Paddock Buzz: Double Duty for Robert Wickens at Long Beach
INDYCAR
Robert Wickens is pulling double duty during the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach race weekend. On Friday, Wickens made his GTD debut in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, driving the No. 36 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 for DXDT Racing in practice.
Saturday's race is the first of five sprint events Wickens will be competing in, sharing the car with Tommy Milner.
Wickens returned to racing in 2022, competing in the Michelin Pilot Challenge for Bryan Herta Autosport in a modified Hyundai Elantra. He uses hand controls after suffering spinal cord injuries in a crash during an NTT INDYCAR SERIES race in 2018 at Pocono Raceway, during his rookie season. Wickens and co-driver Harry Gottsacker won the TCR class title in the series in 2023.
With the aid of Bosch developing a new brake-by-wire system, Wickens moved up the ranks this season and will be the only driver on the grid using hand controls in WeatherTech Championship competition.
'Kind of an emotional journey of having my debut on a race weekend that we share with INDYCAR is going special,' Wickens said.
Wickens is racing Saturday but also working Sunday because he serves as a technical advisor with Andretti Global in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. The 50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach airs at 4:30 p.m. ET Sunday on FOX, FOX Deportes, FOX Sports app and the INDYCAR Radio Network.
'I'm excited to see him race,' Andretti Global driver Kyle Kirkwood said. 'I'm excited to see him get into the car, run around Long Beach, a place he knows very well and is very quick around.'
Kirkwood boasts about Wickens' interaction with the team because he's more than an extra set of eyes. He's a former driver and knows exactly what another driver needs to be fast.
'When you have another driver kind of looking over things and paying attention to what other people are doing, picking out certain things, sharing that with you,' Kirkwood said. 'We are very limited on how much time we have to look over stuff. He's been a huge help in that department.
'He sits inside the engineering truck with us. Mostly, he just goes over data, video, analyzes what other drivers are doing, then kind of gives us a rundown. Even if it's a driver we wouldn't be paying attention to, he's going over that, 'Look at what he's doing in this corner, you should try doing this or this.'
'Because of that, it's taken a lot of pressure off of us to have to self-learn because he's just there to help push us along without having to dig into in-depth.'
A documentary is in production about Wickens that has been picked up by Mark Wahlberg's production company, and extensive filming is taking place this weekend at Long Beach, including Wickens' life beyond the cockpit as a technical advisor.
McLaughlin, DeFrancesco Mend Fences
Racing has a sense of humor. Whenever drivers tend to spat, they seem to be in close proximity to each other at the next race, whether on or off track.
The NTT INDYCAR SERIES isn't immune.
Scott McLaughlin was upset with Devlin DeFrancesco after a first-lap incident in the March 23 race at The Thermal Club. McLaughlin confronted DeFrancesco after the race in DeFrancesco's pit box, sparking a heated conversation.
The two quickly buried the hatchet, with McLaughlin texting DeFrancesco that they should meet and chat once they've calmed down. Each came to Long Beach with no hard feelings.
But this weekend, both drivers' pit stalls are located next to each other. By INDYCAR SERIES rule, pit stalls are selected in order from the previous race's qualifying results. Pato O'Ward earned The Thermal Club INDYCAR Grand Prix NTT P1 Award and had the first pick of pit stalls this weekend. McLaughlin qualified 25th at The Thermal Club and DeFrancesco 26th, meaning pit selections were limited.
'It's funny, I went and saw the No. 3 car crew yesterday and they're (DeFranceco's crew) putting their pit together,' McLaughlin said. 'I said, 'Hey, boys, at least I know my neighbors, but at least I'm not yelling and screaming here on Sunday.''
Rahal Feeling Early Momentum
Sunday's 90-lap race is Graham Rahal's 18th NTT INDYCAR SERIES start on the 1.968-mile Long Beach street circuit. His runner-up result in 2013 is his best finish, which ties his dad Bobby Rahal (1992 and 1993) and Jimmy Vasser (2002) as Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's best Long Beach finishes.
Last year, Rahal qualified 12th but charged to fifth place by the time he made his second pit stop. Unfortunately, a fueling issue added an additional 12 seconds to the stop, which cost valuable track position. Rahal settled for a 17th-place finish.
'We were in a really good spot until an issue in the pits, but in general Long Beach is a race that we circle every year on the calendar,' Rahal said. 'It's an important race every year, and I'm hopeful we have can a really strong performance.'
Rahal is thrilled to flash early-season consistency but ponders if his No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda could have charged higher into the top 10 in both the March 2 season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg presented by RP Funding and The Thermal Club INDYCAR Grand Prix on March 23.
He finished 12th and 11th, respectively and sits 12th in points entering Long Beach.
'A couple of bounces here or there, and we got two top-10 finishes, and those are legitimate bounces,' Rahal said. 'We just need to put our heads down and have a really strong weekend from qualifying, as well as race really strong Sunday. We have a lot of things we conceptually want to try over the weekend, so we're excited.'
Unfinished Beach Business for Rosenqvist
Felix Rosenqvist earned the first NTT P1 Award at Long Beach for Meyer Shank Racing in last year's Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. The previous best qualifying effort for MSR was third by Helio Castroneves in 2021.
Unfortunately, Rosenqvist faded to ninth at the checkered flag, which leaves the Swedish driver with unfinished business.
'Getting pole at Long Beach last year was pretty exciting for myself and the whole team,' Rosenqvist said. 'It's definitely something that we are aiming to do again this year. The MSR cars have a pretty strong street course package. It's a track that suits me well, and I'm hungry for a good finish.'
Prior to last year, Rosenqvist finished 10th, 13th, 11th and seventh, respectively, at Long Beach.
Driver's Eye Experience Debuts This Weekend
Racing Force Group reached an agreement with FOX Sports for the use of the Driver's Eye technology in selected events of the 2025 season, including the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge on May 25.
Integration of Driver's Eye in NTT INDYCAR SERIES coverage on FOX begins with this weekend's Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
The Driver's Eye developed by Zeronoise, the electronics division of Racing Force, is the world's smallest micro-camera for live broadcasting. The FIA-homologated system is installed inside the helmet to give TV viewers the totally immersive experience of the driver's exact point of view during the race. The micro-camera has a size of only 0.35 by 0.35 inches and a weight of .003 of a pound.
MSR Partners with St. Thomas University
Meyer Shank Racing and St. Thomas University (STU), a Catholic university in Miami, created a partnership offering hand-on experience to STU students to learn more about the engineering, design and business administration roles of the race team.
This weekend, STU Big Data Analytics students will work with MSR's NTT INDYCAR SERIES and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship engineering staff, interpreting and learning about the team's data analytics and what goes into the engineering side on a race weekend. The culinary students will work to create a race-specific sports drink. Three flavors will be created.
JHR Adds Three Sponsors
Juncos Hollinger Racing had a busy week of sponsorship news. MannKind Corporation, a company that develops products to help people manage medical conditions such as diabetes, joined JHR and will be featured on the No. 76 Chevrolet driven by diabetic driver Conor Daly.
MannKind will also be a primary sponsor at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix and at World Wide Technology Raceway and will continue to serve as an associate sponsor of Daly throughout the rest of the 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES schedule.
JHR also added Liquid I.V. to the organization as an official partner for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach and the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix. Finally, TrueAGI, an artificial general intelligence company, has renewed its technical partnership with the team for the 2025 season.
Odds and Ends All 27 cars feature a LA Strong decal this weekend for overall awareness and support of the wildfires that scorched Southern California in early January. Colton Herta and his sponsor Gainbridge teamed with Pasadena Humane to raise awareness for pet adoption and support animals impacted by the Los Angeles wildfires. Fans can purchase a limited-edition dog bandana at ShopAndretti.com, with 100 percent of the proceeds going toward Pasadena Humane. Herta is matching the donations, and his No. 26 Gainbridge Honda features paw prints on the top of the sidepods this weekend. Oliver Wheldon, son of two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon, will race for VRD Racing in the 2025 USF Juniors Presented by Continental Tire Championship with the support of Andretti Global. Wheldon moves up to USF Juniors after a championship-winning 2024 Skip Barber Formula Racing Series championship that earned him a $100,000 scholarship. His brother, Sebastian, won the 2023 title. Oliver had nine wins and 11 podiums. Rahal topped Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing in the final round of the Thunder Thursday Pit Stop Challenge at Long Beach. Spark Compass has become the Official Fan Engagement, CRM, and AI partner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, deploying its patented AI (Augmented Intelligence), Internet of Things and fan engagement technologies. As part of the Ultimate Small Business INDYCAR Experience Sweepstakes, The Maker Society will have its logo prominently displayed on the No. 10 DHL Honda driven by Alex Palou this weekend at Long Beach. The Maker Society was founded by a group of students from California State University Long Beach as a small club dedicated to 3D printing and design. The club has evolved into a business providing prototype and design services while also creating STEM curriculum and educational tools for students across North America. Saturday will feature practice at 11:30 a.m. ET on FS1 and qualifying to set the lineup for Sunday's Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach at 2:30 p.m. ET on FS2.
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Indianapolis Star
6 hours ago
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Will Fox, IndyCar find 'rapid growth' it sought after Indy 500? Detroit Grand Prix was a start
It's an age-old, annual trend a couple days after the race immediately following the Indianapolis 500: Why did IndyCar lose 80% of its audience from a week ago? And this year, for better or worse, was no different — although if you want to be specific, this year's post-500 audience drop-off was the worst the race has seen since at least 2016, if you're looking at Indy 500s with a race the next Sunday on the calendar that ran on network TV with no weather or scheduling alternations. Sunday's Detroit Grand Prix won by Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood averaged an audience of 1.061 million viewers, meaning the race was watched by 14.97% of the fans who tuned in for Alex Palou's Indy 500 victory the week prior. 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For millions upon millions of people, the Indy 500 will forever be on their radar the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, and the next time they'll think of IndyCar enough to channel surf for a race will be 365 days later. Now, does that mean Fox shouldn't have been hitting people over the head with reminders that the Detroit Grand Prix was the following Sunday, same channel and same time? No. In my opinion, that's a missed opportunity for sure, when you know you have the attention of so many casual race fans who at that moment either have no idea when you race next or don't care enough to look into it, but that's a conversation for another column entirely. What's clear is that the seven-day audience falloff is nothing new, and unless there's a notable move in future years to push tune-in to the next race (I watched this year's 500 back and do not remember a single mention of Detroit), then there's no reason to think it will change. 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PR reps and executives from both sides will tout the year-over-year audience boost from 2024 as proof of a monumental win already. Seven races in, the average audience size for IndyCar races this year (2.173 million) is up 31% on last year's mark with NBC (1.662 million) — a percentage boost that's only going to continue to rise. At this point a year ago, two of the seven races had aired on cable. In total, seven of the 17 races on the 2024 calendar were scheduled for streaming-only or cable, versus zero this year with Fox. An overall average audience boost was already baked into IndyCar's deal with its newest broadcast partner. Ultimately, that means this year will be a win achieved at the negotiating table and one stemming from the sport's pure increased exposure. That simple fact, along with all practice and qualifying sessions airing on cable instead of streaming-only means that without a doubt, this sport will be seen by more eyeballs than any season in recent memory. 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Power Rankings: Detroit Victory Helps Kirkwood Climb
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ABC Supply, AJ Foyt Racing Help Raise $4.7 Million for Injured Veterans
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