championship can take into consideration what the driver does. If the driver is being reckless that can cause a driver to be penalized, but if the team isn't encouraging him or instructing him to be reckless then the penalty should only go to the driver. That punishment should affect the drivers' championship, but the team can be left out of it. If a team is found to have violated the rules, such as having a car fail the initial inspection, that is something that is only on the team. Drivers aren't working on the cars. They aren't in the shop piecing them together. The team can take its medicine while the driver gets away scot-free. 

There will be times when both parties benefitted from an infraction or knew they broke a rule. In those cases, it will make sense for both to be penalized, but not every case is like that. We should see more times when one side or the other is getting a penalty and the other isn't. 

Will this Hendrick situation force NASCAR moving forward to take into greater consideration who it issues penalties to? Will we see a reformed and more nuance approach when it comes to punishment? Probably not. It is NASCAR, after all, but it is a something that should be considered moving forward. 

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Josef Newgarden, but did you know...

Max Verstappen won the Australian Grand Prix, his second victory of the season. 

Dennis Hauger (sprint) and Ayuma Iwasa (feature) split the Formula Two races from Melbourne. Zak O'Sullivan and Gabriel Bortoleto split Formula Three races. O'Sullivan was awarded the vicotry in race one after Franco Colapinto's car failed post-race inspection. 

Shane Van Gisbergen (race one), Brodie Kostecki (races two and three) and Broc Feeney (race four) split the Supercars races from Melbourne.

Marco Bezzecchi won MotoGP's Argentine Grand Prix, his first career MotoGP victory. Brad Binder won the sprint race. Tony Arbolino won the Moto2 race. Tatsuki Suzuki won the Moto3 race, his first victory since the 2020 Andalusian Grand Prix.

Kyle Larson won the NASCAR Cup race from Richmond. Chandler Smith won the Grand National Series race, his first career Grand National Series victory. Carson Hocevar won the Truck race from Texas, his first career Truck victory.

The #28 RS1 Porsche of Eric Filgueiras and Steven McAleer and the #04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes-AMG of Colin Braun and George Kurtz split the GT World Challenge America races from Sonoma. Memo Gidley and Anthony Bartone split the GT America races. The #47 NOLASport Porsche of Matt Travis and Jason Hart and the #20 Carrus Callas Raceteam Toyota of Nicholas Shanny and Terry Borchella split the GT4 America races.

Coming Up This Weekend

Super Formula begins its season with a doubleheader at Fuji.

NASCAR has its dirt race at Bristol. 

Supercross returns from a week off and will be in Glendale, Arizona.

First Impressions: Texas 2023

1. After many concerns about returning to Texas, this year's race will go down as one of the best we have seen at the 1.5-mile oval, and there have been many sensational races at Texas Motor Speedway. 

For most of this 250-lap affair, it was Josef Newgarden vs. Patricio O'Ward. In the early stages, Newgarden held the advantage, but in the middle third of the race, O'Ward grabbed the race and ran away. He was over seven seconds ahead of Newgarden, and O'Ward lapped up to third. The late cautions brought not only Newgarden back to O'Ward's rear wing but many other drivers and O'Ward faced a gauntlet in the final laps. 

It became more than Newgarden vs. O'Ward. Álex Palou was in the mix. Colton Herta shot up and led some laps, as did Romain Grosjean. Just after halfway, it looked like only two cars were going to finish on the lead lap. With 50 laps to go, it looked like any of six drivers could end this race as the winner. Moves for the lead were coming from multiple lanes. The high lane held the advantage one lap and that advantage would shift to the low line the next time by. 

In the final stint, despite a multiplication in contenders, it still came down to Newgarden v. O'Ward. Either man was worthy of victory. They traded the lead four times in the final ten laps. It was going to come down to the final corner until Romain Grosjean hit the wall exiting turn two on the penultimate lap. Newgarden had just taken the lead after a side-by-side battle that lasted about eight laps. 

Both Newgarden and O'Ward showcased nerves of steel. They were the best two on this day. Someone had to finish second. For Newgarden, it is his 26th career victory, his 12th on an oval. With two championships and a handful of top five championship finishes, Newgarden already has a good place for himself in IndyCar history. O'Ward is still making his mark. For each driver, this race will go down as one of their finest performances, one in victory, the other in defeat. 

2. Don't touch Texas! After a five-year period of atrocious Texas races, IndyCar finally found something. IndyCar shouldn't touch the cars either. They were able to salvage a remarkable race despite the track surface being ruined after years of irresponsible use of PJ1 traction compound for the sake of NASCAR. In a collaborative effort, every car participated in a high line practice to wear in some rubber and make that line usable. IndyCar added more aero options to increase downforce. It worked. 

This race had 1,272 total passes! That was almost double the previous most passes in a Texas race since 2018. The previous high, the 2018 race, had 688 passes. There were 482 passes for position in this race. None of the previous six Texas races had cracked 300 passes for position. The second race of the 2021 doubleheader had only 100 passes for position in 248 laps. 

It is still not thrilling that Texas is such a question mark. The track surface should never be this much of a concern, but IndyCar made it work today. It took years of experimenting, but IndyCar finally found a winning formula at Texas. 

3. Álex Palou went off strategy, stretching his final set of tires over 60 laps to have a shot at victory, and despite having tires nearly double in age of the other front-runners, Palou held his own and finished third. He is something special. Not many drivers I would trust in such a situation. Palou confirmed he is one of those few names on that list. He didn't quite have the same strength as Newgarden and O'Ward, but Palou can make something out of nothing. To be fair, Palou was running at the front for much of this race, but he was fighting with almost an arm tied behind his back in those closing laps considering how many cars had much fresher tires than Palou. Kudos to the Catalan. 

4. In the last two oval races, David Malukas has had the race of his career in each. Last year at Gateway, Malukas went off and pull out a runner-up finish. Today at Texas, Malukas was in the top ten for basically every lap. Malukas climbed into the top five and he was with the big boys in the closing laps. There were a few close calls. Malukas unintentionally played a part in Romain Grosjean's accident, but Malukas didn't do anything wrong. He might have had that Gateway race last season, but these scenarios are still new to Malukas. He didn't crater in the moment. It was a strong drive and a strong result. 

5. Scott Dixon hung at the front all race. Dixon wasn't quite on the same level as our top two finishers, but fifth was the worst he should have finished today. The car was good, but not great. Nothing wrong with that. Dixon brought the car home where it should have been. In doing so, this was Dixon's 194th top five finish, breaking a tie with Mario Andretti for most top five finishes in IndyCar history. We need to pause at times and realize what Dixon is doing. In 20 years, when mentioning IndyCar records, Dixon's name is going to come up a lot, and I am not sure many realize that now. Dixon will likely become the first driver to reach 200 top five finishes. He already has 53 victories, and 60 isn't unthinkable. As much as we acknowledge Dixon's greatness, I still don't think it is appreciated enough.  

6. It was surprising to see Scott McLaughlin qualify 15th after the pace he showed in practice. McLaughlin was fighting from behind all race, but he was making up ground. He spent much of the race a lap down due to the pace of Newgarden and O'Ward, but McLaughlin was making up positions and was in the top ten when he could get a wave around after one of those late cautions. The car might not have been perfect today, but if McLaughlin had started in the top eight, I think he could have been a greater factor for victory. This is still a good finish for the New Zealander. 

7. Considering how bad the season started for Andretti Autosport, Colton Herta spending the entire race running about seventh and finishing seventh is the basic thing the team needed. Late cautions brought Herta into the race for the victory. A podium result would have been flattering today, but Herta had a good race. The team nailed the pit stops. Nothing broke. Herta kept it out of the barrier. There have been plenty of oval races where Herta has been in it only for something to go wrong. He probably should already have an oval victory to his name. A Gateway victory got away from him. It wasn't going to be a victory today, but seventh is a worthy result.

8. Marcus Ericsson didn't look all that flashy in this race, but he made up ground over each stint and Ericsson comes home with a top ten finish. That is sometimes all you can ask for. Ericsson didn't overdrive the car and end up in the barrier. He knows the limit and maximize driving to it but not over it. This day could have been worse. Ericsson drops to second in the championship, but this day minimized the damage. 

9. Two races and two top ten finishes for Callum Ilott. This is the most improved team through two races in 2023. Juncos Hollinger Racing looked good this weekend at Texas. There is room for growth, but JHR is far from where it was during its three-race sample at the end of the 2021 season. Ilott signed an extension with JHR before this season began. JHR better have a high buyout price, because Chip Ganassi Racing or Team Penske or McLaren may want Ilott's services soon. IndyCar is blessed to have Ilott. Ilott could be standing at the back of the Haas F1 garage like Pietro Fittipaldi and let his career die on the vine. Instead, we are getting to see a bright talent compete and raise his game.

10. This was a gift for Hélio Castroneves. Castroneves shouldn't have been tenth today. He made up some ground in this race, but he wasn't that good. He benefitted from late accidents and wavearounds. Credit to Castroneves for keeping his car moving forward and not losing ground. He and his team put himself in position to take advantage of a situation just like this one. You take them anyway you can get them. 

11. Rinus VeeKay fell short of turning this race into a top ten finish, but he made great progress over this race. He couldn't quite get into top ten contention. VeeKay gained some spots due to late incidents, but this car was improved compared to its 26th-place starting position. VeeKay is currently hamstrung at Ed Carpenter Racing. When it clicks for VeeKay, he looks as good as O'Ward, Palou, Herta, and could be a leader for the next 15 years in IndyCar, but it seems like the team lets him down and these days become few and far between. VeeKay has tied himself to ECR for the next few seasons, but a change of scenery could yield better results.

12. Two races, two 12th-place finishes, I am not sure Agustín Canapino could have asked for a better start to his IndyCar career. This is an extraordinary change for Canapino from driving touring cars in Argentina. Through two races, he hasn't looked out of place. There would have been forgiveness if he did considering he has next to no single-seater experience, and this was his first oval race. Canapino wasn't set up for success in this move. Ninety-nine times out of 100 this move would not work. It has only been two races, but if Canapino has been 12th in each race and with no incidents over either of the two race weekends, I don't think he is going to have a big wakeup call. Indianapolis might be another story, but we can probably dismiss there being a race where Canapino looks like a liability. 

13. Ed Carpenter didn't do much and he finished 13th. Carpenter never looked like he was going to finish in the top ten, but he never looked lost out there. He was fine. It has been confusing that Ed Carpenter Racing can show some potential at Indianapolis almost every year, but in the other oval races the team isn't close. In the middle of last decade, ECR was a contender at almost every oval race. In the last four or five seasons, ECR has fallen, and it is disappointing because an extra car or two at the front makes a race better.  

14. Romain Grosjean caught the wake off of David Malukas' car on the penultimate lap and that sent Grosjean into the wall exiting turn two. The incident dropped Grosjean from what should have been a top five finish down to 14th. Grosjean spent much of this race at the front and as the best Andretti Autosport car. It is a shame Grosjean didn't get to see it to the end, especially for the second consecutive race, as he probably should have been no worse than second at St. Petersburg, and he should have been no worse than fifth in this one. Combine those results and Grosjean should be in the top two of the championship and possibly leading in points. Instead he is 15th, which is not an accurate representation of his season so far. 

15. Benjamin Pedersen was the top A.J. Foyt Racing finisher in 15th, which is basically a victory for this group. Pedersen was in the middle of the field nearly the entire race. He did take a dip for a part of it and Pedersen gained a few spots due to incidents, but completing 248 laps in his first IndyCar oval race is a good first experience. 

16. Will Power never looked like the man to beat today, and a pit lane penalty for hitting personnel when his left rear tire wasn't secure took what was likely going to be an underwhelming day into disappointment. A top ten results was going to be fair, nothing special, but a good result in the larger championship picture. It is the kind of result Power built his 2022 championship off of. Power didn't have many bad days. A bad day was eighth. One race will go against you, but you hate to threw it away this early. 

17. While Hélio Castroneves found some speed and benefitted from the rash of cautions and wavearounds, Simon Pagenaud didn't, though he started out better than Castroneves. Pagenaud went the wrong direction, and this has been a tough start to his season. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing wasn't brilliant at Texas last year, and somehow the team got worse. Jack Harvey and Christian Lundgaard were 18th and 19th. All three cars were lapped within the first 40 laps. Last year, RLLR struggled for speed at Indianapolis as well. With a better chance of a 34th entry than last year, RLLR could be getting nervous as May approaches. 

18. Like Meyer Shank Racing, where one car improved and another didn't, Ed Carpenter Racing had the same. Conor Daly couldn't figure it out today. ECR has struggled at Texas the last few years. Santino Ferrucci was running better than his teammate Pedersen today, but then an equipment issued dropped Ferrucci four laps down. Ferrucci likely would not have finished in the top ten, but 12th or 13th would have been a great day for A.J. Foyt Racing. 

19. Alexander Rossi's day was ruined when he and Kyle Kirkwood made contact in the pit lane. Rossi was exiting his pit stall while Kirkwood was coming in. Rossi earned an unsafe release penalty, but the damage was already done to his right front suspension, rendering the penalty rather moot. Some pointed to Kirkwood as at fault, but I disagree. Kirkwood wasn't blameless, but the responsibility falls on the driver leaving the pit stall not to make contact. It is difficult to tell a driver to wait a second, but Rossi's team should have done better there. Rossi continued, but he was seven laps down and 22nd was the best he could have hoped for. 

As for Kirkwood, who ended up retiring after completing 97 laps when he had rear-right issues, he cannot buy himself a good day. The weekend wasn't going well from the start. Kirkwood was 20th in qualifying, but he finds trouble. We are waiting for Kirkwood to have a breakout. It never came at Foyt, and it fell apart in the St. Petersburg season opener. Kirkwood's goal at Long Beach should be just to see the checkered flag. 

20. Devlin DeFrancesco drove respectably today. A top ten looked highly likely for most of this race. Then DeFrancesco hit the wall exiting turn two, damaging his right side, and he slid off the apron and onto the track when trying to get to the pit lane. Unfortunately, DeFrancesco ended up in the path of Graham Rahal. Rahal had nowhere to go but into the back of DeFrancesco. Rahal's day wasn't going well at that point already, but this is the second consecutive year DeFrancesco has taken out Rahal at Texas. 

Sting Ray Robb got into the wall in turn two. He just got caught high (and then slammed in the inside barrier). Felix Rosenqvist threw away what should have been a top ten day when he got into the turn two wall. Takuma Sato had a similar accident as Robb exiting turn two on lap 47. Sato could not afford that incident considering Ganassi has only guaranteed him Texas and Indianapolis, and the team is ready to put in Marcus Armstrong for the other three oval races. Unless Sato finishes in the top five at Indianapolis, I think this result cemented Armstrong's oval plans for this summer. 

21. Before today, I was wondering if Texas is worth saving. Even if the race improved, would it matter in drawing people back to the track? 

Texas has become such a toxic racetrack in American motorsports. Nobody looks forward to a Texas race anymore. NASCAR is down to one Texas weekend. Many want the track converted into the short track, really anything but its present form. IndyCar has had such a wishy-washy relationship with the track that it has felt like Texas is on the verge of falling off the schedule for the last ten years, but the two parties always work out a deal. But considering the reaction the track draws, could the greatest race in the world be enough to draw more people out in 2024 and onward? 

IndyCar couldn't have asked for much of a better race today. I couldn't tell if the crowd was better this year or if the crowd was just more spread out in the grandstand. It still wasn't good. However, who wouldn't want to attend next year if the race is going to look like what we saw today? 

There are many things that must be improved on. The 11:00 a.m. local start isn't helping, but in this age of looking to maximize network television time, this is the window that is open for IndyCar, just before the Valero Texas Open golf tournament. On the bright side, this race got in before the NASCAR Cup race began. 

I don't know what is the right circumstances for a Texas IndyCar race in terms of time of year and time of day. Is there a weekend where 2:00 p.m. Eastern on a Sunday is open and IndyCar at Texas will not be against a NASCAR Cup race at that time? That window just doesn't appear to exist with the number of Cuip races that start at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on Sunday. Either IndyCar runs at 11:00 a.m. local and shortchanges the possible crowd or it goes head-to-head with a Cup race and shortchanges its television audience, a lose-lose proposition. 

If there is any victory from today, it is we saw a race worth everyone's time today. Drivers were able to use multiple lanes to make passes. A car could go from fifth to first. We didn't have an accident every time a car got off the bottom. We now have a race that works. Can we work out how to grow this race to look like an event people watching at home wish they were attending?

22. We just had a month between the first two IndyCar races, now we have a fortnight until Long Beach.

Morning Warm-Up: Texas 2023

For the second consecutive year, Felix Rosenqvist won pole position at Texas Motor Speedway. It is Rosenqvist's fourth career pole position. He had a two lap average at 220.264 mph, the only driver to get into the 220 mph bracket. The Swede's qualifying time was 0.1802 seconds slower than his pole position last season. Rosenqvist becomes the ninth driver with multiple pole positions at Texas and the fifth driver to win consecutive pole positions at the track joining Tony Stewart, Tomas Scheckter, Alex Tagliani and Will Power. Rosenqvist has never finished in the top ten in the second race of the season. Rosenqvist's average finish in five Texas starts is 16.4.

Scott Dixon was 0.0624 seconds slower than Rosenqvist, and Dixon will start second. This is Dixon's ninth front row start in 25 Texas appearances. His average finish when starting on the front row at Texas is fifth. Dixon opened the season with a third-place finish at St. Petersburg. That tied Dixon with Mario Andretti for most top five finishes in IndyCar history. The two drivers have 193 top five finishes. Only three times in his career has Dixon opened the season with consecutive podium finishes. He did it in 2007, 2012 and 2020. The only of those three seasons he won the championship was 2020. 

Alexander Rossi qualified third, 0.065 seconds off his McLaren teammate Rosenqvist' pole-winning time. This is Rossi's best start on an oval since he started second at Pocono in 2019, but qualifying was rained out for that Pocono race. This is his best qualifying run on an oval since he started third at Pocono in 2018, Rossi's most recent oval victory. He has finished outside the top twenty in the second race of the season the last three years. Rossi is looking for his fourth consecutive top ten finish. It would be his longest streak since he had four consecutive podium finishes in 2020.

Josef Newgarden will start on the outside of row two. Newgarden was 0.0992 seconds off Rosenqvist. This is only the fifth time Newgarden will start in the top five at Texas. In three of those previous four occasions Newgarden has finished outside the top ten. The two-time Texas winner has finished on the podium in the second race of the season in five of the last six seasons, including two victories, both of which were on ovals. Newgarden has never won from fourth starting position in his IndyCar career.

Patricio O'Ward makes it three McLaren cars in the top five, as O'Ward was 0.1382 seconds slower than his Swedish teammate. This is the sixth time in the last seven races O'Ward has started in the top five and the 15th time in the last 16 races he has started in the top ten. O'Ward was second at the St. Petersburg season opener. Three of O'Ward's four career victories have come after finishing on the podium in the previous race. All four of his victories have come in races following a top five finish.

Takuma Sato makes his first start of 2023 and it will come from sixth on the grid. Sato's only top five finish at Texas was fifth in the first race of the 2011 doubleheader. Sato has four top ten finishes at Texas and five finishes outside the top fifteen in 14 Texas starts. He has finished worse than his starting position in 11 Texas races. Sato could become the fourth driver to win on his Chip Ganassi Racing debut oning Michael Andretti, Dan Wheldon and Álex Palou. Speaking of Álex Palou...

Álex Palou qualified seventh, only 0.0061 seconds off his new Ganassi teammate Sato. This is Palou's third top ten start in five Texas races. He has three consecutive top ten finishes at Texas. The Spaniard had four top ten finishes in five oval races last season. He has seven top ten finishes in nine oval starts with Chip Ganassi Racing. He is still looking for his first oval victory in IndyCar. 

Will Power wound up eighth on the grid. Only twice has Power won from eighth starting position in his career, and both times came in 2016 when he won the second Belle Isle race and at Pocono. Power was seventh in St. Petersburg. Only once before has Power finished seventh in the season opener. He was seventh in the 2012 season opener at St. Petersburg. Power won the second race that season at Barber. 

David Malukas ended up ninth in qualifying. Dating back to last season, this is the third time in the last four races and fourth time in the last six events that Malukas has started in the top ten. He had top ten finishes in his last two oval starts, including a runner-up at Gateway last August. His worst oval finish was 16th at Indianapolis and he completed 1,257 of 1,258 oval laps contested in 2022.

Colton Herta rounds out the top ten in the grid, and he leads three consecutive Andretti entries in the starting lineup. Herta was 0.2319 seconds off the pole position time. This is the fifth time in six Texas appearances the Californian has qualified in the top ten. He has won the second round of the season in each of his two odd-numbered season, one of which was his first career victory at Austin in 2019. 

Romain Grosjean leads an all-Andretti row six. Grosjean is making his 32nd career start. Five drivers have had their first career victory come in their 32nd career start. The most recent was James Hinchcliffe at St. Petersburg in 2013. The 11th-place starter has only won once at Texas, and it was the inaugural race when Arie Luyendyk won, though after a scoring error was found and the results amended. 

Devlin DeFrancesco starts 12th, his second best starting position on an oval in his IndyCar career. DeFrancesco could become the second Canadian to win at Texas Motor Speedway. Scott Goodyear won at Texas in June 1999 and October 2000. Nine different nationalities have won in the 35 Texas races. Only four of them have had multiple winners (United States, Brazil, Australia and the United Kingdom).

Benjamin Pedersen makes his IndyCar oval debut from 13th starting position, and the Dane is leading an all-A.J. Foyt Racing row seven. Pedersen is still looking to complete his first race lap in IndyCar competition after being caught in the opening lap incident at St. Petersburg. In four oval starts in Indy Lights, Pedersen was the third-place finisher three times, all of those coming at Gateway. 

Santino Ferrucci will start 14th. Despite his oval results, this will be Ferrucci's best starting position at Texas. His previous best was 18th. Ferrucci's worst oval finish came at Texas in 2020. Ferrucci was 21st after a pit lane issue. Along with 21st-place finish at Belle Isle last year, he has finished outside the top twenty in two consecutive starts. Ferrucci has never finished outside the top twenty in three consecutive starts. 

Scott McLaughlin topped the opening practice, but McLaughlin ended up 15th in qualifying, 0.3225 seconds slower than Rosenqvist. McLaughlin started 15th in his first Texas race, which was also his first oval race ever, and he ended up finishing second. McLaughlin could become the seventh Team Penske driver to win at Texas Motor Speedway. Team Penske leads all organizations with ten victories at the track. 

Two of the three Texas podium finishers last year will start on row eight, as Marcus Ericsson will start to McLaughlin's outside. This is the fifth time in six Texas appearances Ericsson will start outside the top ten. Ericsson's eight career podium finishes have come at seven different circuits, including his third at Texas last year. The only track where Ericsson has multiple podium finishes is Belle Isle. 

Callum Ilott returns to Texas for the second time and will start 17th. Ilott is coming off his first career top five finish in his 19th career start. Six drivers have had their first career podium finish come in their 20th career start. The most recent driver to do it was Justin Wilson, whose first career podium finish was his first career victory at Toronto in 2005. The worst starting position for a Texas winner is 17th when Justin Wilson won in 2012. 

Ed Carpenter will be on the outside of row nine. This will be the tenth consecutive Texas race Carpenter has started outside the top ten. The last time Carpenter started in the top ten was 2014 when he won from fifth on the grid. In the last nine Texas races, Carpenter has led a combined six laps and his average finish is 14.444. His only top ten finish in that stretch was fifth in the 2020 race.

Agustín Canapino will be making his oval debut this weekend and he will start 19th, qualifying 0.4089 seconds off Rosenqvist's pole time. Canapino was 24th and 15th in the two practice sessions with a combined 89 laps completed over the two sessions. His only other time on an oval was at Texas last month for his oval test.

Kyle Kirkwood qualified 20th, three spots better than his starting position last year. This is the third time Kirkwood has started 20th in his career on an oval. He has never started better than 20th in six oval appearances and his average oval starting position is 22.5. Kirkwood has not had a top ten finish in his last 15 starts. Kirkwood has finished outside the top twenty in eight of those 15 races. 

Hélio Castroneves leads an all-Meyer Shank Racing row 11, as neither car could crack the top twenty. This is the second time since expanding to two cars that MSR has failed to qualify a car in the top twenty. The other time was the first Iowa race last year. This is Castroneves' worst starting position at Texas. His previous worst was 15th in 2012. The Brazilian has not had a top ten finish in his last nine starts. This is Castroneves' longest top ten drought in his career. His previous worst stretch was seven races, which occurred in his rookie season in 1998.

Simon Pagenaud's 22nd starting position is the second worst at Texas. Pagenaud started 23rd in 2013 and ended up finishing 13th. The Frenchman failed to complete a lap in St. Petersburg. It was only the second time in Pagenaud's career he has not completed a lap in a race. The other was at Long Beach in 2018. His 26th-place result at St. Petersburg was the worst result of his IndyCar career, and it came in his 200th start. 

Sting Ray Robb makes his IndyCar oval debut from 23rd position. It is the second consecutive race Robb has started 23rd. Robb never won an oval race in Road to Indy competition. Robb made 11 oval starts between Indy Pro 2000 and Indy Lights. His best oval result was second at Indianapolis Raceway Park in the 2019 Indy Pro 2000 race.

Graham Rahal was the top Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing qualifier in 24th. This is the second consecutive year RLLR's best Texas qualifier was in 24th position. Rahal started 27th in this race last year. Last season, Graham Rahal's best finish on an oval was ninth in the first Iowa race. It was only the third time in the ten seasons he did not have a top five result on an oval. This is the first time Graham Rahal is the top RLLR starter since last year's Indianapolis 500.

Conor Daly qualified 25th, his worst start at Texas, but only his second worst starting position of the season. Daly started 26th at St. Petersburg last month. Daly has finished outside the top fifteen in his last three Texas starts and in four of seven races at the 1.5-mile oval. Daly has not had a top ten finish in his last 12 races. 

Rinus VeeKay makes it an all-Ed Carpenter Racing row 13. This 26th starting position is the worst starting position of VeeKay's IndyCar career. He has finished in the top ten of the second race of the season in each of his first three seasons in IndyCar. VeeKay has finished in the top ten in his last two Texas starts with an average finish of 9.5 after having an average finish of 21st in his first two Texas starts. 

Christian Lundgaard leads an all-RLLR row 14. This is the second consecutive season RLLR has taken the final two starting positions at Texas. Lundgaard has finished in the top ten in his last two starts. Lundgaard has yet to have three consecutive top ten finishes in his IndyCar career, and his best oval finish was tenth in the first Iowa race last year. 

Jack Harvey rounds out the field in 28th position. Harvey was 0.9063 seconds of Felix Rosenqvist. Harvey's average finish in four oval starts last season was 21.5 with his best finish being 18th in the first Iowa race. The worst starting position for a winner in IndyCar history is 28th. Ray Harroun won the first Indianapolis 500 from 28th, Louis Meyer won the 1936 Indianapolis 500 from 28th and Hélio Castroneves won the 2008 Chicagoland race from 28th. 

NBC's coverage of the PPG 375 begins at noon Eastern with green flag schedule for 12:10 ET. The race is scheduled for 250 laps.