13 Apr

Race Report: Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach

Starting last in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, Santino Ferrucci drove the No. 14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet to 11th place to earn his first “Jostens Biggest Mover” award of the year.

Ferrucci poses with his Josten’s Biggest Mover Award after moving from 27th to 11th.
 
“A pretty awesome day, considering we started last and yesterday was the opposite,” said Ferrucci. “Our first stint was awesome, followed up by a really solid green (tire) stint, and yeah, that kind of sealed the race for us. Engineering did a great job on strategy. we chose the right tire for our car, and the mechanics did a phenomenal job getting the car in and out of pit lane quick and efficient. So, all in all, I mean, the day couldn’t have gotten much better than what it did for the Sexton Properties crew.”
 
Ferrucci carried the Alzheimer’s Association logo on his car as the partnership with the non-profit was launched this weekend.
 
The 90-lap race, which celebrated its 50th anniversary, ran caution-free which certainly aided the alternate fuel strategy. Only six cars, including Santino’s, started on the harder compound primary tire. When the rest of the 21 starters pitted to shed the much softer compound “green-rimmed” tires under green flag conditions, Ferrucci was able to vault ahead. When it came time for him to pit, the crew got him in and out quickly on all three stops.
 
However, the caution-free race did not work well for teammate David Malukas who started 10th in the No. 4 Chevrolet on the “green-rimmed” tires with the softer compound. Although there were no miscues on the stops, the engineers are looking through the data and equipment to figure out why they lost so much track position and finished 17th.

“We statistically went on the strategy that, percentage wise, was in our favor,” Malukas said afterwards. “And of course, out of the how many simulations, 40,000 or 100,000, the five that ended up being no yellows was the one that happened today. So, we chose the safe route, and it just didn’t play out. If you think of everybody being on the same strategy as we did, we only lost one position in the end, which I think is a little bit of time in pit stops. So, we’re gonna have to look at the data and see where that time is being lost. But I mean, those other six cars that went primaries, they filtered forward because they were on the better strategy, which gave us that P 17. It looks really rough on paper, and it seems like we lost a lot of ground, but according to people in those same strategies we just lost one position so still not a perfect race, but it looks a lot worse than what it was. We just need to put our heads down and figure out what’s the problem in the pit lane, figure out what time we’re losing there and other than that, it’s been a good race for us.”

Race engineer James Schnabel and Malukas look at data after a practice session.
 
Kyle Kirkwood won from the pole position to break Alex Palou’s two-race winning streak. Palou finished second. Christian Lundgaard, Felix Rosenqvist and Will Power rounded out the top five. 

Ferrucci salutes former teammate Sting Ray Robb who led laps and finished ninth today.

The NTT INDYCAR Series heads to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Open Test April 23-24 as teams prepare for the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500. After the test, they will then head to the beautiful Barber Motorsport Park for the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix which will be televised by FOX on Sunday, May 4th starting at 2:30 p.m. ET. 

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