IndyCar

Andretti’s rising star Kirkwood gets second IndyCar win

by Jack Benyon
9 min read

Kyle Kirkwood took his second IndyCar victory of the year for Andretti Autosport, denying Scott McLaughlin in a tamer race than the Nashville street track’s usual ‘crashville’ reputation.

Kirkwood qualified eighth but has been his team’s talisman on street courses all year having won from pole in Long Beach in April.

McLaughlin dominated early on, while a caution with 13 laps in for David Malukas’s rear wing collapsing after he started in the top six threatened to mix up the order, as some early stoppers could stay out and gain track position.

An explosion of different strategies followed but most drivers stayed out to create a two-stop race.

McLaughlin led through the first two stints, but a brilliant pitstop, possibly a short-fuel and a strong run on the difficult soft tyres allowed Kirkwood to jump the Penske driver with a one-lap undercut.

Kirkwood protected a lead between two to three seconds from McLaughlin across the final stint until a caution came out for ace Meyer Shank Racing’s rookie stand-in Linus Lundqvist crashing at Turn 11 and then a pile-up involving Felix Rosenqvist, Agustin Canapino and Benjamin Pedersen at the subsequent restart prompted a red flag.

Kirkwood initially pulled out a 2.5s gap just one lap after the restart, but as he came to get the white flag, McLaughlin was on his tail.

The Penske driver couldn’t get close enough to make a move, meaning he finished a very close second in Nashville for a second straight year after a narrow defeat to Scott Dixon in 2022.

Kirkwood remains the only Andretti driver to win an IndyCar race this season. This one was almost all done with rapid pitstops combined with the best strategy.

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Behind McLaughlin, Alex Palou held on for third to extend his championship lead after two instalments of Josef Newgarden eating into it with his double win at Iowa Speedway.

Palou led the drivers pitting under the Malukas caution, but that meant an early final stop. With 11 laps to go, he was told to push as hard as he could because he couldn’t make it, and a stop would have likely dropped him out of the top 20.

But one lap later the Lundqvist caution came out, giving Palou a reprieve where he could make the end on fuel and almost passed McLaughlin during his late efforts.

Newgarden must have been furious to see the caution as he was sat in fourth and set to benefit from a late Palou tumble. Instead, his fourth place does nothing but increase his Palou deficit to 84 points with only four races and 216 points on offer.

Behind Newgarden, Dixon rounded out the top five to keep third in the championship, ahead of Romain Grosjean who ends a barren IndyCar run with sixth.

Kirkwood and Grosjean’s team-mate Colton Herta qualified third but was dumped down the field when he was squeezed wide by Kirkwood and Will Power at Turn 11 and then Dixon at Turn 1 on the restart from the Malukas caution, forcing Herta to take the run-off at the Turn 1 exit. There was light contact on both occasions and Herta pitted soon afterwards, putting him off strategy which sent him to the back of the field. He parked with a mechanical problem late on.

Marcus Ericsson took seventh, ahead of Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Christian Lundgaard – who won the last street race in Toronto – and Penske’s Power completing the top 10.

Lundqvist was one of the stories of the race before crashing out, though in the end Ganassi’s Marcus Armstrong was the top rookie in 13th.

Lundqvist pitted at the same time as Palou early on – at that point with a laptime thousandths off McLaughlin who led that stint in clean air – and had no problem sticking with the runaway championship leader.

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That was despite his air duct on his car that blows air in the cockpit coming off after 10 laps of what was one of the hottest and most humid races of the year.

Stopping three laps before Palou, it was clear Lundqvist could not make the end of the race and stopped again with 28 laps to go presumably to give him time to try to make up positions on track rather than run close to the end and potentially run out of fuel.

He set the fastest lap of the race in doing so but his tiny error on the marbles in Turn 11 ended a brilliant drive where he went toe-to-toe with the championship leader who ended up third. He had qualified impressively in 11th.

Race Results

Pos Name Team Car Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Kyle Kirkwood Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 80 34 1h58m02.303s 1m17.197s 3 53
2 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 80 25 +0.763s 1m17.432s 3 42
3 Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 80 12 +1.722s 1m16.801s 3 36
4 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 80 0 +3.141s 1m17.569s 3 32
5 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 80 0 +4.165s 1m17.574s 3 30
6 Romain Grosjean Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 80 4 +5.952s 1m17.275s 3 29
7 Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 80 4 +6.415s 1m17.14s 4 27
8 Patricio O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 80 0 +6.696s 1m17.526s 3 24
9 Christian Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 80 0 +8.017s 1m17.52s 4 22
10 Will Power Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 80 1 +9.045s 1m17.606s 3 21
11 Hélio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 80 0 +9.872s 1m17.445s 4 19
12 Callum Ilott Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 80 0 +10.686s 1m17.529s 4 18
13 Marcus Armstrong Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 80 0 +11.405s 1m17.046s 4 17
14 Rinus VeeKay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 80 0 +11.817s 1m17.219s 6 16
15 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 80 0 +14.227s 1m17.301s 4 15
16 Ryan Hunter-Reay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 80 0 +14.687s 1m17.884s 5 14
17 Sting Ray Robb Dale Coyne Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 80 0 +15.116s 1m17.058s 5 13
18 Santino Ferrucci AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 80 0 +16.525s 1m17.429s 5 12
19 Alexander Rossi Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 78 0 +2 laps 1m17.438s 5 11
Agustín Canapino Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 77 0 DNF 1m17.326s 6 10
Colton Herta Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 76 0 DNF 1m17.47s 4 9
Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 73 0 DNF 1m16.831s 4 8
Benjamin Pedersen AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 73 0 DNF 1m17.862s 5 7
Jack Harvey Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 71 0 DNF 1m17.479s 3 6
Linus Lundqvist Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 69 0 DNF 1m16.712s 3 5
Devlin DeFrancesco Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 65 0 DNF 1m17.83s 3 5
David Malukas Dale Coyne Racing/HMD Motorsports Dallara DW12-Honda 11 0 DNF 1m18.239s 1 5
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