Kirkwood says ‘I love where we’re at’ as IndyCar stretch run heats up

Kyle Kirkwood is authoring a quietly impressive season with his No. 27 Andretti Global Honda crew. The Floridian sits second in the IndyCar championship standings with seven races to go and needs 56 points to catch Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou as the series heads to Nashville Superspeedway for this weekend’s Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix.

Under IndyCar’s point system, the most a driver can earn in any race is 54 points, which means Palou will leave Nashville with the lead, but there’s a cause for optimism by Kirkwood and those in his immediate wake like Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard (-65 points), Team Penske’s David Malukas (-66), and Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward (-94).

At the same stage one year ago, Palou was on a runaway title train that wouldn’t be stopped as his closest adversary was O’Ward, a full 105 points behind in second, while Kirkwood was an impossible 139 points down to the Ganassi driver. With the year-to-year deficit cut from 139 to 56, Andretti’s top performer sees an opportunity to reel in Palou, which has been a rarity since the Spaniard won the first of his four IndyCar titles in 2021.

But there’s also plenty of heat for Kirkwood to endure from the other championship contenders who are drafting close behind his No. 27 Honda.

“It's gonna be hard keeping the other guys at bay,” Kirkwood told RACER. “It can flip-flop here if you aren’t careful, but at least it's a much closer title fight than we've seen in the past few years.”

The 27-year-old has been a model of front-running consistency so far in 2026. He was winning races at a more frequent pace last season – three victories from the first eight events – but the highs were often blighted by adversity with blown tires and engines and other misfortunes that tempered his championship potential.

Kirkwood’s only won once this year – at the inaugural Arlington street race – and yet, it hasn’t been a limiting factor as he’s finished inside the top five at seven of the 11 events. His effort earlier in the month at Mid-Ohio was a perfect example of the new gear Kirkwood has found; starting 10th, he was one of few drivers to charge forward on a caution-free day.

Most of his rivals gained or lost a couple of positions and largely finished close to where they began the race while Kirkwood and the No. 27 crew managed to pass seven cars – the hardest ones to pass, as well – to take third and stand on another podium. Last year, he started seventh and finished eighth.

He’ll need more wins to contend with Palou, but the other part of the championship puzzle – minimizing the bad days and earning a healthy dose of points everywhere else – is something Kirkwood and the Andretti crew are working to their benefit.

Mid-Ohio exemplified Kirkwood's steady 2026, surging to third while other title contenders struggled. Michael Levitt/Lumen via Getty Images

“I think we've got really good chances here because we've been really good whenever we show up to a new street course,” he said. “So you put both Markham and Washington, D.C. on our books as two races right there that we could have a really good shot at winning. And then we've been good at Nashville; [Andretti’s] Colton [Herta] won it two years ago, so we know we’re capable of something good this weekend. I think the one big question for us is Portland.”

Will Power, Herta’s replacement in the No. 26 Andretti Honda, has three wins at the Portland road course which follows Nashville, including back-to-back victories in 2024 and '25.

“It was our worst track last year, but have some of the things that we've done to improve ourselves on road courses since then propelled us?” Kirkwood noted hopefully. “Maybe we won't be that bad. We currently have Will Power, and he’s been exceptional around that place, so hopefully our development takes us in a good path there. We had a really good test at Milwaukee, so that's two doubleheader races right there we’re looking forward to. We were definitely fast on race pace there. I don't think we had the ultimate qualifying pace, but our race pace was incredible there. I like the mix of races that are coming up for us.”

After a brief pause, the series gets back to business on Saturday at the 1.33-mile Nashville oval where Kirkwood placed fourth in 2024 and sixth in 2025. Having scored his first oval win last year at WorldWide Technology Raceway, he’s eager to claim another and use it to put some distance between himself and the oval specialists in his rearview mirror.

“We've got good shots just about everywhere left to go,” he said. “But I also think McLaren last year, they came back in the second part of the year and had a really strong finish to the year with Pato [O'Ward]. So both Pato and Lundgaard are definitely not out of the hunt either. Malukas has been incredibly consistent, and as soon as he gets his first win, he'll probably string together a few of them.

“So I love where we’re at with our 27 team and it's really anyone's championship at the moment. I know Palou’s ahead and he's got a 56-point gap, but he's been not extremely hot as of recently, right? He's gotten unlucky. Wasn't incredibly fast in Mid-Ohio, which was surprising for everybody. There's a lot of things that still can happen. This weekend, we can win. McLaren can win; Pato was leading last year when the tire blew. Ganassi can win. Penske can win. Any of the top teams can win this race, which should be exciting for the fans.”