Alex Palou missed the final corner in qualifying for the 2026 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, locking up and narrowly missing the pole, setting him up to chase Meyer Shank Racing's Felix Rosenqvist during Sunday's feature race. A late caution and a small misstep from the leader created the narrow runway that Palou needed to take the lead and win his first Grand Prix of Long Beach.
With Palou a step behind, Rosenqvist was able to lead the first 51 laps of the 90-lap race as it ran caution-free through the first two-thirds of the race.
With Rosenqvist continuing to build distance between him and Palou, it appeared that IndyCar's third street race of the season may go caution-free. Instead, a piece of carbon fiber that was first run over by Alexander Rossi and then again by Josef Newgarden after the caution came out changed the dynamics of the race.
The majority of the field committed to a two-stop strategy to avoid losing time on the circuit's long pit road. The caution sent every entrant down pit road for fresh tires for the sprint to the finish. A slightly slow stop for the No. 60 MSR team saw Palou eke out ahead of the Swede. Palou controlled his lead on the restart and drove away to his third win of the season, taking sole ownership of the championship lead with it.
Long Beach was one of the few remaining circuits that Palou had not won at, finishing in the top five in all four of his visits.
He was very close. I was struggling a little bit on the soft tires. I was a little more confident on the hard tires at the end. I don't know. I think we would've been really close. Who knows? I think Felix was doing a hell of a job. He just kept going. He kept just doing more mileage than us and going fast, so it was gonna be really, really tough for us to beat him, but yeah, we did."
Palou's Chip Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon secured his first podium of the season behind Rosenqvist. Dixon was happy to end up back on the podium following a run of 'small misses' have plagued the start of his 2026 season.
"I was so bummed about St Pete, and a few of the other weekends that we've had, we just had, you know, kind of small misses. So congrats to Alex, obviously, you know, feel a little bit sad for Felix, because I think he controlled most of the race, at least from where I was sitting, and then that last caution and pit stop exchange."
Last year's winner, and Palou's closest competition this year, Kyle Kirkwood, finished fourth while battling his car throughout the race. Pato O'Ward started on the front row but faded to fifth ahead of the Penske's of Scott McLaughlin and David Malukas.
Josef Newgarden and the No. 2 Penske team made a bold strategy call that didn't pay off, opting for a 3-stop early and not milking enough out of the clean-air laps to make up the time lost to the third pit stop or the weight loss from battling in traffic.