IndyCar Long Beach: Kirkwood takes first series pole, Ericsson second

Kirkwood left it until the final two minutes of the session to take the top spot, with a 1m06.2878s clinching him his first series pole.

Having topped his group in the first part of qualifying, Kirkwood finished third in Q2 behind championship leader Pato O’Ward and Romain Grosjean, with his quickest time 0.13s off the lead despite having briefly topped the session.

But he bounced back in the Fast Six, taking pole ahead of former Formula 1 drivers Ericsson, who secured his best street/road course qualifying result for Chip Ganassi Racing, and Andretti team-mate Grosjean.

Kirkwood's previous best qualifying result had been fifth at the season-opener in St Petersburg.

Arrow McLaren driver Ward initially led the Fast Six from Grosjean, despite the Frenchman having suffered a broken left-rear toelink in Q2.

Alex Palou then moved his Chip Ganassi Racing car to the top before being displaced by Grosjean, but the St. Pete polesitter’s 1m06.5347s wasn’t enough as he lost time at the hairpin.

With fresh tyres at his disposal, Kirkwood then went third, before securing the top spot.

Marcus Ericsson, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Ericsson was only 0.0375s behind, ahead of Grosjean and shading team-mates Palou and Scott Dixon, who line up fourth and fifth.

O’Ward locked up under braking for Turn 9 to settle for sixth, despite having been a pre-qualifying favourite.

Grosjean led Q2, rocketing to the top of the times with a 1m06.3246s, ahead of O’Ward and Kirkwood.

Then, on fresh alternates O’Ward jumped to the top of the times, just before Marcus Armstrong brought out a red flag by sliding under hard braking into the tyre wall at Turn 9 with barely a minute to go.

Heading back out, Kirkwood opted for used tyres, to save a set of greens for the Firestone Fast Six, while his rivals who didn’t have the luxury of already being in the top six times had to grab a fresh set and try and bump their way in.

Grosjean got it all right to jump to the top, leading from O’Ward, Kirkwood, Ericsson, Palou and Dixon.

Kirkwood led Group 1 in Q1 as David Malukas damaged a rear wheel on his Dale Coyne Racing car at Turn 8 on his second lap before colliding with the Turn 3 wall the following lap, prompting a red flag.

Palou led Group 2 from Dixon and O’Ward.

IndyCar Long Beach Qualifying results:

Fast Six

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	1'06.2878			106.879
2	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.3253	0.0375	0.0375	106.819
3	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	1'06.5347	0.2469	0.2094	106.483
4	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.5549	0.2671	0.0202	106.450
5	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.5730	0.2852	0.0181	106.422
6	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	1'06.6039	0.3161	0.0309	106.372
View full results

Q2

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	1'06.3246			106.820
2	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	1'06.3993	0.0747	0.0747	106.700
3	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	1'06.4568	0.1322	0.0575	106.608
4	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.4760	0.1514	0.0192	106.577
5	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.5651	0.2405	0.0891	106.434
6	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.5787	0.2541	0.0136	106.412
7	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	1'06.6431	0.3185	0.0644	106.310
8	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'06.6452	0.3206	0.0021	106.306
9	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	1'06.7251	0.4005	0.0799	106.179
10	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	1'06.7317	0.4071	0.0066	106.168
11	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	1'07.1049	0.7803	0.3732	105.578
12	Marcus Armstrong	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'09.7839	3.4593	2.6790	101.525
View full results

Q1 Group 2

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.3995			106.700
2	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.5305	0.1310	0.1310	106.490
3	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	1'06.5906	0.1911	0.0601	106.393
4	Marcus Armstrong	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.6488	0.2493	0.0582	106.300
5	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	1'06.6780	0.2785	0.0292	106.254
6	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	1'06.6833	0.2838	0.0053	106.245
7	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	1'06.8010	0.4015	0.1177	106.058
8	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	1'06.9385	0.5390	0.1375	105.840
9	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'06.9517	0.5522	0.0132	105.820
10	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	1'07.0294	0.6299	0.0777	105.697
11	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	1'07.0490	0.6495	0.0196	105.666
12	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.0909	0.6914	0.0419	105.600
13	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	1'07.5956	1.1961	0.5047	104.812
14	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'07.6986	1.2991	0.1030	104.652
View full results

Q1 Group 1

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	1'06.5593			106.443
2	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.6600	0.1007	0.1007	106.283
3	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	1'06.8246	0.2653	0.1646	106.021
4	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	1'07.0130	0.4537	0.1884	105.723
5	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	1'07.0328	0.4735	0.0198	105.692
6	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'07.2614	0.7021	0.2286	105.332
7	Will Power	Team Penske	1'07.2681	0.7088	0.0067	105.322
8	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.3150	0.7557	0.0469	105.248
9	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.3957	0.8364	0.0807	105.122
10	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'07.8796	1.3203	0.4839	104.373
11	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	1'07.9105	1.3512	0.0309	104.326
12	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'08.2970	1.7377	0.3865	103.735
13	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	1'09.5705	3.0112	1.2735	101.836
View full results