RLL ADVANCE: The 50th Anniversary Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Pre-Race Notes
50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach – Streets of Long Beach, California
Round 3 of 17 in the 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES

DATE:     Friday – Sunday, April 11-13, 2025

PRACTICE BROADCAST:     Live on FS1 on Friday from 6:00–7:30 p.m. ET, on Saturday from 11:30-12:30 p.m. ET and Sunday from 12:00 – 12:30 p.m. ET. Also live on the INDYCAR Radio Network (IRN) and www.indycar.com (timing & scoring + live analysis).

QUALIFYING BROADCAST:     Live on FS2, the IRN and www.indycar.com (timing & scoring + live analysis) from 2:30-4:00 p.m. ET Saturday.

RACE BROADCAST:     Live on FOX on Sunday, April 13 from 4:30 – 7:00 p.m. ET. And also on the IRN, Sirius XM 160 and the INDYCAR App.

TRACK LAYOUT:     1.968-mile, 11-turn street course
RACE LENGTH:     90 laps* (5 more than 2024) / 177.12 miles
2024 WINNER:     Scott Dixon
2024 POLESITTER:     Felix Rosenqvist (107.317 mph)

RLL’S BEST START / FINISH AT LONG BEACH:     3 poles (Herta 1998, Vasser 2002, Jourdain, Jr. 2003) / 2nd – four times (B. Rahal 1992-1993, Vasser 2002, G. Rahal 2013)

RAHAL’S BEST START / FINISH AT LONG BEACH:     5th in 2007 / 2nd in 2013; will be his 18th Indy car race here and 19th overall
RAHAL’S BEST SERIES START / FINISH:     5 Poles – St. Pete (street) 2009, Kansas (oval) 2009, Detroit (street) 2017, IMS (road) 2023, Portland (road) 2023 / 6 Wins – St. Pete 2008, Fontana (oval; 500 miles) 2015, Mid-Ohio (road) 2015, Texas (oval) 2016; Detroit Race 1 (street) 2017, Detroit Race 2 2017

DEFRANCESCO’S BEST START / FINISH IN LONG BEACH:     17th in 2022 / 16th in 2023
DEFRANCESCO’S HIGHEST SERIES START / FINISH:     5th at the IMS road course (August 2023) / 12th at WWTR (2022) and Detroit (2023)

FOSTER’S BEST START / FINISH AT LONG BEACH:     First race here
FOSTER’S BEST SERIES START / FINISH:     10th at Thermal 2025 / 24th at Thermal

NEWS & NOTES:

25TH INDY CAR RACE IN LONG BEACH FOR RLL
The 2025 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach (AGPLB) marks the 25th time for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) to compete in the event.  Although the team didn’t compete in Indy car races here from 2004-2011 while they fielded a fulltime entry in the Indy Racing League (2004-2008), they did compete in the 2003 and 2004 Atlantic races with Danica Patrick and in the 2007 American Le Mans Series (ALMS) race. From 2009-2019, the team competed on the streets of Long Beach in the GTLM class of the ALMS/IMSA with BMW Team RLL and has finished on the podium each year but 2016-2019 although they started from pole in 2016 and led all three of those races. The venue is still the most successful for the team on the current IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship schedule with wins in 2011, 2013 and 2015, nine podium finishes and five poles in 12 years. BMW M Team RLL has a two-car entry in IMSA’s GTP class.

In RLL’s 24 previous Indy car races in Long Beach, the team entered 43 cars for drivers such as Bobby Rahal (1992-1998), Mike Groff (1994), Raul Boesel (1995), Bryan Herta (1996-1999), Max Papis (1999-2001), Kenny Brack (2000-2001), Jimmy Vasser (2002), Michel Jourdain (2002-2003), Takuma Sato (2012, 2018-19, 2021), Graham Rahal (2013-2019, 2021-23), James Jakes (2013), Mike Conway (2013), Oriol Servia (2014), Oliver Askew (2021), Christian Lundgaard (2022-24) and Pietro Fittipaldi (2024). In total, the team won three poles (Herta 1998, Vasser 2002, Jourdain, Jr. 2003); made five front row starts including an all-Team Rahal front row in 1998 (2nd – Rahal 1998, Brack 2001); earned their best finish of second place four times (Rahal 1992-1993, Vasser 2002, G. Rahal 2013) and earned six podiums (2nd – Rahal 1992-1993, Vasser 2002 & G. Rahal 2013; 3rd – Herta 1998-1999). The team has entered the No. 15 Fleet Cost & Care Honda for Graham Rahal, the No. 30 Mi-Jack Honda for Devlin DeFrancesco and the No 45 Mi-Jack Honda for Louis Foster in this year’s race.

GRAHAM AND LONG BEACH
The 2025 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will be Graham’s 18th Champ/Indy car race here and 19th overall. His best IndyCar start here is fifth in 2007 and best finish is second place in 2013. In 2024, he started 12th and pit from fifth place on an alternate strategy for his second stop and a fueling issue added an additional 12 seconds, which dropped him four spots at the time and valuable track position. A top-10 finish was in sight but he had to settle for 17th place. In 2023, he started 24th and finished 12th and in 2022, he started 13th and finished seventh. He ran as high as second place two times in 2021 and led four laps by utilizing an alternate strategy after starting 19th but the timing of a caution for contact between teammate Askew and Daly while he was on his in-lap for his final pit stop dropped him to 20th. He came back to finish 16th. Other results are available on request. The team has conceptualized some ways to optimize the race car setup, and he is looking forward to getting on track to try those.
“It’s a second home race for me, so I’m excited to go back. Last year we were in a really good spot until an issue in the pits but in general it’s a race that we circle every year on the calendar. It’s an important race every year and I’m hopeful we can have a really strong performance there. We’ve had a pretty good start to the year with decent results in both races. Both were potential – or should have been – top-10’s so all of that being said, we just need to put our heads down and have a really strong weekend from qualifying as well as race really strong. We have a lot of things we conceptually want to try over the weekend, so we’re excited to get there.
(On setting the fifth fastest cumulative time in the pits in Thermal: “Pts stops are critical to our success and it’s an area that the No. 15 boys have worked extremely hard on so I know there is a lot of satisfaction in that. We’ve just got to keep pushing to continue to get better. I’ve got to keep pushing. Your 60 (mph) to zero times, your zero to 60 times to the pit limiter; all of those things have an effect, and I’ve got to make sure I’m on my game as well.”

DEVLIN RETURNS TO LONG BEACH
The 2025 race will be his third start here. His highest start is 17th in 2022 and highest finish is 16th in 2023 – both with Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport. His season highlight to date in the first two races, was qualifying 14th place in St. Pete and he was on target for a top-10 finish there until a punctured tire forced him to pit and lose valuable positions. He ultimately finished 22nd in the race. He is looking forward to returning to the challenging track.
“I’m very excited for Long Beach. I think it’s going to be a strong weekend for us. The team was pretty competitive there last year, and I think we have quite a good feeling on how we’re starting the weekend, setup wise, on the No. 30 Mi-Jack team. Long Beach is a very challenging, tricky track; there’s no room for error. The bump in the famous Turn 9 is always tricky. There are quite a lot of low-speed corners so it’s quite a difficult place. And there is a change of surface as well in a few areas so obviously with all the paint, it’s quite tricky around the fountain. We were strong in St. Pete other than the setback with the puncture and I think we’ve made improvements since then driving-wise as well as setup wise so I’m looking forward to Long Beach and seeing what we do to really get our season going. I’m just looking for a clean weekend. I think having a clean weekend with no issues, and we’re going to be up front with the 30 so I’m looking forward to it.”

LOUIS FOSTER MAKES HIS DEBUT ON THE STREETS OF LONG BEACH
While Foster won eight races on seven tracks en route to the 2024 INDY NXT Championship, this will be his first time to race on the streets of Long Beach. He earned his first top-10 start in the series at the previous race at The Thermal Club but wasn’t able to maintain that position by the checkered flag.  After having lived in LA while attending college, he is looking forward to his first race in the legendary event and creating some momentum.
“Long Beach will kind of be like a home race for me. I lived in Los Angeles for two years so I have a lot of friends that live there and have family coming out to this one too so it’s kind of a home race for me. It’s a great event. With it being the 50th anniversary this weekend, and now run by Penske Entertainment, there are a lot of new things to be excited about. I’m looking forward to it and think it should be a good weekend. I tend to do well on street courses. It’s going to be the first time for me at Long Beach so that’s going to be new but I’m looking forward to the challenge. I always look forward to going to new circuits and having to learn them.
“Luckily Long Beach is one of those circuits that everyone knows from just being a racing fan or driver so I’ve done countless laps from the age of 10 on a simulator there so I feel like I know it really well. Obviously, it’s very different in real life so a lot of the preparation is looking at data, onboard video and talking to Graham as well about his experience there and just getting as much info on what to expect on car setup wise, balance wise, driving wise and those kinds of things.
“There are definitely small, minute details that you won’t pick up on until you experience it. We have learned a lot about the car balance, set-up wise and it’s been a lot of good progress. We have a clear direction that we want to go to on the No. 45 Mi-Jack car and pursue that direction which we think will ultimately be better for lap time so I’m quite happy with where things have been going and I’m quite confident in our abilities for the rest of the season. I did my first full INDYCAR race at Thermal and learned a lot about tire management, fuel management and pit stops. Those things were a big learning curve for me and now that I’ve got that out of the way, I do feel more relaxed going into Long Beach a have a bit more understanding of how things are going to play out. We’re about to get into the meat of the season pretty soon and it’s going to be hitting the ground running from that point so this weekend is going to be another weekend of some rookie issues maybe and some mistakes from my side that I need to learn from as quickly as possible but I feel confident that we can get the most out of it and progress faster so that when we get into the meat of the season it kind of is smooth sailing.”