LONG BEACH, Calif. — Felix Rosenqvist will start from the pole in Sunday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach IndyCar race, with two-time Long Beach winner and 2018 Indianapolis 500 winner Will Power starting second.

What You Need To Know

  • Felix Rosenqvist, the 32-year-old from Varnamo, Sweden, had the fastest lap of 1 minute, 6.0172 seconds, 107.317 mph, on the 1.968-mile, 11-turn street circuit surrounding the Long Beach Convention Center in the third and final segment of qualifying Saturday to win the sixth pole of his 81-race IndyCar career
  • Rosenqvist will be seeking his second IndyCar victory Sunday. His only victory came in the second race of the doubleheader at Road America near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin in 2020

  • Actor and comedian Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias will give the “Drivers start your engines,” command at 12:38 p.m. with the 85-lap, 167.28-mile race set to begin at 12:45 p.m.
  • The field consists of nine American drivers, three each from Sweden and New Zealand, two each from Denmark and England and one each from Argentina, Australia, the Cayman Islands, France, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland

The 32-year-old from Varnamo, Sweden, had the fastest lap of 1 minute, 6.0172 seconds, 107.317 mph, on the 1.968-mile, 11-turn street circuit surrounding the Long Beach Convention Center in the third and final segment of qualifying Saturday to win the sixth pole of his 81-race IndyCar career.

“Honestly it’s a bit unexpected,” Rosenqvist said after winning a pole for the second time in the last three official IndyCar races. “I didn’t think I had it. I mean, I know everyone is so on it here, especially considering Q2, I had to nail it.”

Rosenqvist won the pole in the 2023 IndyCar season finale, the Monterey Grand Prix, and qualified second in the season-opening St. Petersburg Grand Prix. The Long Beach Grand Prix is the series’ second race of the season.

Rosenqvist also qualified first for his heat race in the $1 million exhibition in Thermal last month.

Rosenqvist’s time of 1:06.0674, 107.236 mph, in the No. 60 AutoNation/SiriusXM Honda in the second round of qualifying, informally known as Q2,  where the field is reduced from 12 to six, was the fifth-fastest in the round.

Power’s best time in the final segment, known as the Firestone Fast Six, was 1:06.0211, 107.311 mph. The margin of 39 ten-thousands of a second was the smallest between the top two qualifiers on a street circuit since knockout qualifying started in the series in 2008.

The 43-year-old Australian is the series leader with 70 pole victories, including two last season, both on the oval at Iowa Speedway.

Rosenqvist will be seeking his second IndyCar victory Sunday. His only victory came in the second race of the doubleheader at Road America near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin in 2020.

“I think we’re in a good spot, honestly,” Rosenqvist said. “We feel like the car behaves really well. We believe it’s going to be good on tires.

“The warm-up is going to dictate a lot. We’re going to have to be aware where the balance of the car goes. Definitely a lot of people now trying to make that happen.”

Of the 39 IndyCar Series races in Long Beach, six have been won by the pole sitter, including Kyle Kirkwood, the 2023 winner. Since Frenchman Sébastien Bourdais’ three consecutive victories from 2005-07, only one driver has won in back-to-back years, American Alexander Rossi, the 2018 and 2019 winner.

DraftKings Sportsbook has made Rosenqvist the 33-10 favorite, with American Josef Newgarden, the 2022 Long Beach and 2023 Indianapolis 500 winner who will start third in the 27-car field, and Colton Herta, the 2021 Long Beach winner who was raised in Valencia, who will start fourth, the co-second choices at 4-1.

The field consists of nine American drivers, three each from Sweden and New Zealand, two each from Denmark and England and one each from Argentina, Australia, the Cayman Islands, France, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.

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All cars use fourth-generation IndyCar Series chassis with universal IR-18 aerodynamic bodywork, Chevrolet or Honda engines and Firestone tires.

Actor and comedian Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias will give the “Drivers start your engines,” command at 12:38 p.m. with the 85-lap, 167.28-mile race set to begin at 12:45 p.m.

Coverage will begin on USA Network and Peacock at noon. Peacock will also stream the warmup period from 9 to 9:30 a.m.

The IndyCar race will be preceded at 10:45 a.m. by a historic Indy car race of cars from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s including cars that raced (and won) in the Long Beach Grand Prix. Tony Kanaan, the 2013 Indianapolis 500 champion, won Saturday’s historic Indy car race.

The Mothers Exotic Car Parade is set to begin at 11:25 a.m.

A stadium super trucks race is scheduled to follow the IndyCar race at 3:30 p.m. The series for 600-horsepower V-8 engine trucks was founded by former IndyCar and NASCAR driver Robby Gordon, whose 15-year-old son Max won Saturday’s race.

The younger Gordon has been racing since he was 8 years old. He also won a Long Beach super trucks race in 2022.

Racing in the three-day Grand Prix will conclude with a GT America sprint race at 4:20 p.m.