Kirkwood relishing chase of title leader Palou

Kyle Kirkwood’s passion for baiting hooks, casting lines, and reeling in big fish is bleeding over into his day job.

The avid fisherman, who doubles as one of the best drivers in the IndyCar Series, has been on a hot streak of late, adding to his April win at Long Beach by taking back-to-back victories at Detroit and World Wide Technology Raceway. It’s a streak that will need to continue – if not a win, then something in the top three – this weekend at Road America as the Floridian tries to pull off a remarkable feat.

Kirkwood was facing a 150-point deficit to championship leader Alex Palou from Chip Ganassi Racing just a few weeks ago after the Indianapolis 500 where he finished sixth on the road but was sent to the bottom of the results when his car – and that of teammate Marcus Ericsson in second place – was found to have illegally modified parts. In a span of two races, he’s slashed that imposing 150-point lead in half, leaving WWTR with 75 points to erase. He’s got Palou on his line and nine races left to land his first IndyCar championship.

“We've had two good races and Palou had two races that weren't,” Kirkwood told RACER. “But last weekend was one that we needed to capitalize on, because that's not been a track that Ganassi has been extremely strong on. They usually always do something with [Scott] Dixon like a fuel save or like Dixon or where he gets a lucky yellow and cycles to the front.

“They always do those sorts of things to get themselves back in position, but if it's a straightforward race, that's a track that we did need to capitalize on them on, and we did. And I wouldn't necessarily say that we're focused on the championship at the moment, because 75 points is still a long way to go. Maybe when we get closer to the end of season, but we're not even halfway through the season.

“I think after this weekend – or maybe after Mid-Ohio, once we get into the big stretch of races – that's where it starts to become more relevant of where we stack up. Maybe there will come a point where the focus will more on beating Palou, but I'd say right now, we're focused on winning races, and we want to cover everybody and try to win those races, because that's ultimately what's gotten us to the point where we can slash points off of them. We know that we're closing the gap.”

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Kirkwood’s Andretti Global team closed the 2024 championship as the second-best team in the series behind Ganassi as teammate Colton Herta surged to a runner-up finish behind Palou. The momentum has carried over to 2025 as Ganassi’s taken five wins and Kirkwood’s claimed the other three for Andretti, and the added strength comes as a result of team leader Dan Towriss making organizational changes and greater investments into the IndyCar program.

“When Dan puts his mind to something, he gets it done,” Kirkwood said. “When he's taking the reins of this team, he's going to make sure that he succeeds, and he's going to do everything in his power to make sure that the people around him succeed. You see it in many aspects of his life, right? Whether it's in his business, whether it's with the F1 program, whether it's with Andretti Global as a whole, or any of the TWG sports teams. They succeed, and he has a mindset to do it.

“He comes in, even balancing everything that he does, and gives his 100-percent effort. He's been great for us. He's very team-building. He comes and sits with each team, individually, talking to them, sees what our strong points are, what our weaknesses are, and continues to work on it with us. The unity in the team is pretty incredible. Everybody’s working so well together right now; it’s the most cohesive I’ve seen since I’ve been here.”

With the increased commitment from Towriss, Kirkwood has seen his colleagues thrive and take Andretti Global to another level.

Short ovals are one place Kirkwood likes his chances to keep making up ground, but he feels the upcoming road courses also could be in his wheelhouse. James Black/IMS Photo

“There's two major factors, those being development – just getting our cars better – but then also execution wise,” he said. “We feel like we've done better. I can't tell you a race this year where we've been on the wrong strategy. Bryan Herta has been guiding us along, but there’s also providing a good car for qualifying and then nailing it for the race as well, and doing all the right things, having great pit stops. All those small things, all the simple stuff, just catapults you to a new level.

“And if you look at Colton’s championship run at the end of last year, he clawed back on Palou pretty massively as the season progressed. It was huge, given that he had a lot of bad races and he was still able to claw back at the end of the year. I think that we've just taken that pace into this season, and we've done a good job of minimizing risk, having fast cars and just executing on the days that we need to, which has put ourselves in a good position.

“I'd still say that we were lacking some at some of the road courses that we've gone to, which were Thermal, Barber and the Indy GP, but those have been notoriously not great tracks for us. I would say we tend to be a little bit better at places like Road America, Mid-Ohio, Laguna, that are in the bulk of the remaining races of the season. So I can see us maybe even getting a little bit better for some of those races that we need to be better at.”

Coming off his first career oval win in IndyCar, Kirkwood sees the three remaining oval events as where the greatest inroads on Palou can be made.

“I think short ovals are where we really need to capitalize, other than the road courses that are coming up,” he said. “That's something that's not been amazing for Palou in recent years. And if we can capitalize on Iowa, Milwaukee, Nashville, that will really be the true teller if we can put a championship run together.”