IMSA Long Beach starting lineup: Felipe Nasr wins pole

IMSA starting lineup: Felipe Nasr put the Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac on the pole position for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach as his No. 31 Action Express team continued its championship push.

Nasr turned a lap of 1 minute, 11.620 seconds on the 11-turn, 1.968-mile street course, earning the top starting spot for Saturday’s 100-minute race (the shortest of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season).

Kevin Magnussen qualified second (1:11.724) for the No. 01 of Chip Ganassi Racing, and Loic Duval was third in the No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Mustang Sampling as Cadillacs swept the top three starting positions.

“It is always great to get another pole,” Nasr said. “Especially here around the streets of Long Beach. It is a very close field. We have all the Cadillac cars in the top three. It has been a very close competition in DPi all day in practice. We came here with the mindset of maximizing the points. We did that today, and that is a big part of the plan. We have a great Whelen Engineering Cadillac in our hands to fight for the win.”

IMSA AT LONG BEACH: Details for watching Saturday’s race

STARTING LINEUPS: By position l By number

Dane Cameron qualified fourth in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura, followed by the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura driven by Filipe Albuquerque.

With two races remaining in the season, Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor have a 98-point lead on Nasr and Pipo Derani after winning from the pole position Sept. 12 at WeatherTech Laguna Seca Raceway.

“It is going to be a hard Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach,” Albuquerque said. “P5 in qualifying is not what we aim for, but it is what it is. The race tomorrow is short, but a lot can happen, so we’ll stay positive. The fastest car doesn’t always win and we need to make sure we finish the race. Strategy might surprise us and come our way. It is very hard to overtake here, so let’s stay positive for tomorrow.”

In the GTLM category, Jordan Taylor put the No. 3 Corvette C8.R on the pole position with a time of 1:16.801. It’s the fifth consecutive GTLM pole position for Taylor, who has four victories with teammate Antonio Garcia this season as the team seeks its second consecutive class championship.

In GTD, Laurens Vanthoor was the fastest qualifier (1:18.957) in the No. 9 Porsche 911 GT3R.

Click here for the starting grid in the IMSA Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach and here for the starting lineup by number.

QUALIFYING

Click here for the DPi results

Click here for GTLM results/GTD points

Click here for the GTD results

PRACTICE

Click here for Session I l Session II

INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports

IMSA starting lineup for Long Beach

Winner Josef Newgarden earns $3.666 million from a record Indy 500 purse of $17 million