Alex Palou Wins 2026 Long Beach Grand Prix

The races have come and gone, as Long Beach finishes another successful weekend for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. For its 51^st year, the streets surrounding the Long Beach Convention Center were transformed into one of the country’s largest racing events, inviting fans from all over to come and witness some heart-pounding, engine-revving excitement; all leading up to the Grand Prix’s headlining race with the NTT IndyCar Series.

This year’s running of the IndyCars in Long Beach was one to remember, as racing fans witnessed the 1^st Place Trophy go to driver of the No. 10 OpenAI Honda, Alex Palou. The win at the Grand Prix marks another major achievement in the Spanish driver’s already-impressive career in IndyCar, officially becoming his first ever win on the streets of Long Beach, and his third win in the 2026 season.

Palou began the race in the third position of the official starting lineup, behind drivers Felix Rosenqvist (first position) and Pato O’Ward (second position). Starting behind Palou in the fourth position was last year’s Long Beach Grand Prix winner Kyle Kirkwood, followed by David Malukas and Sir Scott Dixon.

For the first half of the 90 laps, positions at the top remained around the same. Felix Rosenqvist was able to hold an impressive lead at the front of the pack, followed by Palou and Dixon. Then, around the 60^th lap in the race, drivers Rosenqvist and Palou entered the pit crew lane to swap tires; but as their respective teams finished, Palou was able to break out of the pit crew lane ahead of Rosenqvist, and maintaining his position for the remainder of the race.

At the end of the race, Alex Palou stood at the top of the winner’s circle, along with Felix Rosenqvist and Sir Scott Dixon joining him on the podium, as they finished second and third respectively.

During a post-race press conference, Palou shared his feelings about finishing first at the Grand Prix, as well as giving praise to his team for helping him secure the win.

"It feels so incredible,” said Palou. “I feel lucky to have the opportunity to win the [Indianapolis] 500 last year and now the Long Beach Grand Prix this year. Incredible work by the team today.”

Palou also commented a bit on what he and his team were trying to accomplish against their fellow driver Felix Rosenqvist, prior to that sudden cautionary yellow in the second half of the race.

“We were fighting him [Rosenqvist] on the 60^th lap trying to match him on the soft tires. I think we could have fight it a little bit, but he was a bit stronger than us today, so we were just trying to figure out if we were going to be able to go a lap longer, but then that full course yellow moved everything into that pit stop.”

Aside from Palou, Felix Rosenqvist shared his initial thoughts on the race during the press conference, as well. According to Rosenqvist, it was a very good weekend for Meyer Shenk Racing overall, as outside of Rosenqvist’s second pole position in the IndyCar race, the team had managed obtain a win during the IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship race, through the help of drivers Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly.

“Obviously you want to win when you have the opportunity, but I’m proud of today,’ said Rosenqvist. “I think everything we were working on kind of paid off today. I’ve been in the position many times before, being on pole or up in the front, and something kind of fell short; and today I feel that we had a very solid pace on the reds [alternate tires] -- not as good as Alex on the blacks [primary tires], I just kind of struggled a bit on that last thing, but it was going to be hard to pass him anyways”

Rosenqvist added that the final pit stop before Alex Palou took the lead was truly the defining moment of the race. But at the end of the day, Rosenqvist said he’ll gladly take home the second pole position

Sir Scott Dixon also shared his thoughts about the race this past Sunday, describing it as a major success for the Chip Ganassi Racing cars, with no major issues interfering with the performance. However, Dixon also shared some of the difficulties he experienced while driving on the track.

“The race itself, for us, was just a bit blah, to be honest,” said Dixon. “We kind of set the same position, trying to go along. Fuel milage was really good, which Honda does a great job of; but I think everybody's kind of caught up a lot on figuring out what they need, and unfortunately for me, the balance had a lot of understeer, so it was very difficult to kind of roll the corner and roll off throttle to get that mileage.”

Dixon continued: “So yeah, interesting day. At the last stop, luckily for us, we had an easy out. Looked like a lot of people we were fighting had cars in front of them or behind them, which kind of paid off for us.”

As of April 19, the top 5 drivers in the standings of the NTT IndyCar Series are as follows:

• Alex Palou
• Kyle Kirkwood
• David Malukas
• Pato O’Ward
• Christian Lundgaard

Despite the Long Beach Grand Prix coming to a close, the NTT IndyCar Series continues to its next destination. After Long Beach, the drivers will next find themselves at the IMS Road Course on May 9th, for the Sonsio Grand Prix in Indianapolis, Indiana; Followed by the 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 24th.

For more information on the NTT IndyCar Series, you can visit their official website at https://www.indycar.com/