Kirkwood ‘street merchant’ no more after first IndyCar oval win

Credit: Chris Jones

“Some people like to say I’m a street course merchant.”

Those were the words of Kyle Kirkwood ahead of the Grand Prix of Long Beach in April. At that point, the Andretti Global man had two IndyCar victories - both coming on street tracks - in Long Beach and Nashville in 2023.

Kirkwood’s best result of 2024, his only other career podium, also came on a street course as he finished second in Toronto. The ‘street course merchant’ notion was only fuelled by victories in Long Beach and Detroit that followed early this year.

There are harsh connotations to the ‘merchant’ suggestions; maybe ‘specialist’ would be more apt. Because the label is absolutely to the credit of Kirkwood and Andretti - arguably the best current team-and-driver combination on street courses in IndyCar.

But the undertone that he is not as capable elsewhere is something Kirkwood has been keen to disprove.

His first oval pole position in the season finale at Nashville Superspeedway last year laid down a marker. But Kirkwood was still waiting for a breakthrough oval - or for that matter road course - race win.

A completely different discipline, winning on an oval is often seen as a marker of completeness as an IndyCar driver given it is such a staple of the series. That is what Kirkwood wanted the most.

And that anticipation is now over. Pressure alleviated.

On Sunday, Kirkwood outshone his competition on the 1.25-mile World Wide Technology oval - better known as Gateway - for his third victory of the season. For the first time in his IndyCar career, it is back-to-back wins for the Floridian after his win in Detroit a fortnight ago.

But while he has eclipsed his previous season-best win tally after only eight races, it is the fact that he can finally start to shake the ‘street course merchant’ tag that may mean most.

Kirkwood was not afraid to outline the significance of a first IndyCar oval success.

Credit: Matt Fraver

“It’s kind of funny,” Kirkwood said. “You get on this streak where it’s like: ‘Ah, he’s doing so well, he’s winning races, street courses.’ But then you get your fourth [street course win] and people are like: ‘Another street course for Kirkwood. It’s not as big of a deal now! When is he going to win something else?’ It takes away from the street courses.

“So this was huge for me. This was by far bigger than last weekend because of that. Detroit was one of the most satisfactory wins that I’ve ever had because I actually had to pass some people. But [Gateway] just puts a stamp down a little bit more.”

It was not as though Kirkwood had been poor on ovals. In his three Indianapolis 500 attempts with Andretti, he has confidently run inside the top 10 and looked capable of winning. He progressed from 23rd to sixth in last month’s 500 before he and runner-up teammate Marcus Ericsson lost their results for an illegality on their cars.

He had four top-10 results in nine shorter oval races in his first two years with Andretti - three coming in six races last year. Finishing fourth at Nashville to round out last season marked a first top-five oval result and was a marker of his trajectory on ovals.

Gateway had not been his strongest track though, with a best finish of 15th in 2023 after finishing 22nd last year. 

“I never felt that bad here,” Kirkwood admitted. “Last year, we were running good, I thought we had a car to win; it’s just we got caught up in a little mess. I was too timid on the restarts and starts and kept getting passed. 

“This year, my engineer was like: ‘Hey, don’t be a blank on restarts and starts.’ That actually played in our favour here so I had to be pretty aggressive and take more risks than I would have liked to. But it worked out.”

Credit: Karl Zemlin

Kirkwood’s third win of the season adds to a bizarre campaign of only two winners in the opening eight races. But in many ways, it has been a coming-of-age year for one of the Road to Indy’s greatest products - a champion at every level.

No doubt, that pedigree as a junior led to high expectations. And it took a year for Kirkwood to find his feet at AJ Foyt Racing as a rookie before he hit the ground running at Andretti as a sophomore.

Even then, his first season with Andretti in 2023 had the peaks of two wins but they were his only top-five finishes and inconsistency was rife. The 2024 season then lacked the peaks of 2023 - with only the one podium - but massively improved consistency saw Kirkwood jump from 11th to seventh in the standings.

It has been a chart of clear, methodical and mature progress across Kirkwood’s two years with Andretti. And in 2025, he has meshed the peaks of 2023 with the consistency that is so critical in IndyCar. 

It has been a constant journey of learning and evolution across three-plus years in the series.

“Doing the simple things right,” Kirkwood detailed of where he has learned to improve. “Knowing when to attack, when not to, understanding that dynamic. And I’m beginning to understand the strategy a lot more. 

“It’s mostly from driving and learning from the guys that have been around a lot. As I’ve been with Andretti, I’ve been much closer to the pointy end of the field in a lot of races and have lost to a lot of those guys that have an amazing pedigree.

“And those losses are big. You learn a lot on how they win and how they do it. Those are key takeaways that I try and take away from it and apply to races like this. It tends to be working.”

Credit: James Black

Andretti’s chief operating officer Rob Edwards had high praise for Kirkwood’s dedication and work ethic - always one of the first to arrive at the track and get down to work. Edwards is a self-proclaimed early riser but found Kirkwood pulling into the car park alongside him early on race morning.

Now in his fourth year overall in IndyCar, there is a sense that Kirkwood’s junior successes are being validated.

“What we’re seeing now is what we saw when he drove in Indy NXT for us,” Edwards said. “First couple of years in IndyCar, he was finding his feet. But what we’ve seen this year is what those of us that worked with him in Indy NXT always expected would happen in IndyCar.”

Edwards also hinted at the value of camaraderie between the team’s three drivers in Kirkwood’s progress. And at least in 2025, Kirkwood has elevated himself to the top of the Andretti pecking order. 

Sitting third after his Gateway win, he is 90 points ahead of Colton Herta in ninth in the standings and 146 points ahead of Ericsson in 19th. 

“One of the things we talked about over the last couple of years is the chemistry we have across all three drivers,” Edwards admitted. “I think that has benefitted Kyle greatly. 

“All three drivers, they park their egos at the door and they take input and advice and whatever things we can learn off each other. The difference with Kyle both last year and this year is the strength of the group around him.”

Kirkwood is still 75 points adrift of dominant championship leader and winner of five races this year, three-time series champion Álex Palou. But with Palou finishing eighth at Gateway, Kirkwood has made inroads on the two-time defending champion’s advantage.

Coming out of the Indy 500, Kirkwood was 150 points behind Palou. He gained 48 points after David Malukas hit Palou out of the race in Detroit to reduce the deficit to 102 points, with a further 27 points gained at Gateway. In two rounds, that is a 75-point swing. 

Credit: James Black

After Detroit, Kirkwood suggested the championship felt a long shot. And maybe it still seems distant. But if Kirkwood can keep up his form and Palou does suffer some adversity, it is not out of the realm of possibility that the fight can become competitive.

“It does [feel more reasonable],” Kirkwood said. “It’s double digits again - triple digits are never a good sign in a championship. Moving closer. 

“[Palou] is good at a lot of races that we’re coming up to so those are the ones that are going to really count. [Gateway] has been a track that we haven’t been amazing at so it’s great to claw back some points here. 

“I can tell you that we’re going to do everything in our effort to claw back at him. It’s still a long way away - 75 points is deep. That’s almost two races. He could still take a little break if he wanted to…”

With every strong result Kirkwood achieves, the net loss of 24 points courtesy of being moved to the rear of the Indy 500 field after failing post-race technical inspection likely stings even more. 

If those points stood, Kirkwood would be within a maximum points weekend of Palou. But as it stands, even if by only two points, he still sits third behind Pato O’Ward too.

No doubt though, Andretti have responded exceptionally after the post-500 adversity.

“We’re just proving that no matter what’s happened in the past that we do produce race-winning cars and we are at the pointy end, especially on ovals,” Kirkwood said. “It was an exclamation point at Detroit but maybe this one is even a bigger one.”

The remaining nine rounds of the season still see trips to some of Palou’s very best tracks. He has won at every one of IndyCar’s current road courses, including the next two tracks that the series visits, Road America and Mid-Ohio.

Credit: Chris Jones

The logical next goal for Kirkwood is a breakthrough win on a road course. He feels strong at Road America but results at Mid-Ohio in IndyCar have tended to evade him. Andretti have shown improvements on some of their weaker tracks in 2025, albeit Kirkwood has finished no better than eighth in the three road course races so far this year.

“Everybody knows we’re going to go to Road America next week and [Palou] is going to put on a show there,” Kirkwood conceded. “We’ll have to do everything in our power to keep him from looking shiny once again on road courses.”

Regardless of Palou’s current advantage, Kirkwood feels ready to fight for a championship if the opportunity arises. It is pivotal for drivers to be versatile to succeed at the top given the diversity of tracks that IndyCar visits and Kirkwood has proven he possesses that quality.

“[It is now] like: ‘Hey, this kid might actually be able to contend for a championship and do things,’” Kirkwood said. “Everybody knows you’ve got to be diverse in this series. Whether it’s a short oval, long oval, street course, road course, whatever it might be, you’ve got to win at all of them. [A first oval win is] a step in the right direction for sure.”

His display at Gateway was evidence that Kirkwood can compete whatever the track. He worked extremely hard to take victory on Sunday, starting 10th but quickly racing his way into the top five, where he remained in and around for the entire race.

He was not completely content with his car to start with but things improved continually as the race progressed. And on a weekend where it looked as though Honda’s eight-race winning run would be slashed as Chevy locked out the top five in qualifying, Kirkwood stole the race to make it eight-from-eight in 2025 and nine wins in succession for Honda.

Credit: James Black

“Everything worked to plan accordingly,” Kirkwood explained. “We didn’t start with an amazing race car; we finished with one. That was just due to the work that the crew did and due to the work that Honda did. I think as the conditions cooled, we picked up some power. And as the conditions cooled, for our car we got a little better. 

“But we also tuned on it too. We were making changes at almost every single stop to get ourselves into a good window and that played a huge factor. We kept our heads down and stayed calm, cool and collected, took opportunities where they came and fortunately came away with that win.”

Andretti’s execution in pit lane was critical to elevate Kirkwood to the net lead after the final round of stops. But there was potential jeopardy as Felix Rosenqvist and Callum Ilott attempted to execute mammoth fuel saves up ahead in the closing laps. 

Kirkwood made major inroads but ultimately did not have to make a pass on track as the ambitious fuel-saving pair were forced to bail. Second-place driver O’Ward was charging in the closing laps, with his teammate Nolan Siegel off the lead lap and holding Kirkwood up, but Kirkwood’s earlier navigation of lapped traffic was decisive in pulling off the victory.

“It was not an easy race by any means,” Kirkwood said. “Felt like a fun race for me. Felt very racey. Felt like a lot of passes happening, a lot of strategy, lap traffic causing some headaches for some guys. 

“Nobody would have guessed that the pace was going to be that high. I was doing like qualifying pace on full fuel. That is so, so fast for one of these cars and I loved every second of it. Man, it made it fun. It made it physical. It made it mentally straining because you just feel like you’re on a quali lap for 260 laps.”

Credit: Chris Jones

By the drop of the chequered flag, Kirkwood had only led the final five laps and a total of eight laps throughout his race-winning drive. But under the night sky of St. Louis on the prime time Sunday stage, it was another masterful display. 

And Kirkwood relished every moment of a hard-fought maiden oval-winning drive in a spectacular race under the lights.

“Every oval race should be at night, apart from the 500,” he insisted. “The racing is so much better. Everything gets so much faster. The ambient temperature is down. The track surface temperature is down. When things get hot with these cars, they don’t race as well. 

“That’s why you see races like this. Things get fast and next thing you know people are flat-out passing each other and it makes for a very exciting show. Obviously it’s a luxury that we all can’t have, but I think when we come back here, it should always be a night race.”

Off the back of this Gateway thriller, is the fight for the title back on in 2025? Only time will tell. But a new star of IndyCar is rising to the fore in real time.