IndyCar: Drivers, teams looking for momentum at Long Beach to carry into May

By Asher Fair | Apr 13, 2019

LONG BEACH, CA - APRIL 13: A coast guard's parachute gets stuck on the light structure for the standing start of the Verizon IndyCar Series Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 13, 2014 on the streets of Long Beach, California. (Photo by Jonathan Moore/Getty Images) /

This Sunday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is the final IndyCar race before the series heads to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the month of May. As such, drivers and teams will be looking for all the momentum they can get.

The 2019 IndyCar season only got underway not even five weeks ago with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, and April is not even halfway over yet. With that in mind, the Indianapolis 500 still seems at least somewhat in the distant future, as it is still more than six weeks away.

But when the month of May rolls around, all eyes will turn to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, specifically for the 103rd running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” on Memorial Day Sunday, and in terms of the IndyCar schedule itself, the month of May really isn’t all that far away.

This Sunday’s IndyCar race, the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is not the last race prior to this year’s running of the 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in Speedway, Indiana.

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But while this race is scheduled to take place on only the second Sunday in April, Sunday, April 14, it is the final race on the schedule before the series heads to the Racing Capital of the World.

Of course, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis is scheduled to take place 15 days before the Indianapolis 500 like it has since the 2014 season, and that race on the 13-turn, 2.439-mile (3.925-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway natural terrain road course could not possibly be more different than the race at the venue’s superspeedway.

That said, this race being on the schedule prior to the Indy 500 does not change the fact that this Sunday’s race is the final race prior to the series annual trip to the Brickyard this season and the fact that it is the earliest final race prior to the series annual trip to the famed track since the 2003 season when the race at Twin Ring Motegi in Motegi, Japan served as the final race prior to this trip on Sunday, April 13.

As a result, while the main event on IndyCar’s May schedule is still 43 days away, tomorrow’s 85-lap race around the 11-turn, 1.968-mile (3.167-kilometer) temporary street circuit on the streets of Long Beach, California is an opportunity for drivers and teams to pick up momentum heading into the month of May, and none of them will want to squander it.

Three races have been contested so far this season, and the winners of these three races have been Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, Harding Steinbrenner Racing rookie Colton Herta and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Takuma Sato, respectively.

Newgarden leads the championship standings with 125 points while Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon sits in second place with 98 and Sato sits in third with 91.

Seven different teams are represented by the seven drivers who currently sit in the top seven of the championship standings, so none of the sport’s 10 full-time teams have truly begun to separate themselves from the rest of the pack, something that could be key by the time the green flag waves to get the 103rd running of the Indy 500 underway next month.

Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay, who currently sits in a tie for eighth place in the championship standings, topped the speed chart in the first of three practice sessions for this Sunday’s race while Dixon topped the speed chart in the second. The third and final practice session as well as the qualifying session for this race are both scheduled to take place this afternoon.

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Be sure to tune in to NBC Sports Network for the live broadcast of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach this Sunday, April 14, as this race is the final IndyCar race on the schedule before the series is set to head to Indianapolis Motor Speedway to embark on all of the events that are scheduled to take place at the famed venue in Speedway, Indiana in May.