Colton Herta is picking up right where he left off at Long Beach. After winning the race last season, the Andretti Autosport driver captured pole position for tomorrow’s race with a record-breaking lap in the Firestone Fast Six. Herta posted a blistering lap at 65.3095 seconds to earn his eighth career pole.
“I mean, as a young kid, I always dreamed of being an IndyCar driver and that’s because of this race,” Herta said. “And so, finally to get the win last year was amazing and we checked another box off today with the pole. Super happy with how it went, the car is really good and we’re starting from the best spot tomorrow. Thrilled to finally get a pole here. It feels incredible.”
“The car feels very different to St. Pete on these red tires, which are the exact same ones,” Herta stated. “So it’s interesting. It’s a weird puzzle to find out, but it seems like we have a good car right now and we’ll try some stuff and try to help the car out a, a little bit tomorrow in the warmup and then see how we go in the race.”
This Long Beach race will start just how the last one ended, with Josef Newgarden right behind Herta. After winning the most recent race at Texas Motor Speedway, Newgarden is aiming to make it three-for-three to start the season for Team Penske. The driver of the No. 2 Chevrolet has never won at Long Beach but has finished runner-up in the last two races here.
Reigning series champion Alex Palou will start on the inside of Row 2 along with Felix Rosenqvist, who had a much-needed impressive outing for the Arrow McLaren SP team. Row 3 features two more Andretti drivers in two-time Long Beach winner Alexander Rossi and his new teammate Romain Grosjean.
While Grosjean did not have an official lap, he was on a pole run when he lost control of his No. 28 Honda and went into the tire barrier. It was a disappointing end of the day for him, but he did pace the field during practice earlier in the morning, and will certainly be a factor in…
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