Kirkwood "going to throw caution to the wind" in bid for Indy 500 victory
- Dan Jones
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
For any IndyCar driver, there are two career boxes to tick. An IndyCar Championship and an Indianapolis 500 victory. It comes with the age-old question of which one a driver would rather win. One of the most famous individual races in motorsport or an 18-race season held on multiple different track types which rewards consistency rather than the one peak?
Few have accomplished both. In the 33 that will make up the 110th Running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, only Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, Álex Palou, Will Power and Ryan Hunter-Reay have won both an IndyCar Championship and an Indianapolis 500.
For the majority of the drivers, they have neither to their name. It is a matter of time for some though, and many believe Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood may be one that fits into that category.
Kirkwood lies 27 points behind the Palou for the championship lead after six rounds have been completed of the 18-race schedule for 2026. It is the best championship position Kirkwood has been in heading into the 'Month of May' and he remains the closest challenger to prevent Palou from winning a fifth series title.
That considered, would Kirkwood think about his championship position in pursuit of Indianapolis 500 victory?
"That's a good question. That's a tough one," said Kirkwood after the first day of practice.
"I think in the case scenario that you have a shot to win this race, the last thing I'm going to be looking at is what points I have at the end of this race, right? I think most drivers will say winning this race is quite a bit bigger than winning the championship. In many ways, yeah, I'm going to throw caution to the wind if it comes down to being able to win.
"Of course, if I'm running between that kind of 10th to fifth range like I've been doing the past few years, then yeah, you're looking at points more so because you don't really have a shot in that final stint if you're in that range unless something crazy happens.
"But if I'm at the front, yeah, points aren't going to be my focus."
Kirkwood will embark on his fifth Indianapolis 500 and will aim to continue his strong performances in recent seasons. Kirkwood finished sixth on-track last year before being penalised post-race after finishing seventh in 2024. A shot at victory fell through Kirkwood's grasp in 2023 after a late-race collision with Felix Rosenqvist.
This year's campaign to claim the illusive Indianapolis 500 victory started on Tuesday for Kirkwood on the opening day of official practice.
"It was good," Kirkwood said of the opening day. "We got through the test items that we wanted to get through, just like I'm sure everybody did out there. You never really know what people are doing, in the first couple of days of running around here. Once we get to Thursday, we kind of know everybody is doing some quality stuff before we have Fast Friday, but today went well.
"I think relative pace and speed compared to last year is up for us, which is a positive. Also, did a little bit of race running. I was happy for the time that I had."
Kirkwood topped an Andretti Global 1-2-4 in the no-tow times with a 222.062, 1.2 mph ahead of the next fastest non-Andretti car. The temperature conditions are expected to be close to the conditions that drivers will qualify in on Saturday giving drivers an opportunity to run some qualifying simulations, even if early in the week.
It means no-tow times may hold slightly more significance then they may on other days later this week.
"We put a little bit of emphasis on how we want the car to feel, but not necessarily looking at the speed relative to other people, because we don't really know what other people are doing out there.
We don't know if they did any semi-Q Sims or anything. We're not really paying attention, if I'm being honest. We're just getting through the items that we've done.
"Like, we were just going off of everything that we've learned in the offseason trying to verify things and then move on from there. Then we'll start to actually hone in on what's good for us and then look at time, speed charts, and understand where we're at."
