IndyCar: Who Will Win the Long Beach Grand Prix?

The race course at Long Beach is one of the best and most beautiful on the entire IndyCar circuit, but it can also be a real challenge. Don’t let the ocean views fool you; this street course has many tricky places to make even the most talented driver look silly.

The Long Beach circuit setup is similar to St. Petersburg, so Team Penske and the Target Chip Ganassi Racing gang are licking their chops. The powerful Chevys have been very impressive thus far, so Will Power, Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe—all with Team Penske—have a great chance of standing atop the podium come late Sunday afternoon.

Scott Dixon, Graham Rahal and Dario Franchitti,—a.k.a. “The Ganassi Gang”—would all like to spoil the Chevy parade and put one of their Honda-powered machines in Victory Lane at Long Beach.

But is this the week that Lotus becomes a major factor?

If you are a Lotus fan, then your best bet is Sebastien Bourdais, who was competitive in both St. Petersburg and Alabama. Unfortunately, they are clearly still behind both the Chevy and Honda power plants that are proven winners.

It might be the safe pick, but I like this race being won by Will Power and the Chevy-powered Team Penske group. He always runs well in Long Beach.

The television coverage this week will be on NBC Sports Network starting at 3:30p.m ET. All of the pre-race activities can be found on the IndyCar website, along with IMS and the Sirius-XM racing channel. All qualifying can be found on the IndyCar website.