ACURA GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH WEEKEND PREVIEW
Posted by Patrick Stephan on Wednesday, April 6th 2022
Round 3 / April 10
Alexander Rossi calls it 'The Beach' and this year it will serve as the two-time Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach race winner's 100th race start in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. Long Beach also serves as a sort of homecoming for the California native who has plenty of competition in a teammate, fellow Californian and 2021 race winner Colton Herta. Romain Grosjean is hoping to earn his first win on the streets of Long Beach and rookie Devlin DeFrancesco is excited to make his first appearance at the street course. The palm trees and harbor build the backdrop to what the team hopes is a redemptive weekend.
Alexander Rossi's 100th INDYCAR race start
Colton Herta returns as the 2021 race winner
DHL celebrates its 12th anniversary on the No. 28
Team owner Michael Andretti, 2010 Long Beach Walk of Fame inductee, recorded first (1986) and last (2002) career wins in Long Beach
Andretti Autosport holds race wins at the last three runnings of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach ['18/'19 with Rossi, '21 with Herta, the 2020 race was not ran due to the Covid 19 pandemic]
NO. 26 GAINBRIDGE HONDA "I'm looking forward to Long Beach, my home race. It's always the race that I look forward to the most outside of running the Indy 500. Long Beach is the race I grew up coming to, it sparked my love for INDYCAR racing. Last year I was lucky enough to win, which was just a dream come true. We want to replicate that performance. I think our street course cars were on point at St. Pete and hopefully, that continues this weekend."
NO. 27 NAPA AUTO PARTS / AUTONATION HONDA
"I'm super stoked to get to Long Beach this weekend. It is, without a doubt, one of my favorite races as it is always nice to be able to race in front of a home crowd. The support that we have there each year is crazy, and it will certainly be pushing us forward to have a great weekend."
NO. 28 DHL HONDA
"Long Beach is one of my favorite racetracks. I love the atmosphere of the west coast. I enjoyed my first experience last year, I was competitive. I want to build on what we had in St. Pete. We've got some good ideas to unlock the setup and get a little more pace. I want to make sure we have a good race and score as many points as we can. It would be an amazing place to get my first win, but the point is to focus and do the best we can. We'll see Sunday if we are drinking champagne."
DEVLIN DEFRANCESCO
NO. 29 POWERTAP HONDA
ANDRETTI STEINBRENNER AUTOSPORT
"I'm pumped to get back to work and looking forward to experiencing a new track. I've been focusing on working with the guys to prepare for Long Beach. I want to get a good result for the team and get back on track with our season goals. There are so many people that work so hard to make this happen every weekend and I want to put a smile on their faces Sunday."
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICE, ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT
"Coming off a challenging event at Texas we're looking forward to getting back to the streets of Southern California. Andretti Autosport has won the last three races at Long Beach with Alex in 2018 and 2019 and Colton last year. High expectations going into the weekend and a great opportunity to get 2022 back on track."
category: Andretti Autosport PR
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