Are we seeing the emergence of a new force in IndyCar?
Last weekend at Long Beach, Kyle Kirkwood pegged back Alex Palou - who'd won the first two races of the season - by winning the 50th anniversary of the Long Beach Grand Prix, and cut Palou's championship lead to 34 points.
Is it a sign that Kirkwood is ready to challenge?
Palou and Kirkwood are only a year and a half apart in age but have had very different journeys to this point. Kirkwood was a winning machine on his way up the ladder in the US, while few could have predicted how good Palou would be from his early years.
Kirkwood was a later starter and got his break at AJ Foyt before joining an Andretti team not ready to fight for a title like Palou landing at Ganassi did.
In his first year at Andretti, Kirkwood won two races and looked like he could be a real challenge to Colton Herta. In 2024 he was more consistent, something he's always been working on since coming to IndyCar, but couldn't add the race wins that propelled Herta forwards to fight Palou.
Is this the point Kirkwood steps up more permanently?
In this year's St Petersburg opener, Kirkwood sat behind Palou for most of the race until Palou jumped forward in the last round of pitstops and Kirkwood had to settle for fifth. That really hurt as up to that point Kirkwood had matched Palou.
A strong race at Thermal - which meant more than it probably looked to the outside because Andretti feels it's been a terrible track for it so far in IndyCar - came undone when another near-certain top five became eighth after extreme tyre degradation in the last few laps.
Prior to his Long Beach win, Kirkwood discussed Palou's lead and trying to beat him, which he'd then go on and deliver on.
"We've got to do the same thing that they're doing: we've got to win races," Kirkwood had said.
"We can't let them get a big headstart. That is one thing that Palou has done in the past couple years, gets a huge head start, then everybody claws back at him at the end of the season. He's kind of on cruise control at that point.
"We need to not let him get out front and hold him back a little bit. That comes with not letting him win at all these tracks, especially the ones that we're strong at.
"This is a very crucial weekend for us to turn things around in the championship hunt. Even though it's still early in the season, a lot of people don't look at points. They're like, 'Well, it's only two races in of the 17-race season'.
“If the guy is 60 points ahead of you, you've got of pay attention to that.
"There is a long way to go. You're also falling behind very early, which is not something you want to do."
At Long Beach, Kirkwood controlled the race from pole, much more akin to what he was doing in his junior days, and cut Palou's points lead.
Of course, he's won here before and Andretti has had a brilliant car at this track for years, so maybe it's not the best place to ask if there's been a breakthrough at the team.
The Thermal race is probably a better marker, though, because there the team overcame a real struggle to deliver an excellent car. It needs to do that elsewhere too, because it should be winning at Long Beach when it has an advantage.
A cautionary tale
There's a couple of things to point out before getting overly excited or declaring Kirkwood is the de facto thorn in Palou's side just yet.
You only have to look at another part of the garage to see that things are not yet perfect. Herta was Palou's main threat last year, but his start to the season has been littered with issues you can't have up against Palou and Ganassi.
In St Petersburg, Herta had led on what was the winning strategy until a stuck right-rear wheel in a stop and a recurring fuel issue which caused more issues. At Long Beach, he started second but finished seventh after losing places in the first stop and reckoned a damper could have broken such was the ill-handling nature of his car at one stage.
It should be said that Kirkwood's team has looked closer to the flawless vision you expect from the top teams in race execution, and that's what's relevant to Kirkwood.
To me, it does feel like Andretti have taken a step forward but Herta's start is evidence it is not totally there yet.
And sorry to be a harsh judge, but just look at the first two races of the year. Only perfection is going to have a chance at beating Palou and Ganassi.
A 'first' win
This is Andretti's first win since Michael Andretti stepped back from his day-to-day role in charge of the team ahead of the 2025 season.
The team's parent company, TWG, has a CEO named Dan Towriss who has quickly become a big name in motorsport through his funding of teams like Andretti, Spire in NASCAR and his Gainbridge company has also made big inroads into Formula 1 backing, too, among other racing projects.
Andretti was competing across four championships in America this weekend, in IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula E and IMSA, and IndyCar delivered the best result.
"We seem better than we have been in the past couple years," said Kirkwood. "That's due to his leadership [Towriss] and the investment that's going into the team.
"We're producing fast race cars. We're getting better at the places we weren't so great at. Our pitstops are exponentially better. There's a ton of investment going into it. It's big for them to see investments paying off. That's all people want to see."
Towriss added: "We're very excited about the season.
"Obviously Alex Palou is having one hell of a season, he's going to be tough to catch, but we think we can do it and we're going to make it tough for him."
Towriss (above, right) certainly has appeared to be 'the face' of Andretti's senior leadership so far, but we'd be remiss not to mention new Andretti Global president Jill Gregory, who has impressed members of the team The Race has polled.
The ex-NASCAR vice president, who has been key in the day-to-day running of the team, has a crucial role in helping decide what Andretti's culture is as a team moving forward post-Michael, and will have a big part to play with the team's current and future sponsors.
While the public narrative of the team seemed to be what Michael leaving would mean and how that would impact it, behind the scenes Towriss and his team have been investing heavily in personnel and infrastructure to help raise the team up a level.
It won't be long before it's in a new factory, and that sustained level of development now may even already be paying off as Kirkwood has made a leap to be Palou's biggest challenger on paper right now.
He has the talent to sustain that, but everything from driver and team has to be perfect to beat Palou. And Kirkwood and Andretti know it.
