Overheard in Long Beach Friday (Update)

Will Roger Penske get in a bidding war with Honda for Alexander Rossi?

UPDATE CORRECTION: We inadvertently said we spotted Alexander Rossi being wined and dined by Honda HPD brass on Saturday night. That was a typo and has been corrected to Friday night.

04/13/19 As usual a lot of news and rumors to cover during the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on a perfect weather day on Friday.

We hear that Firestone now understands why their harder black tires were faster at Barber than the softer red tires and they have assured everyone that won't happen again.

Rossi to stay with Honda or switch to Chevy and Penske?

With his success in IndyCar the question comes up if Rossi have any desire to return to F1?

“Absolutely not. I have been there, done that. It is too political and I am pretty happy right where I am at."

There has been a lot of speculation of late about where Alexander Rossi will go in 2020 — his contract with Andretti Autosport is due for renewal at the end of this year. Many have speculated, and rightly so, that Roger Penske will make a run at Rossi.

Rossi has all the qualities Penske looks for in a driver – he super-fast on all types of track, he presents himself in a 100% professional manner at all times, and he's especially fast at Indy – a race Penske wants to win above all others.

However, we spotted Rossi, his girlfriend, and his father Peter, being wined and dined by the Honda HPD brass (Art St. Cyr as well as his replacement Ted Klaus) Friday night in Long Beach for what turned out to be a very long dinner. Was the topic of conversation about Rossi staying with a Honda powered team? We do know that Honda is extremely high on Rossi.

Complicating matters for Honda and Rossi is the rumor that BMW may become the third engine supplier in IndyCar and the assumption is that Andretti Autosport, who already runs BMWs in Formula E, might be enticed to jump to the German brand.

Where would Rossi drive for Honda should Andretti make the move?

And as Roger Penske, who was dining at the same restaurant Friday, finished his dinner and was walking out, he could not help but notice Rossi being wined and dined by the Honda brass.

Let the bidding wars begin.

Keeping Pitlane open

Rossi addresses my question about the pitlane remaining open

We asked Alexander Rossi about the fact he has burned twice by IndyCar closing pitlane during cautions in recent memories – at COTA and last year in Portland – but they kept them open at Barber after all the complaints. He had this to say:

“There’s no rule defining what constitutes a full-course yellow," he said. “I think Kyle Novak [Race director] has done a very good job of trying his best, when the situation allows, to not impact the race with a yellow.

“COTA — he didn’t have a choice, so no problem with that whatsoever; that’s just the luck of the draw type of thing. You go to Barber, I think he did a good job. I mean, we had Graham that was stranded on the back straight, wasn’t in a dangerous position. There’s going to be questions over Max, like … I don’t know, a 50/50 one, right?

“I think Kyle makes a conscious effort not to impact the race, but obviously, at the same time, safety still needs to be the number one priority and paramount, regardless of how annoying or frustrating it would be on that particular day. COTA was 100 percent the right thing to do, because whether or not there was a safety issue, cars couldn’t get into the pit lane. A yellow was coming there no matter what."

Ed Carpenter Racing’s Spencer Pigot agreed, “At COTA, the crash was covering pit entrance, so you couldn’t really leave the pits open in that situation because there was a car and safety crew right there," Pigot said. “Barber was a little bit different. Whether or not race control deems it as a dangerous situation … if they can keep the pits open until everyone gets a chance to pit, I think they will. If it could be more dangerous than it is, if it’s not worth the risk, I think they’ll close it right away. There’s nothing set in stone."

Jarett Andretti

Michael and Jarett Andretti

One of the big announcements on the day was Andretti Autosport going to run John Andretti's son Jarett will have a go at the Freedom 100 in May. Jarret comes from a dirt track USAC background but he has been trying his hand at GT4 America road courses of late. Jarret will be the 7th Andretti to compete at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He'll get his first go at an Indy Lights car at a series test April 18th at Kentucky Speedway.

"We're going to go to Kentucky next week," said Jarett. "That will be good to kind of get acclimated, get through the bar changes, things like that, just to get comfortable with the cockpit. The sprint car has shock adjustors, but they're only one way, so they're a lot less complicated than on the Indy Lights car. We'll work through that and get comfortable, then go to Indy."

I asked the Andrettis – Is this a precursor to moving into Indy Lights at some point full-time, then into Indy cars? Would that be a goal or yours?

"It would be a goal of mine if we can work something out, for sure. I assume it would be a goal of Jarett's," said Michael Andretti.
"
I think you got to start here. Indy Lights is such a great training ground. Hopefully it goes well, we can maybe turn it into something bigger.

"This is very important to me personally. Me and John are very, very close. We've been close our whole lives, growing up together. To help bring one of his dreams come true, it's cool to be able to do that.

"Jarett is a part of our team there anyway. He's been there for a long time. It's nice to finally get him out there and do something out there at the Speedway. Yeah, for me personally, it's really exciting to be part of this.

Jarett added, "Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. I really enjoyed the road racing stuff. The more I get to do of it, I more I like it. I think the (NTT) IndyCar Series is on the rise. I've really enjoyed coming to St. Pete, coming to Long Beach, just how crowded it is. How the series is run is really enticing.

"I think this is the first step, dip your toe in the water, kind of see if we can make that work. Just never know what the future holds."

Andretti miffed more IndyCar team owners don't have Indy Lights Team

"It's very important. I think it's very important to the series. I think it really ticks me off some of the owners that don't get behind it. Look at the talent that comes out of the series every year. One comes out, comes in, they're competitive.

"It's a really good training ground for our drivers. I think we all should get behind it. I do get really pissed off, to be honest with you, that they don't get more involved because in the end it's good for all of us if we make the ladder series strong. It's just going to bring more talent. Not only just the drivers, but the mechanics you can train, you can train engineers.

"It works very, very well for us. It's something that I'm not going to give up on. I think there's some plans to make it better in the future, which I'm actually pretty excited about.

"I think INDYCAR is realizing how important it is. I think you'll see them get behind it a little more."

The parking lots you see is the race paddock but the stadium would consume them all. The round building, part of the convention center complex, would have to be destroyed

Will proposed Baseball Stadium mean the end of the Long Beach GP?

We asked the President of the Acura GP of Long Beach, Jim Michaelian, about this topic and you can catch our interview here. Jim did not want to speculate as to what would happen, but he did tell us that after this year's race he is going to be given a briefing on the plans for the stadium to see if it is still possible to somehow still hold the race if the entire race paddock was wiped out by the stadium.

Let's hope the Angels stadium gets built in Anaheim but in the event that it was built here, the race is guaranteed thru at least 2023.

We do not think it's feasible to build it on this site, plus as Michaelian pointed out, when Los Angeles hosts the Summer Olympics in 2028, this site is slated to be part of the games.

Any Chance of an Acura Pro/Celebrity Race?

Acura’s process of assuming the title sponsorship of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach has been about 65 days of “whirlwind, hurricane speed" to get everything in order, according to Acura Vice President and Brand Officer Jon Ikeda, who is among the top-level Honda and Acura executives on-site this weekend.

We asked specifically about resurrecting the Pro/Celebrity race made so popular for years by Toyota at this event.

Ikeda said, "I mean, those are questions that…, you're not the first one. We’ve talked about it internally. We can't commit to anything per se. Those types of events help enhance the fun, if you will, that a weekend like this could bring, a lot of our people on the marketing side are looking at things to do; something of that caliber to get the excitement back in.

"Yeah, there's a lot of things that we're looking at historically that Toyota did right, some things that went away, some things that are still here. We're looking at everything right now, yeah.

T.E. McHale added "We intend to make this our event, put our imprint on it. We're not here to replicate what Toyota did, albeit very successfully for a very long time. This has become an Acura event. We intend to make it an Acura event. I'm not really sure what that looks like right now, after just 65 days to get us to this point. But there are going to be new things, innovative things, to make this an Acura-specific or Acura-branded event.

Ikeda added, "Like we said, there's so many things that are happening in terms of marketing, social media, all these things happening around us. There are new things that we could explore going into the future. How do we apply some of those things into a race weekend? We're exploring all those avenues, seeing what we can do to amplify this event, make it as big as we can make it."

We took that as maybe but probably not. We do know Toyota spent a lot of money on the Pro/Celebrity race and got the impression the money can be spent more wisely.

Mark C. reporting live from Long Beach