Kyle Kirkwood Crashes Alex Palou's Party With Dominant Drive to Win Grand Prix of Long Beach
- Jeffrey Hrunka
- Apr 13
- 3 min read
Jeffrey Hrunka - Staff Writer
A new title challenger has arrived.
Kyle Kirkwood held off Alex Palou's charge for three straight wins, dominating the Acura Long Beach Grand Prix from pole for his third career win.
"When you have flawless weekends like this, you tend to win,” Kirkwood said. "This is a big step in the right direction. I know, coming into this event, this was our time to turn things around, and fortunately, we were able to get it done.”
Tire degradation split the race into two designated strategies: stretch the alternate tire’s degradation or abandon the tire early.
Kirkwood, Colton Herta, and Palou led the field on the latter, changing onto the primary tire within the first eight laps. This proved the winning strategy, as Kirkwood was out front for 46 laps, which marked his second victory on the Streets of Long Beach.
Herta was not able to replicate his qualifying pace, finishing seventh.
"Races like today are races that I was more used to when,” Kirkwood said. "When I was in the lower series, where you're not finding people front and back, you kind of just dictate the pace of the race, and you kind of understand the strategy, and you just have to think about it, and you're in control.”
Christian Lundgaard and Scott Dixon started on the primary tire. They were two of the six drivers who elected to save the alternate tires for their subsequent stint. Sting Ray Robb and rookie Robert Shwartzman took this strategy further, keeping the alternate tire for their final stint.
Lundgaard (third), Dixon (eighth) and Robb (ninth) all finished inside the top ten, while Swartzman was mired in traffic for a career-best 18th-place finish.
"I told the team this morning, even before warm-up, ‘let's try to go aggressive, and let's see what we can do. We have the most tires of everybody,’” Lundgaard said. "We went off strategy compared to what we expected most of the field to do…I think that showed that we had the pace to today.”
While this race saw six different leaders and 163 on-track passes, the most at the track since 2012, strategy played a crucial role in these statistics. On-track overtakes were challenging without a tire difference.
"At the end of the day, it's a street course, and when you have a fast car starting up front and not many cars out of position. It's tough to overtake,” Palou said. "It's always going to be tough.”
Santino Ferruccii and Kyffin Simpson had career performances. Ferrucci was the race's biggest mover, finishing 11th, after starting the race at the back of the field. Leading three laps, Simpson has a career-best tenth-place finish.
Kirkwood jumped to second in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES standings, 34 points behind defending champion Palou. Lundgaard (-54), Felix Rosenqvist (-56) and Dixon (-62) round out the top five, each inside a two-race gap of the lead.
"We're producing fast race cars. We're getting better at the places that we weren't so great at. Our pit stops are exponentially better,” Kirkwood said. "I'd say the trajectory that we're on is maybe sharper than anybody else's right now in the series.”
NTT INDYCAR SERIES Results
Kyle Kirkwood #27 -(LEADER)
Alex Palou #10 -2.689s
Christian Lundgaard #7 -18.778s
Felix Rosenqvist #60 -19.820s
Will Power #12 -23.364s
Scott McLaughlin #3 -25.711s
Colton Herta #26 -26.580s
Scott Dixon #9 -27.098s
Sting Ray Robb #77 -27.691s
Kyffin Simpson #8 -28.103s
Santino Ferrucci #14 -31.337s
Marcus Ericsson #28 -32.134s
Pato O’Ward #5 -39.390s
Marcus Armstrong #66 -41.683s
Alexander Rossi #20 -42.742s
Louis Foster (R) -44.273s
David Malukas #4 -47.032s
Robert Swartzman #83 (R) -49.668s
Rinus Veekay #18 -57.671s
Nolan Siegel #6 -58.288s
Callum Ilott #90 -1 lap down
Graham Rahal #15 -1 lap down
Christian Rasmussen #21 -1 lap down
Delvin DeFrancesco #30 -1 lap down
Conor Daly #76 -2 laps down
Jacob Abel #51 (R) -2 laps down
Josef Newgarden #2 - 2 laps down
NTT INDYCAR SERIES action continues on FOX at Barber Motorsports Park for the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix in Birmingham on Sunday, May 4.
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