Andretti Autosport’s Romain Grosjean in the No.28 DHL Honda says that he was close but not close enough in Sunday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach as he just missed out on taking his maiden NTT IndyCar Series victory coming home in second place behind race winner Josef Newgarden.
Grosjean started the race from sixth and came through the field to finish on the podium and speaking following the action he said:
“Very close, but not close enough. “That was fun. With the right tire strategy and with the last caution, I thought it was going to be great. He (Newgarden) did one mistake, but I just couldn’t use it.”
The Swiss-born Frenchman went on to say:
“It was a pretty good day out there! It's a bummer we didn't start P2, that would have made my day a lot easier. But, we had the right strategy, good pit stops, and pushed hard. The yellow [caution flag] really brought us back into the game and from there I made a couple of overtakes to get into second. Was just a little bit shy of getting the win today. Next time!”
Grosjean concluded by saying:
“We had the right strategy with good pit stops. We all pushed hard and had a yellow that brought us back in the game. Without any push to pass left I was left a little shy. We were trying to get a win today. Next time.”
“Silver linings of the day is that we finished and we finished in a position that has one digit instead of two. The car was good all weekend but we struggled a little bit with the tires in the first stint but the team did a great job with strategy. The pace on the Firestone Reds were good as well but we, unfortunately, lost some time in pit lane which makes for track position in INDYCAR these days.”
“I feel bad because our car was really fast. We were good enough to win today, but you can’t do that if you’re in the wall. I think we had the right strategy, the right car. We’ll try again at Barber.”
“I just locked up the front tires and, unfortunately, I smacked the wall and ended our race early. The car was good. I was really pushing. I just want to say sorry to the crew. This is a rough day for everybody.”