IndyCar Detroit Friday: Kirkwood-Power “video game” aggro headlines practice

Credit: FOX Sports

Only five days on from the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500, IndyCar was back on track on the streets of Detroit on Friday. DIVEBOMB recaps the first day of the final of five successive weekends of cars on track…

Kirkwood quickest from Penske trio

Kyle Kirkwood, the only driver to beat Álex Palou so far in 2025, paced opening practice by 0.2792s ahead of Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin. The Andretti Global man was the only driver to dip below the 61-second mark around the 1.645-mile street circuit. 

McLaughlin led his two Penske teammates in the combined speed charts having finished second behind Kirkwood in the second of the session-ending 12-minute group sessions. It was a strong rebound from McLaughlin after his Indy 500 pace-lap crash.

Will Power and Josef Newgarden were third and fourth overall having topped the first split session, which allows clearer track for qualifying simulations following the initial 40-minute all-skate running.

A three-time podium-sitter in 2025, Christian Lundgaard was fifth overall for Arrow McLaren, with Andretti’s Colton Herta splitting the Dane and his teammate Pato O’Ward. Louis Foster was the best-placed rookie in eighth for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing as his teammate Graham Rahal rounded out the top 10 behind Dale Coyne Racing’s Rinus VeeKay.

After a busy week of festivities and limited race preparation, Indianapolis 500 winner and runaway championship leader Palou was one of many drivers to find the runoff on the technical street track. He rounded out the session 15th overall - after being disrupted by a yellow flag on his final push lap - but placed fifth in the initial all-car session.

Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Sting Ray Robb brought out the only red flag in the early exchanges after light nose-first contact with the Turn 1 tyre bundle just beyond pit exit. But even that stoppage may have been premature as Robb promptly reversed and continued.

The hybrid restart function meant drivers were able to safely escape the runoff as they tested the limits throughout practice. 

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Power hits Kirkwood in controversial moment

A possible accident was avoided after a hot-headed moment from Power during the initial 40 minutes of running.

Traffic is prevalent around the narrow confines of the Motor City and, while on a fast lap, Power encountered Kirkwood - backed up behind AJ Foyt Racing’s David Malukas - travelling slowly into Turn 5.

Power made contact with the rear of Kirkwood’s No.27 machine, but instead of backing off, the Penske driver appeared to keep accelerating and forcefully moved Kirkwood past Malukas through the tight Turn 6. After Power finally detached himself from Kirkwood’s attenuator, the Long Beach winner showed his displeasure with a raised arm.

As yet, there is no news on a possible penalty. But Kirkwood’s gearbox cover and floor suffered damage, making his run to a comfortable session-topping lap all the more impressive.

“I came around and he slowed up in the middle and made contact,” said Power to FOX after laughing at the replay. “So I thought: ‘Well, I may as well get a gap now.’ So I just pushed him past the car in front, moved him out of the way and got a really nice gap. I was like: ‘I’m already touching him. I may as well keep pushing him and get myself a gap.’”

After his initial frustration in the cockpit, Kirkwood was understanding in his FOX interview - avoiding a repeat of a pit lane scuffle with Santino Ferrucci this time last year. Power has since been pictured laughing with the No.27 crew.

“Everyone’s going slow around here - the track’s not big enough to fit all the cars,” Kirkwood said. “He got frustrated. Whatever, I guess. Does it give him the right to push my cars through a couple of corners and almost cause a wreck? I don’t think so. 

“I can’t do much and he’s just shoving me along. Everyone’s stopped. I don’t know. I’m not upset. I don’t care. We’re P1. But at the same time, I expect IndyCar to do the right thing with that. I’m sure they’ll do something. Who knows what? Never seen that before.”

Credit: FOX Sports

“What the hell is going on?”

On the short stretch between Turn 5 and Turn 6 as he looked to build a gap to start a lap, Malukas got a front-row seat of the action between Power and Kirkwood. He was suitably amused.

“That was really cool,” Malukas laughed. “For a second, it just felt like I was back playing iRacing or rFactor. I was like: ‘Yeah, I’d totally do that in a video game.’ It was pretty cool to see him just push Kirkwood.

“And actually in my peripheral vision, because Kirkwood went off and Power just blasted through, I drove by and I just see Kirkwood’s hand going in the air. Like: ‘What the hell is going on?’ But it was interesting to see. I couldn’t believe it. 

“I was very confused at the start. I thought something was wrong with Kirkwood and Power was towing him across like the Cars movie. It was interesting at first but then I realised it was not that.”

Nailing the Indy-to-Detroit transition

There could hardly be two tracks further removed from one another than the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and streets of downtown Detroit. After two intense weeks on the oval at the Speedway, returning to a tight and bumpy street track takes a transition.

“It’s very difficult,” Malukas said. “Thankfully I went on the simulator before coming here and did over 100 laps to prepare for it just because I know that transition is very tough from previous years, going for a whole month on an oval and now coming to one of the most technical courses for us. 

“I had a little bit of preparation beforehand but it’s just so tough, because the way this track is, all the bumps tend to be mid-to-out when you’re trying to accelerate. And those bumps throw you what is a wall. 

“It gets very tough, especially entering [Turn] 8 where the alt start line is. That bump is a big one and it’s very aggressive so it’s catching a lot of people off-guard. That’s the one that we’re heavily focused on but that’s just the general layout of this entire track is all the exits are a little bit more those bumps. 

“But I enjoy it. The margin for error is very small.”

Credit: FOX Sports

Last year’s race in Detroit resulted in 47 of the 100 laps being run under caution.

“With this season, it seems like everything has been a lot less when it comes to yellows,” said Malukas, for whom a mechanical issue on the Indy road course resulted in the first caution since the opening lap of the opening race of the season. “But I’ll be surprised if there’s not going to be a yellow for this race.

“With the way it’s set up, Turn 1 is very wide on entry and it looks inviting and then all of a sudden it gets very, very tight on the exit. It happens a lot around this track.”

Jacob Abel suffered the misfortune of being bumped from the Indy 500 amid major struggles for Dale Coyne Racing. But as a rookie, Abel is having to make a transition of his own from Indy NXT to IndyCar machinery.

“The Indy car, believe it or not, is a little bit easier to drive around here because everything is much more refined in terms of the dampers, the shocks and all of that, as well as the engine mapping with Honda and Chevy, whereas Indy NXT is only one engine manufacturer,” Abel said. “It is a little bit easier to drive. Obviously it is faster though.

“So there’s a little bit of a learning curve there and I don’t know this car as well as I knew the Indy NXT car. So it’ll take me a little bit longer to get up to speed but, at the end of the day, it does feel a lot better around here and the bumps do feel a little bit less.”

The heaviest braking zone and best passing opportunity is the Turn 3 hairpin at the end of the 0.7-mile East Jefferson Avenue straight.

“It’s a very unique brake zone,” Abel said, who believes restarts will present the best overtaking opportunities. “You start on one side of the track, you drift to the other side of the track. That can lead to some surprising passes. That’s definitely the number one spot.”

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Malukas riding Indy 500 runner-up wave

After finishing third on the road in the Indy 500, post-race penalties elevated Malukas to a joint-career-best result of runner-up. It is a major boost for Foyt and Malukas, who had finished no better than 13th in his first five races for the team.

“I’ve said throughout the start of the entire season that we really are looking forward to the Month of May because we’re with the team for the entire month,” Malukas said. “We can really build on the car and work on the chemistry of each other and really understand what we want and start building some momentum for the second half of the season. 

“I feel like that’s kind of what’s happened and it’s something that I experienced in my first year in IndyCar [with Dale Coyne Racing] where really things didn’t turn around for me until the Month of May. That’s just being with a new team, how it is. 

“We’ve made really good improvements with the setup and different things that we wanted throughout the Month of May and I think it’s going to be shown for us this week.”

Malukas has started his Detroit weekend on the front foot, finishing 11th overall but pacing the initial 40-minute session.