Colton Herta, who won last year’s IndyCar Grand Prix of Long Beach from 14th on the grid, will start this year’s race from pole position after setting a new course record during qualifying on Saturday.
Herta had the dominant car throughout all three stages of qualifying, leading his group in the first round, then leading the second round. He took pole with a time of 1’05.310, which eclipsed Hélio Castroneves’ previous course record set in 2017, by nearly a full second.
What could have been an all-Andretti Autosport front row was thrown out with just two seconds left in the Fast Six session, when Romain Grosjean, the fastest driver in the morning’s practice session, crashed into the barrier at turn five. He was able to drive his wounded car back to the pits, but had his fastest lap time deleted for causing a red flag, moving him down to sixth on the grid.
That moved Josef Newgarden, the winner of the previous race at Texas Motor Speedway, to the outside of the front row…