Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood in the No.27 AutoNation Honda took his maiden career NTT P1 Award on Saturday for Sunday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, round 3 of the 2023 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season.
Speaking following the action he said:
I’m just ecstatic at the moment. Our car is on fire this weekend. We’re doing really well. Everyone at Andretti Autosport, HPD and Honda, they’re all doing an amazing job this weekend. The car just keeps getting better and better; and I couldn’t be any happier. Our third weekend with the team, and we’ve already got a pole. It’s another step in the right direction for us.
Colton Herta in the No.26 Gainbridge Honda starts the race in seventh and speaking following the action he commented saying:
“It seems like we probably should have put on the new Firestone tires in the second round, but we wanted to save it for the Firestone Fast 6 to try to have a shot at the pole. We thought since we only did one lap on the tires, we could get another fast lap in there and hopefully improve a little bit. Unfortunately, we just overcooked the tires on Lap 1 and they just weren’t the same even after that long break going into the second run. Seventh isn’t a bad spot to start for the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda and with the extra set of tires, we have a little bit of an advantage for tomorrow if alternate tires end up being the way to go.
Romain Grosjean in the No.28 DHL Honda starts the race from third place and speaking following the action he commented saying:
I’m really happy for Kyle and the whole Andretti team. I felt like we had it, but I messed up in the hairpin. I think I lost like three-tenths, so it’s my fault. I just braked too late and the rear locked up. I had to pull the clutch in the middle of the corner to try to make it go in. We didn’t have an easy qualifying session overall. We got blocked in the second round and then we had the red flag and had to use the extra set of new tires to make it into the Firestone Fast 6. I knew we had something good. The No. 28 DHL Honda has been driving well all weekend, but I just couldn’t put it together.”
Devlin DeFrancesco in the No.29 Capstone Honda starts the race from 20th and speaking following the action he said:
We had a bit of a fuel issue that set us back in qualifying today. This one really hurts – we just need to catch a break. This Capstone crew has really put a lot of effort in and Honda gave us great power for the weekend. It just hurts. It hurts for me, it hurts for the team and it hurts for everyone at Capstone. We were there. We had a lap coming that was quite easily going to put us through, but that’s just the name of the game sometimes. Thankfully, we have more options in the race to move forward because we’re faster than the cars starting around us.