Is “real deal” Kirkwood proving a title-ready IndyCar force?
- Archie O’Reilly
- Mar 16
- 8 min read
It would have been very easy to grow frustrated. To have lost his cool and lost his way. But in his fourth year with the team, a driver ever-growing in his status led by example.
For a day so perfect on track, Andretti Global’s pit-stop performance in IndyCar’s Grand Prix of Arlington - whether through any fault of their own or not - left a lot to be desired. On each of Kyle Kirkwood’s three stops, a wheel nut came loose and he was left delayed.
It could easily have been the undoing of the No.27 team’s day. But their driver, irritated by his own mishaps from the day prior, was never going to allow that to happen. No blame games. No getting hot under the collar. Instead, a steely determination and unflappable composure.
“I made mistakes [in qualifying]. We had the pace to overcome it. I wasn’t worried,” Kirkwood insisted. “I wanted to keep [the team] calm - not get them fired up - because we still had three stops to do. Of course, we had issues. We need to look back and see exactly what is happening on the rear right. This was an issue with the tyre coming off and going on.
“I don’t know if the hub was messed up or what it might have been but I suspect there was an issue on the car. I’m not going to wear into my team. We’ve been one of the fastest on pit lane. I’ve got a lot of confidence in them. It was not a good day on pit lane. We’ll have it fixed in the coming weeks.”
This measured reaction comes as no surprise, for there has always been a maturity around Kirkwood, a champion on every level of the Road to Indy as a junior. As he has risen from 11th to seventh to fourth in the standings in his three years with Andretti, that has only grown alongside his own development as a driver. And this was so starkly exhibited in Arlington.
Kirkwood was left kicking himself following qualifying after a self-induced miscalculation, pitting out of sequence and confining himself to starting seventh with a possible pole-winning car. But come Sunday, this was channelled into pure motivation and nothing was going to stop him from taking a sixth career victory.
“He was on one today,” assessed Dan Towriss, CEO of TWG Motorsports. “He was hard on himself for a mistake in qualifying. I sent him a text: ‘Forget all that. You’re so fast - just go out and show it on the track tomorrow.’
“All the guys, to overcome some adversity - wasn’t our best day in the pit lane - it shows the resiliency of this team, the speed of the cars, the talent of the drivers.”
Kirkwood promptly made his way into the top five in the race but did not feel entirely comfortable on the softer alternate tyres, which he ran for the opening two stints. Once he switched onto the “bulletproof” primary tyre for the final two stints, his race came alive.
By the time he had stopped for a final time, despite Álex Palou being renowned for his calibre on the harder tyres, Kirkwood was in rapid pursuit of the four-time champion.
“Kirkwood was really fast,” Palou asserted. “On [the] second and third stint, I was pushing as much as I could, using OT [push-to-pass] to try to get gaps [and] he was closing three/four-tenths on me. I was like: ’Oh, man, it’s going to be tough.’
“I was not having any handling issues; normally you cannot drive because you cannot brake or something. I was flat-out, happy with my car. Just they were a little bit happier than us.”
It was the second time in the space of a year that Kirkwood found himself having to outfight the three-time defending champion on a street course. There were parallels to last April in Long Beach - the race running green for the majority, as it did lights-to-flag on that occasion - but while Kirkwood there was the hunted, on this occasion he was the hunter.
Arlington was full-on in its attacking nature, thus it became “one of the most physical races” of Kirkwood’s career. Such was the toll, once he finally took his hands off the steering wheel at race’s end, his hand cramped to the extent he had to pull back his clenched fingers.
But in any case, he ousted Palou once again in a straight duel - something very few have managed in recent years amid his four titles in five years with Chip Ganassi Racing.
“It’s a statement on how good we are on street courses,” Kirkwood said. “It’s incredible to see we’re able to do it at another one. It’s not just me out there driving one of these cars; all the hard work that goes into these street courses is why we have the performance we have.”
An exceptionally decisive overtake into Turn 14 on Lap 55 of the 70 was required for Kirkwood to take the lead, having cut a deficit which once stood at around eight seconds.
He knew Palou, with a higher-downforce setup, excelled in the twistier section from Turn 4 through to Turn 9. But more trimmed, Kirkwood was able to gain ground on the 0.9-mile straight heading into Turn 10 and again on the run to Turns 12 and 14. And with 15 laps remaining, he was finally close enough to pounce into the final corner.
Opportunistic and flawlessly clinical.
“[Passing] Palou is a very rare thing to say in a race,” Kirkwood admitted. “It was kind of all or nothing. Just had to do a bit of a late lunge and surprise him a little bit because if he started defending there was probably no chance of us getting by him.
“Palou is a smart person, smart driver. And if he knew that I got that close to him on that lap and then I waited for the next lap to attack him, he would have defended. We were in a dire straits situation: ‘This is probably the only place I can pass him. This is the only time I can surprise him.’ There was some urgency but, at the same time, we were a lot quicker.
“He’s very trustworthy to race against. If you do late lunges, you can trust he’s not going to drive you into the wall, like maybe some other drivers will. I always love racing against him because we’re both very aware of our surroundings and race very, very cleanly together.”
It was unquestionably a gutsy move from Kirkwood, late on the brakes and diving from deep. But unexpected as it was, it was not an overtake Palou was anything but impressed by.
“He passed me incredibly. It was a very awesome overtake. I defended in Turn 10. Then out of Turn 12, I went on the OT, on the hybrid as well. He was very close. I didn’t know if I had to defend or not. He just lunged. It was a clean pass.”
In the laps that followed, Kirkwood built a lead of over five seconds to Palou similar in manner to that which the Spaniard often inflicts upon the competition himself. But with only three laps remaining, sudden jeopardy. Christian Rasmussen stopped and a caution brandished. The hard-earned advantage eliminated.
“When you see a five-and-a-half-second lead that you stretched - and worked very hard to stretch - go down to zero just for one lap, it can get very frustrating inside the car,” he acknowledged, with time for one green-flag lap at the end of the stoppage. “I was disappointed to see it but I knew we were still fast enough to protect from there.”
Again, Kirkwood stayed serene. And there was nigh on immediately another yellow to end the race as soon as he had navigated the restart anyway. With it, victory was confirmed to elevate him atop the IndyCar standings for the first time in his career.
An early championship lead is an apt reward for an extremely consistent start to the season, commencing with fourth in St. Petersburg before finishing runner-up at Phoenix Raceway - both races he felt he also had a legitimate shot at winning. Now after Arlington success, his margin to Palou in second stands at 26 points.
But while there is doubtless belief that he can contend - the authority and ruthlessness of his Arlington drive verifying as much - he is not entertaining title talk with 15 races remaining.
“I would hope so,” he responded when asked if he is Palou’s biggest threat. “[But] we’re three races in [so] I don’t want to focus too much on the championship. I want to focus on the next race in front of us, maximising our performance.
“Of course, we’re good at street courses. We’ve figured out short ovals now. We’re going to a road course next; that’s where we need to thrive. There’s a lot of work to do. We want to be the biggest threat. Every driver does. We’re currently the biggest threat to him and the entire rest of the field. But we need to continue that because we’ve got a lot of races to go.”
While Kirkwood’s best results have continued to come on street courses - five of his six IndyCar wins and six of his eight podiums - and he is yet to pick up a road course podium, there is a continued sense that he is growing in completeness. Last year’s maiden oval win and, in Kirkwood’s eyes an even better display, the recent Phoenix podium validate this.
But errant execution in qualifying remains an obstacle, as much as he has shown an ability to battle through the field with rampant recovery charges. He has gained a total of 26 positions in the first three rounds: impressive but a sign of a job made unnecessarily tough.
“We’ve had the best car,” he analysed. “Quite honestly, I need to sit down and figure out what I need to do differently for qualifying. It’s held us back at St. Pete. Maybe not at Phoenix. Might have held us back [at Arlington] a little bit and made it very hard for us to win the race. It would have been a bit easier if we were up front earlier in the race.”
Still, Kirkwood is delivering when it matters on race day and has an increasingly reliable package beneath him. Andretti’s street course car remains imperious, resulting in a 1-3-4 finish in Arlington, which alongside an encouraging showing at Phoenix has prompted new teammate Will Power to make some lofty claims.
“I think this will be the team to beat this year, actually,” he theorised. “I was saying three years it would take us to get everything… but I’m going to say this year.”
For Kirkwood, there is a chance now to make this team his own, in many ways, as it continues to evolve for the better. As much as it has been made clear there is no leader, he is surely the long-term figurehead of Andretti given the off-season exit of Colton Herta.
As coy as he remains about his prospects, all signs point towards the fact he is now truly building title-fighting well-roundedness. And both his driving skill and impressive temperament has already caught the eye of two-time champion Power - someone who knows well the characteristics of a title-material teammate.
Should he avoid the same fall-off as after winning three of the first eight races last season, if anyone could take the fight to Palou in an attempt to deny his championship four-peat, Kirkwood may just be emerging as that primary protagonist.
“He’s the real deal, man,” Power claimed. “From go-karting all the way up, he’s won every single championship. This guy is very good. Very good. Incredible. He doesn’t do it just through natural ability - he works hard. He’s a very good teammate.
“This guy’s a lot for me to learn off of. Very impressive. I think he’ll be tough to beat this year in the championship. I really do. He definitely is the full package.”
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