{"id":275022,"date":"2026-04-19T02:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/275022\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T02:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:48:11","slug":"felix-rosenqvist-hopes-long-beach-pole-kickstarts-indycar-season-turnaround","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/275022\/","title":{"rendered":"Felix Rosenqvist hopes Long Beach pole kickstarts IndyCar season turnaround"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a look of relief on the face of Felix Rosenqvist<\/a> after snatching pole position for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.<\/p>\n

Sitting 14th in the championship standings with zero top 10 finishes through the opening four rounds of the 2026\u00a0IndyCar season, there was a sense of urgency for the 34-year-old Swedish driver to simply find a way to get a breakthrough and help boost the confidence for both he and Meyer Shank Racing. He did just that with an inch-perfect flying lap of 1m07.4635s on the 11-turn, 1.968-mile temporary street circuit, which was good enough to dethrone reigning and four-time series champion Alex Palou<\/a>, and fend off a challenge by close friend\u00a0Pato O’Ward<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was exactly what we were looking for,\u201d said\u00a0Rosenqvist, driver of MSR\u2019s #60 Honda. \u201cI think when you’re struggling, it doesn’t come easy, like it’s kind of between the races where you find the problems. You show up and hopefully it’s better. We were quick from the get-go here.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the confidence you get from something like this, it’s obviously huge not only for me but everyone in the team after having a bit of a\u00a0drought, in terms of results.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, super happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the seventh pole of Rosenqvist\u2019s career and second-ever for MSR, with his 2024 Long Beach pole standing as the team\u2019s first.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the unique challenges the field faced this time around was an updated version of the single-car, single-lap Fast Six qualifying format for street circuits<\/a>. Unlike Arlington where the format debuted, the new tweak allowed the fastest driver from Segment 2 to choose when to make their pole-trying run, with the subsequent choices made for the remaining positions based on Segment 2 results. Additionally, each team was required to make tire choice before getting to their place in line.<\/p>\n

Rosenqvist went out third for his Fast Six run and was left watching the drama unfold with uncertainty if he had done enough to secure the top spot.<\/p>\n

\"Felix <\/p>\n

Felix Rosenqvist – Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Photo: Travis Hinkle<\/p>\n

Photo by: Penske Entertainment<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually didn’t change anything during qualifying,\u201d he said. \u201cWe did quite a lot of changes going into it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first run we had a real good run. We kind of nailed our tire prep. Then we just focused on executing what I could do in the car, kind of improved and improved. Yeah, it was pretty dialed in. Felt confident.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the one-lap shootout. When they announced it, I was like I really want to be part of that because I think it’s such a cool thing when you’re doing the one-lap dash. Watching it was nerve-wracking. That was probably the worst part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The outing by Rosenqvist elevated an already stellar day for MSR, which saw its Acura-supported program convert its pole into a victory (with Nick Yelloly and Renger van der Zande) in Saturday afternoon\u2019s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship 100-minute sprint race at Long Beach.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazing day for us at Meyer Shank Racing,\u201d Rosenqvist said. \u201cThey got the pole yesterday in IMSA and the win today on the #93 car. Huge congrats. We’re rocking the Green Day Acura livery. Huge day for Acura. Super happy to be here.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s amazing how I went into this weekend (and) we said we needed a little turnaround, kind of turn the year around a little bit because we haven’t been quick. Certainly worked well. Better than I dare expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Rosenqvist, whose lone career win came at Road America in 2020 (Race 2), has a prime spot to help give MSR a clean sweep of the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cFull focus on the race now,\u201d he siad. \u201cTry to take in the moment a little bit, just push forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a look of relief on the face of Felix Rosenqvist after snatching pole position for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[117476,119023,65321,131,133,132,119024,69116],"class_list":{"0":"post-275022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-felix-rosenqvist","9":"tag-felix-rosenqvist-hopes-long-beach-pole-kickstarts-indycar-season-turnaround","10":"tag-indycar","11":"tag-long-beach","12":"tag-long-beach-headlines","13":"tag-long-beach-news","14":"tag-meyer-shank-w-curb-agajanian","15":"tag-streets-of-long-beach"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}