Kirkwood on Andretti Indy fightback: ‘We’ve got to be perfect the whole race’

Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood believes that winning the Indy 500 from 25th will require perfection from himself, his strategist Bryan Herta and his pit crew – but he’s confident they can get it done.

Kirkwood, who currently lies second in the IndyCar championship, will start from 25th after all three Andretti Global cars struggled to find pace in qualifying trim. But he insisted that past experience has shown he can be up near the front come the end of the race.

“It's not a new position for us, to be honest, starting deep in the field here,” he said. “You've watched myself, Colton [Herta], Marcus [Ericsson] even, where we’re running like dead last last year, and we're still back at the front of the field at some point near the end of the race. So we know we can still get there. It's just not as easy from that position.

“You've got to be perfect the whole race. You can't have any hiccups. You can't go back a few positions because you need to constantly move your way forward unless you get very lucky with some strategy. But yes, I do feel confident that we can still win this race from the position that we're in. It's just not going to be a walk in the park.”

Kirkwood has, however, vowed to temper his progress through the field.

“Obviously the faster you can get them, the better, but we're also not going to put ourselves in a position where we have to get there right away. Usually Bryan does a pretty good job of finding the cadence… Last year he kind of laid it out all on the line – 'OK we need to be in this position by this stint and this stint and this stint.' This year will be somewhat the same as last year because I think we qualified in a similar position.

“So we're not going to force our way to the front right away. I think we're just going to make sure that we do everything right, we don't make mistakes, we pass cars when we can, we open up the strategy for ourselves, and next thing you know that ties up into us being near the front and hopefully being in that top three. You really want to be in the top three in that final stint. I think that's really the spot you want to be, because fourth on back it's kind of hard to pass from there.

"Then the two front guys usually just cycle back and forth, and at some point you'll get an opportunity from third. So you just hope you're in that position when that chance comes… When you punch that big of a hole in the air, everyone just starts towing at the same rate, and they can only follow from the same distance. It becomes almost like a DRS train. That starts from car three on back.”

Although Kirkwood declared his love for the 500 – “I love everything about it. I love the lows. I love the highs. I love every piece of this race” – he said he didn’t totally agree with Tony Kanaan’s theory that “the track picks the winner.”

“There is some truth to that, but at the same time, I believe in making your own luck too,” said Kirkwood. “Like the last couple years, when Josef [Newgarden] just drove his way through the pack up to the front and won the race. Marcus has done great things in the past few years here. You've seen Pato [O'Ward] kind of right there at the front. He's very deserving. I mean, guys make their own luck in some way, shape, or form.

“You've got to do all the things right. Then I think it chooses you.”