For IndyCar drivers, the Indianapolis 500 is the most sought after title. Still, the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach holds its own.<\/p>\n
“Aside from the Indy 500, it\u2019s our flagship event,\u201d said Alexander Rossi, who won the Long Beach Grand Prix last year. \u201cIt\u2019s a very special event and a very competitive race track.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last Indy 500 winner who went on to take the IndyCar series championship was Dario Frachitti in 2010, while two of the last four winners in Long Beach went on to take the season title that year, which proves if you can win in Long Beach, you can win in Indycar.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s second to [the Indy 500] as far as wanting to win,\u201d veteran driver Will Power said. He won the Indy 500 last year, and is a two-time winner in Long Beach. \u201cThis is a cool, historic race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rossi, Power and the rest of the Indycar drivers will be the main event of the 45th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach once again at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. The event will cap three days of IMSA GTO, Pirelli GT4, Bubba Burger Sports Cars, Drifting and Stadium Super Trucks racing.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s one of the most exciting races, from an atmosphere standpoint,\u201d Rossi said. \u201cYou\u2019re not just going to see cars on a race track. You\u2019re going for an entertainment experience. Long Beach does that better than most race tracks. It\u2019s a cool city, you\u2019re on the water, there\u2019s always good weather\u2026 the vibe is just really awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year race weekend will look a little different with Acura replacing Toyota as the title sponsor.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re delighted to have Acura come on board,\u201d President and CEO of the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach Jim Michaelian said. \u201cThe beauty of the arrangement is that it\u2019s multiyear, so we\u2019ll have time to develop the relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Acura has also sponsored events like golf tournaments and the Sundance Film Festival.<\/p>\n
“They\u2019re a young, energetic company that\u2019s looking to make a name for themselves, and we\u2019re anxious to align ourselves with those kinds of companies,\u201d Michaelian said. \u201cIt\u2019s a perfect marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Honda, which owns Acura, and Long Beach have already had a fruitful relationship, with a record 13 Grand Prix wins.<\/p>\n
“Honda is the preferred engine to have,\u201d Rossi said. \u201cIt\u2019s [the] correct brand [for] representing the race. It didn\u2019t really make sense [that] Toyota was doing it, considering they don\u2019t have any skin in the game anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rossi was the fastest in qualifying and led a career-high 71 of the 85 laps last year on the 11-turn, 1.986-mile temporary street course to finish 1.2 seconds ahead of Power. Rossi was running second two years ago when his car suffered a mechanical issue, and said there will be small changes to his weekend this time around as the defending champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just busier, with more sponsorship commitments and stuff like that,\u201d Rossi said. \u201cYou do come in with a level of confidence, the whole team does, because you\u2019ve done it before, so you know you\u2019re capable of doing it. That question mark, whether it\u2019s subconscious or not, doesn\u2019t exist in your head. Then it\u2019s just about executing come race day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Executing and winning the Long Beach Grand Prix is about using experience, precision braking and a little bit of luck.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be very meticulous here, for all of the obvious reasons,\u201d Michaelian said. \u201cOne little mistake and you\u2019re into the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMost guys get up to speed pretty quick, which is why you see qualifying be five or six-tenths of a second between the top 15 guys,\u201d Rossi said. \u201cDriving a lap is not challenging. To be at the front, lead guys who are just as quick as you, and find that separation is challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been pretty strong with braking and I think [the Long Beach track] promotes that quite a bit,\u201d said driver Sebastien Bourdais, who was inducted into the Long Beach Motorsports Walk of Fame alongside Power on Thursday morning.\u00a0Bourdais has won in Long Beach three times.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one of those weekends I always look forward to,\u201d Boudrias said. \u201cIt\u2019s enjoyable, things flow and I get to see a lot of friends. It\u2019s a good vibe, good crowd and great race track.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two of the last four IndyCar overall champions also won at Long Beach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":16397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-grand-prix-of-long-beach","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8839,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/8839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}