IndyCar Long Beach Runner-Up Romain Grosjean Happy for Teammate

Romain Grosjean missed rewarding himself with a great birthday present in Sunday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The Swiss native turned 37 years old on Monday and just missed out on the win, finishing second to Kyle Kirkwood, his Andretti Autosport teammate. It was the fourth time Grosjean has finished second in an IndyCar race—but he’s still hungry to earn that first win.

“It’s awesome for Kyle, I’m very happy for him,” Grosjean said. “Obviously, I wish I was in his position right now, but he drove a hell of a race, like a champ. He deserved it. We tried everything on our end, it was a fuel situation, we couldn’t attack. It’s good to finish P2 and we’re on a high now.

“We’re first and second, which is more important than anything for us. I wish it was the other way around, but Kyle deserved it this weekend.”

Team owner Michael Andretti, who won twice at Long Beach in his career—his first and last career IndyCar (previously known as CART and Champ Car) was ecstatic after Kirkwood’s win, knowing it wasn’t a matter of if he’d win, but when this season, his first year back with Andretti Autosport after spending his rookie season last year with A.J. Foyt Racing.

“I felt it for sure, he’s the real deal,” Andretti said. “We knew it a long time ago when he won the Indy (Lights) championship for us and we knew he was something special. He’s really doing us proud. We did a great job across the board with all the cars. To finally crack the nut of bad luck we’ve had the first two races … it couldn’t have been a better day right now.

“That’s the medicine we needed. It was frustrating, but we knew we had quick cars and we knew if we kept our heads up and just go, we’re going to get the results and luckily we got it here. Now we’ve got to keep it going.”

Defending Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson finished third—he overtakes Pato O’Ward to take the driver points lead (O’Ward drops to second).

“Five Hondas in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. It doesn’t get any better than that,” said Ericsson, obviously a loyal company man, especially since Acura is owned by Honda.

Meanwhile, fourth-place finisher Herta had arguably one of the best lines of the post-race, making light of father Bryan, who is Kirkwood’s strategist: “We had dinner last night and we were planning that he (Kirkwood) was going to let me by by Lap 50 and (Dad would) tell Kyle he had a little bit of a fuel problem, but it must have got handled differently.”

On a more serious note, Herta added, “I’m happy for them, happy for Andretti Autosport as a whole, great first win for Kyle, he drive perfectly from what I could see. An Andretti 1-2-4, so I’m good with that.”