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Following a second place finish two weeks ago, Ryan Hunter-Reay came back strong this weekend in Long Beach as he won the pole for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Hunter-Reay had been close before, having qualified in the runner-up spot three times, though this marks his first pole on the 11-turn temporary street circuit, sixth career pole overall.

“It’s been frustrating as of late,” he noted of coming close before. “At Long Beach we’ve been on the outside pole by hundredths of a second, not tenths of a second, but hundredths.  So to finally get the pole here is very fulfilling.  The guys gave me a great car when I needed it.  What was most entertaining about the session though was the fact that it was anybody’s.  You didn’t really have a favorite.  It was anybody’s session, and you didn’t know who was going to put up that last lap.  So that’s why the competition at IndyCar right now is pretty ridiculous, actually.  It’s amazing.”

Hunter-Reay added that it’s tough to put that lap down as you’re trying to hit the throttle as soon as you can, but also fighting for grip.

“We’re on the edge, so I smacked the wall earlier today in practice,” he continued. “Luckily it was flat.  It was a flat hit, a pretty broad hit.  So it hit the front and the rear at the same time.  It didn’t bend anything, but it’s easy to do for sure.

“On a street circuit, you’re dealing with inches, not feet.  If you make a mistake by a couple inches, it means a toe length and you’re in.”

With five different teams in the Firestone Fast Six and both top teams Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing not being included, Hunter-Reay’s sentiment for the weekend is playing true – expect the unexpected.

“There is just so much that this race has,” he commented. “It’s different race strategy, it’s different fuel strategy, tire strategies.  You’ll see guys on the Black Firestones and on the Reds at different times in the race.

“It’s a standing start now.  That’s all about the standing start the key there is all about like the first 20 or 30 feet off the box is where you get the most traction.  Whoever kind of times that just right will have a huge advantage.  So we’ll see how it goes.  It will be interesting.  But one thing’s for sure, it’s going to be a tough one with the competition the way it is.  Everybody’s so, so close right now.” 

While some people aren’t too thrilled about the standing start, Hunter-Reay doesn’t care what they do either way – just wish that they’d choose standing or rolling for all the races and stick with it.

“The switching back and forth I really don’t understand that,” he commented. “But I’m the driver of the car.  So they tell me how we’re going to start the race and I start it that way.  If the fans like the standing starts and that sells more tickets and gets more seats filled, then I’m all for it.”

Hunter-Reay says with the standing start, though, comes the challenge of trying to avoid the ca ahead of you if they don’t get going while you do as there’s not a lot of room.

“The one challenge with standing starts in IndyCar on street circuits is that let’s compare it to Formula 1 or something where they have a football field width, we have a swimming pool size width that we’re trying to avoid cars and make passes on,” he explained.

After suffering a poor finish in the season opener at St. Petersburg two weeks ago, Marco Andretti is trying to rebound this weekend in Long Beach. So far this weekend, Andretti is off to a solid start as he qualified eighth for Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix at Long Beach.

Andretti wasn’t as strong in practice as his teammates Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe, which resulted in multiple adjustments before qualifying.

“We tried a new set up, so I was sort of still learning it in qualifying – which has been a trend for us,” Andretti commented post-qualifying. “We need to run the car that I’m going to qualifying during practice three so I know what I’m jumping in to qualify with. Today we could have run less fuel and made it in (the Firestone Fast Six). But it’s still 100% doable from eighth for the Snapple team.”

Andretti historically isn’t known for being strong on the street courses. However, Andretti spent the 2012-2013 off-season with a driver coach, learning how to become better and improve. It showed its hand last year as Andretti was better across the board. Andretti started 25th in last year’s event, though was able to work his way up to finish seventh overall. Certainly starting 17 spots better this year should help his chances at taking home the victory.

“This is on my wish list,” Andretti commented. “This is a big race for me, probably second to Indianapolis that I want to win.  My dad and I were talking about it on the way here how cool it would be to have three generations win at one track.  Definitely not pleased with my Long Beach record so far.”

Before last year, Andretti had a pair of finishes outside of the top 20 due to issues. If Andretti can keep his No. 25 Snapple Honda out of trouble and run some solid laps, though, there’s a solid chance that he could find himself on the podium – or at least in the top five.

On his final lap of the Firestone Fast Six qualifying session, Ryan Hunter-Reay laid down a lap of 1 minute, 7.8219 seconds to score the pole for the 40th annual Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. It marks the sixth career pole for the driver of the No. 28 DHL Honda and his first pole award since Mid-Ohio in 2013. Hunter-Reay also is the only driver this season to make the Firestone Fast Six for both races.

The 2010 Long Beach winner finished second last week at St. Petersburg and felt that the work that his Andretti Autosport team put in during hte off-season switching from Chevrolet to Honda would pay off this year.

Hunter-Reay will be joined on the front row by teammate James Hinchcliffe, who qualified his No. 27 United Fiber & Data Honda, 0.1184 seconds off of Hunter-Reay. Hinchcliffe is looking for a solid run after a poor showing two weeks ago at St. Petersburg as a result of mechanical issues throughout the race.

KVSH Racing’s Sebastian Bourdais will start third as he looks for his fourth win on the 11-turn, 1.968-mile temporary street circuit. He will be joined in row two by Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing’s Josef Newgarden. Rookie Jack Hawksworth qualified fifth with Simon Pagenaud sixth. Pagenaud led the Friday practice sessions.

Defending series champion Scott Dixon qualified seventh, followed by Marco Andretti, Helio Castroneves, Justin Wilson, Carlos Munoz and Oriol Servia. Of note, there was only one Team Penske and one Target-Chip Ganassi Racing car in the top 12 with neither of them making it to the Firestone Fast Six.

Last week’s race winner Will Power failed to qualify for the second round of qualifying for only the second-time ever in his career as he missed round two by 0.0191 of a second. Power missed Q2 in Sao Paulo last year when he qualified 22nd.

Defending race winner Takuma Sato will start 15th as a result of a poor qualifying effort, and being penalized his two quickest laps as a result of qualifying interference in round one, group one qualifying. Juan Pablo Montoya suffered slight damage to his car after he got into the wall a bit near the end of qualifying. He qualified 16th.

The 80-lap race is scheduled to take place on April 13 at 4 p.m. EST with NBCSN showing the race live.

Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Starting Line-up:

Row 1: Ryan Hunter-Reay, James Hinchcliffe

Row 2: Sebastien Bourdais, Josef Newgarden

Row 3: Jack Hawksworth (R), Simon Pagenaud

Row 4: Scott Dixon, Marco Andretti

Row 5: Helio Castroneves, Justin Wilson

Row 6: Carlos Munoz (R), Oriol Servia

Row 7: Tony Kanaan, Will Power

Row 8: Takuma Sato, Juan Pablo Montoya

Row 9: Mike Conway, Ryan Briscoe

Row 10: Charlie Kimball, Mikhail Aleshin (R)

Row 11: Carlos Huertas (R), Sebastian Saavedra

Row 12: Graham Rahal

When it comes to street and road courses, there are few that can say that they’ve got more wins than Will Power as Power always seems to impress when both left and right turns come into play.

After struggles hurt his championship chances last year, Power is hoping that this year street and road course success coupled with some solid oval performances to his first ever Verizon IndyCar Series Championship.

So far, the driver of the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet is off to a good start as he picked up the win last weekend at St. Petersburg with a dominating performance as he led 74 laps on his way to victory. Power carries that momentum from the west coast to the east coast, posting a solid fifth quickest time in the Friday practice session.

“It’s not a bad day for Verizon Team Penske, but we need to find a bit more,” Power noted post-practice. “It’s ridiculously tight, but there’s a bit of a gap to (Simon) Pagenaud and (Sebastien) Bourdais. I don’t know what they’re doing, but it seems to be working for them. It’s hard work, and it was an unbelievable day. Tomorrow when we put on red tires for the first time, we know we’ll be faster, but it’s always a bit of an unknown because it changes the car.”

While Power may be off right now, don’t count the Australian out of contention as he has two wins and four podiums in his last six starts in California. If you add in the fact that he’s won three of hte last four events, Power is on a roll of momentum. However , while success may be sweet, Power says you can’t get to be comfortable with as you have to keep working hard.

“There’s so many good teams, good drivers,” he commented. “It’s just a good thing.  It’s a good kick in the ass to have some bad runs.  Not actually lack of pace, but just to have some bad runs, be in the back of the field.  You just reset, just realize that you can’t leave anything on the table.  You just can’t.”

Coming off a fifth-place finish at St. Petersburg, Simon Pagenaud led the combined practice sheet for the first pair of sessions at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Pagenaud lapped the 1.968 mile road course in one minute and 9.1488 seconds.

“I think the team’s done a great job over the winter at helping the car on the curbs and on the bumps,” Pagenaud, driving the No. 77 Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports car, said. “I feel pretty confident this weekend; we’ve got a pretty good package. Obviously, with different series running there will be different rubber on the track. You have to adapt. As the track rubbers up, the softness of the car needs to go up or needs to go down, and that’s what we’ll have to adjust for the red Firestone tires that are going to give us more grip. It’s quite exciting.”

Sebastian Bourdais was second quickest as he comes to a track where he’s won at multiple times in the past.

|You need the balance (in Long Beach) and it can be a very difficult place,” he commented. “I’m pretty happy with where we’re at, we still have a bit of work to do, but the KVSH Group has done a whole lot over the winter and we’re showcasing in the Mistic car this weekend and hopefully we can put it up front. It’s going to be hard to make a move on somebody on Sunday, so track position is going to be crucial more than ever, but every time we say that we end up seeing more passing than any other race.”

After falling out of the race two weeks ago at St. Petersburg due to a restart incident, rookie Jack Hawksworth was third quickest and says he liked this circuit when he ran it last year in the Indy Lights Series.

“It’s a little bit more of a generic street circuit compared to St. Pete – I’ve always thought St. Pete was very tricky to get the balance right,” he added. “I’m enjoying it. It’s a great location and a great event and it should be a good weekend.”

Last year’s winner Takuma Sato was fourth quickest while last week’s race winner Will Power rounded out the top five.

“It’s not a bad day for Verizon Team Penske, but we need to find a bit more,” Power commented. “It’s ridiculously tight, but there’s a bit of a gap to (Simon) Pagenaud and (Sebastien) Bourdais. I don’t know what they’re doing, but it seems to be working for them. It’s hard work, and it was an unbelievable day. Tomorrow when we put on red tires for the first time, we know we’ll be faster, but it’s always a bit of an unknown because it changes the car.”

Josef Newgarden was sixth fastest, followed by Ryan Briscoe, Justin Wilson, Juan Pablo Montoya and Ryan Hunter-Reay. Hunter-Reay is coming off of a second place finish two weeks ago as the California native heads to his home track.

“Everything went pretty well; it’s the first day of Long Beach and we’ve been very strong here in the past,” Hunter-Reay said. “We’ve got a lot of things we want to do and we’ve got that pressure riding on us to be up at the front. We spent most of the day there but towards the end of the last session we didn’t get everything out of the new set of Firestones, so hopefully tomorrow will be better. For qualifying we need to make the car turn better, that’s the name of the game right now for the DHL Honda.”

Of note, Power and Montoya’s Team Penske teammate Helio Castroneves was only 17th quickest.

The driver will get a 45 minute practice session on Saturday morning, before qualifying takes place at 1:15 p.m. local time.

Every race has a pivotal moment and the IndyCar season opener was no different as a lot of people have been talking about the lap 82 restart. Will Power brought the field down and it appeared he slowed, which caused the whole field to accordion. As a result contact was made in the second half of the field, ending the race for both Marco Andretti and Jack Hawksworth.

So who is to blame for this restart?

“Yeah it’s hard to see because I was pretty far back, but Will just stopped,” Andretti commented. “Once you go, you gotta go. It was a bit of an accordion effect, and I just got caught up. That’s what happens when you’re in the back, so I’ve really got no one to blame but myself.”

“I don’t know what the leader was doing,” Hawksworth said. “Everybody went and then they all stopped and somebody hit me.”

Some people were quick to blame Will Power as he is the leader and controls the restart so that seems like the natural thing to do.

“I lifted a little but I didn’t touch the brake at all,” Power commented. “They can check my data. I did not brake-check or touch the brakes at all.”

Hunter-Reay was asked about Power possibly lifting, and the 2012 champion said a lift in first gear is very strong.

“It’s almost like hitting the brakes,” Hunter-Reay commented. “He certainly stacked up Helio on the first one, that’s why I got a big run on Helio and passed Helio.  The next one he just went.  The next one was OK.”

Castroneves noticed Power’s way of restarting at that point, being second at hte time, and called it a “trick” and says that tricks aren’t a bad thing as they’re part of battling for the win.

“He knew where I was going, so he did something that I was not expecting and it caught me a surprise,” Castroneves added. “That does not take away anything from the win he did today.  Cindric and himself did a very good strategy with the tires, better tires in the end.”

Possible lift, brake and Power’s own intentions aside, some people commented that perhaps Power brought the field down a little too slow and that caused the issues with people in the second half of the field speeding up to catch up to the tail of the speed.

“In my opinion, the leader shouldn’t brake check or stop and then go,” Hunter-Reay commented. “I didn’t see that being very intentional from Will that way.  What I saw it was he kind of set his own pace at that time.  It’s up for argument that maybe that was too slow.  Definitely could have been too slow.  It was very slow.  But I feel like the leader should accelerate when he needs to and set the pace he wants because he’s leading the race, but he needs to do it in a safe and predictable manner.  We could argue if that was the case today.”

Though perhaps Power wasn’t speeding up as quickly as everyone timed due to other things that happened.

Power’s race strategist Tim Cindric commented during the race that they waved the green before the leader got to the acceleration cone and that’s why everybody went before his driver.

“Basically the pace car pulls off and you can set the pace you want.  I wasn’t even in the zone,” Power noted post-race. “We weren’t even in the zone that you have, the 200 yards or whatever it is, to decide for the leader to go when he wants.  They actually threw the green before I was even in the zone, so it was confusing to me.  So the next restart I just went because I figured, They’re going to throw the green anyway. To me, the only problem people would have had would have been if they gassed back to get a big run.”

For that reason, Andretti suggested that’s a good reason why they shouldn’t use the cone.

“I’m not complaining, but the leader should dictate it,” Andretti added. “He probably questioned himself because he might have gotten penalized or something, but you should penalize the leader, he can go when he wants.”

Restarts issues and controversy is no stranger to the Verizon IndyCar Series as fans can pull many examples from the past. If officials want to keep fans an gain more, they need to avoid issues of this nature in the races moving forward this year.

After a three hour rain delay, Takuma Sato would lay down the quickest lap in the Firestone Fast Six to score the Version 1 Pole Award for the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

“I knew we had a strong package from last year,” the driver of the No. 14 ABC Supply Toyota said. “Today was such an excitement, and everyone did a great job.”

Sato led practice yesterday and was able to lay down a quick lap of 1 minute, 1.8686 seconds on a quickly-drying 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street circuit. It marks Sato’s fourth career pole. Sato has won the last two poles decided by Firestone Fast Six qualifying. He also won the Verizon P1 Award for the first race at Houston’s Reliant Park last October.

2013 Indianapolis 500 winner Tony Kanaan was second quickest as he switches from KV Racing to Chip Ganassi Racing for 2014. There’s a lot of pressure on Kanaan to perform with him taking over the No. 10 Target Chevrolet previously piloted by Dario Franchitti.

“I  think it has been like three years since I have been in the top six,” Kanaan said. “It feels really good. I can’t thank the Target Chip Ganassi Racing guys enough. A lot of people made a lot of comments over the years because we struggled so much in qualifying on street and road courses and nobody was counting on that.  I like to be the element of surprise.  Nobody was talking about us at Indy last year and nobody was talking about this weekend. Although this is not even half of the battle because this is qualifying. Front row, man it feels pretty good.”

Ryan Hunter-Reay posted the third quickest time in the Firestone Fast Six, followed by Will Power, defending series champion Scott Dixon and Marco Andretti.

Andretti’s rookie teammate Carlos Munoz qualified seventh after his lap in the second ground of qualifying, followed by fellow Jack Hawksworth. Munoz will run the full schedule this year for Andretti Autosport after his success in the Indy Lights ranks and a second place effort in last year’s Indianapolis 500.

Briscoe will start ninth after leading the morning session, followed by Helio Castroneves and Mike Conway. Conway is splitting the schedule with Ed Carpenter this year in the No. 20 Fuzzy Vodka car.

The session didn’t go without any red flags, as both Graham Rahal and James Hinchcliffe had problems in the first group of round one qualifying as both drivers made slight contact with the tire barrier. As a result, both drivers were stripped of their two fastest laps that they posted in the session per IndyCar rules.

“I just messed up,” Rahal, who will start 21st, said. “I went into Turn 4, thought I was under control, thought I broke pretty well but all of a sudden the right front locked and I just went straight on (into the tires). Unfortunately we did a lap time that would have advanced us but the lap time doesn’t count. Obviously I’m very disappointed. I would have liked to advance but I didn’t do a good enough job today so we’re going to have our work cut out for us in the race.”

Hinchcliffe won last year’s event and will start 19th in this year’s event.

“I made sure that the 27 crew has our work cut out for us, that’s for sure,” Hinchcliffe said. “Really mad at myself. Conditions were obviously tricky, but I just lost it. It’s a real shame because the guys have done such a good job, we were quick in the dry, quick in the wet until my spin, the United Fiber & Data Honda deserved to be higher up today. But when the going gets tough, the tough get it done anyway. We’ve got the pace so hopefully some good strategy will see us come good tomorrow.”

The red flags unfortunately made for a tough qualifying session for others, including KVSH Racing’s Sebastian Bourdais.

“It wasn’t much of a qualifying session for the Hydroxycut – KVSH Racing team,” Bourdais commented. “Because of the track conditions we waited to go out to make sure that we had room in case something happened, so everyone else got in a lap before the first red flag. When we went back out I got one lap at speed before the second red flag.”

Notably: Juan Pablo Montoya in his first race back in open-wheel will start the race from the 18th position.

“The biggest problem for the No. 2  Verizon Chevy was the last corner, for some reason,” Montoya said. “I just couldn’t come off that corner and get the car to turn. (Takuma) Sato was in front of me and I would lose everything to him right there. It is what it is. I haven’t driven in wet conditions in a long time and we never had an opportunity to do it in testing. I don’t think we’re that far off. I’m still getting acclimated back to the Verizon IndyCar Series. My team is still getting acclimated to me. If that process was complete we would be a lot better. We are definitely making progress.”

The drivers will have a quick practice on Sunday morning before the race at 9:45 a.m. EST, with the race scheduled for 3:20 p.m. EST.

1.  (14) Takuma Sato, Dallara-Honda, 01:01.8686 (104.738)

2.  (10) Tony Kanaan, Dallara-Chevy, 01:02.1637 (104.241)

3.  (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Dallara-Honda, 01:02.2167 (104.152)

4.  (12) Will Power, Dallara-Chevy, 01:02.3955 (103.854)

5.  (9) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Chevy, 01:02.4454 (103.771)

6.  (25) Marco Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 01:02.9595 (102.923)

7.  (34) Carlos Munoz, Dallara-Honda, 01:03.3955 (102.215)

8.  (98) Jack Hawksworth, Dallara-Honda, 01:03.5738 (101.929)

9.  (8) Ryan Briscoe, Dallara-Chevy, 01:03.6206 (101.854)

10.  (3) Helio Castroneves, Dallara-Chevy, 01:03.6635 (101.785)

11.  (17) Sebastian Saavedra, Dallara-Chevy, 01:03.8374 (101.508)

12.  (20) Mike Conway, Dallara-Chevy, 01:03.9618 (101.310)

13.  (11) Sebastien Bourdais, Dallara-Chevy, 01:15.8337 (85.450)

14.  (77) Simon Pagenaud, Dallara-Honda, 01:12.3741 (89.535)

15.  (7) Mikhail Aleshin, Dallara-Honda, 01:15.9111 (85.363)

16.  (19) Justin Wilson, Dallara-Honda, 01:12.5890 (89.270)

17.  (18) Carlos Huertas, Dallara-Honda, 01:16.8105 (84.363)

18.  (2) Juan Pablo Montoya, Dallara-Chevy, 01:12.6994 (89.134)

19.  (27) James Hinchcliffe, Dallara-Honda, 02:34.4862 (41.945)

20.  (83) Charlie Kimball, Dallara-Chevy, 01:13.0048 (88.761)

21.  (15) Graham Rahal, Dallara-Honda, No Time (No Speed)

22.  (67) Josef Newgarden, Dallara-Honda, 01:13.1170 (88.625)

2009 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg winner Ryan Briscoe topped the morning practice session at St. Petersburg this morning. Briscoe, driving the No. 8 NTT Data car for Chip Ganassi Racing Teams, posted a quick lap of 1 minute, 2.4236 seconds on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street course.

After running a partial schedule last season for Panther Racing, Briscoe is back behind the wheel full-time this year with Chip Ganassi Racing.

“It’s tough conditions out there because of the wind. We make some set-up changes during the session and nothing really made an improvement,” Briscoe said. “It definitely feels like there should be room for improvement, but with the wind in a different direction from yesterday it’s tough.”

Three-time St. Petersburg winner Helio Castroneves was second, .0494 of a second off of Briscoe’s quick time.

Takuma Sato, who led yesterday’s practice, was third quickest followed by Sebastian Bourdais and Will Power. Simon Pagenaud was sixth quickest, followed by James Hinchcliffe, Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon and rookie Jack Hawksworth.

Verizon IndyCar Series qualifying is scheduled for 2 p.m. EST, but may be pushed back due to weather in the area.