Tag: Kyle Kirkwood

Kirkwood’s Long Beach triumph adds to ‘huge’ weekend for Wickens

Kyle Kirkwood had many reasons to smile on Sunday after winning the 50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Among the highlights for the Floridian was earning his first with Robert Wickens – his driving advisor and performance analyst – on the timing …

Kyle Kirkwood had many reasons to smile on Sunday after winning the 50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Among the highlights for the Floridian was earning his first with Robert Wickens – his driving advisor and performance analyst – on the timing stand.

Prior to Sunday’s victory with the No. 27 Andretti Global Honda, Wickens made his long-awaited return to top level motorsport on Saturday when he made his first start in IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship driving the No. 36 DXDT Corvette Z06 GT3.

It was an unforgettable weekend for Kirkwood, who took pole, led the most laps, and dominated on his way to victory, and for Wickens, who was fast in his hand-control Corvette and ran well in the 100-minute race with teammate Tommy Milner.

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Running inside the top five, contact during Milner’s closing stint ended their strong run, but overall, it was a big weekend of achievement for the Canadian. And on Sunday, Wickens wheeled himself to victory lane and joined in Andretti’s IndyCar celebrations, which Kirkwood cherished.

“It was a huge, huge weekend for him in general,” Kirkwood told RACER. “So great to see him back in a car, top-tier motorsports in IMSA, something that is absolutely taken off in recent years. It was really cool to see that, and to cap it off for him, to get out of the car doing his own race, then come back to help us and roll out of here with a win… He’s a big part of our team, and things are looking up for Robert Wickens.”

Kirkwood says Wickens’ keen eye as a former IndyCar driver and lifelong racer has been invaluable this season.

“He picks out the things that we might not see,” the 26-year-old said. “You know, the typical thing for a driver is, you get out, you look at some video, and some data to compare to your teammates, right? And that’s about all the time you get. You’re stuck in media, you’re with sponsors, you’re doing a bunch of other things, and you’re just running around, right? So you don’t get a whole lot of time to do other things.

“Robert’s there to as a driver to dig into some things, and knows exactly what to look for, and pull a few things that we might not see outside of what we’re already looking at, and give us some input. He’s been a big help when it comes to that. He sits down for hours and looks at video, data from other cars as well, back through the broadcast, and comes up with some pretty cool, neat stuff and new ideas too, just based on what comes to mind.

“And it’s good having a guy like him, because engineers do a good job picking out things, but not not every time. Does it correlate with what exactly the driver sees? So it’s good having Robert on board.”

When he isn’t winning for Andretti, Kirkwood is a regular presence in IMSA at the longer races with the Vasser Sullivan Lexus team which goes head-to-head with Wickens’ DXDT squad. Wickens is starting off with the five shorter races in 2025, but he could be supporting Kirkwood on the IndyCar timing stand one weekend and battling for IMSA glory in the same GT class the next if he’s able to add some of the enduros into his 2026 schedule.

“It’s really, really cool to see, and hopefully gets more opportunities,” Kirkwood said. “You know, we want to watch him winning races…maybe not against us at Lexus, but if it’s not us, we want to see him win a lot more races.”

Kirkwood vaults to another Long Beach victory

The 50th running of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach saw polesitter Kyle Kirkwood lead the field of 27 drivers and 11 teams with ease to score his third career IndyCar Series victory and second at the home track for Honda Racing Corporation U.S. …

The 50th running of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach saw polesitter Kyle Kirkwood lead the field of 27 drivers and 11 teams with ease to score his third career IndyCar Series victory and second at the home track for Honda Racing Corporation U.S.

Andretti Global’s driver put in an epic lap to take pole and was flawless throughout the race as he sustained constant pressure from championship leader Alex Palou. Kirkwood wheeled the No. 27 Honda home to a 2.686s triumph over Palou in the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda and was well clear of Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard and Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist, who sealed up three of the top four for Honda and HRC.

“It’s really good,” Kirkwood said. “To win here at the 50th, with Acura as the sponsor, with Honda… It was a flawless weekend. When you have a flawless weekend, you tend to win. It might have made it a little bit boring.”

Palou got close on a few occasions but never appeared to have the outright pace to challenge Kirkwood.

“I’m super happy to be here,” said Palou whose season has opened with finishes of first, first, and second. “I think it’s been a great weekend. We really didn’t have that ultimate speed that the No. 27 car had. Kyle, they did an awesome job throughout the weekend, qualifying and the race. He was managing. Every time I was having like a small chance, he just had a little bit more pace. So yeah, shame that we couldn’t really make it more interesting for the fans, but I’m super happy to be here.”

The overcast-turned-blue-skies and relatively cool event set in 68-degree weather was absolutely packed with fans throughout the 1.9-mile, 11-turn road course situated in Southern California.

Biggest mover among the lead group was Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard who went against the strategy grain by starting on primary Firestone tires—one of only six drivers to do so—and was rewarded by vaulting from 12th to third. Team Penske’s Will Power was fifth, with teammate Scott McLaughlin in sixth, the same spot he started, to give Chevrolet some of the spoils at Long Beach. In seventh, Kirkwood’s front-row teammate Colton Herta persevered at his home race, but wasn’t delighted to go rearwards by five positions.

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“I would have liked to be able to fight with Alex and Kyle at some point,” Lundgaard said. “We started a little far too back. Obviously we were on a completely different strategy than both of them were on. We made the most of our strategy and ended on the podium from 12.”

The greatest forward motion was delivered by AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci who went from last to 11th. Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel, who awoke with suspected food poisoning, received fluids prior to the race and fought while ill to take the finish in 20th.

Among the other highlights, Sting Ray Robb—running on the same strategy as Lundgaard—led 12 laps and impressed on the way to match a career-best ninth-place finish for Juncos Hollinger Racing.

It was the second consecutive race to go caution-free.

Key moment

Other than seeing the lead change hands between Kirkwood, who started on alternates and shed them quickly at the first stop, and Lundgaard who started on primaries and went long on the first stop, it wasn’t the most action-filled race among the leaders. If a key moment stands out, it was qualifying on Saturday where Kirkwood set the stage to lead 46 of the 90 laps with relative ease.

Race notes:

Kyle Kirkwood streaked away to lead the field into Turn 1 as Scott McLaughlin and Felix Rosenqvist demoted Alex Palou from third to fifth. Alexander Rossi leapt from eighth to sixth.

Lap 3 and Josef Newgarden is in to get off the alternates. Twenty-one out of the 27 drivers started on alternates.

Lap 6 and Herta and McLaughlin and Palou pit take primaries. Kirkwood has 3.7s over Rosenqvist. McLaughlin gets past Herta on their out lap.

Lap 8 and Kirkwood and Rossi pit.

Lap 10 and Lundgaard holds the lead by having stayed out. Kirkwood, in eighth, is the leader of those who’ve pitted and has Palou right behind him.

Lap 21 and nothing has changed up front.

Lap 25 and Lundgaard has 2.5s over Dixon. The gap to Kirkwood in seventh is 31.0s. Palou is 1.1s behind Kirkwood.

Lap 28 and Lundgaard pits at the end of the lap. He leaves on alternates.

Lap 29 and Dixon pits from second to do the same. He returns right behind Lundgaard and right in front of McLaughlin.

Lap 31 and Kirkwood’s in the lead with 1.2s over Palou and 4.2s over Rosenqvist.

Lap 32 and Lundgaard (fourth) and Dixon (fifth) on alternates are up many positions (eight and nine, respectively) and could use a caution to keep them.

Lap 34 and Rosenqvist and McLaughlin pit. Palou’s rear tires are either hot or degrading, or possibly both. He’s in at the end of the lap for more primaries. Slightly extended stop—maybe a second or two—with the left-front tire needing a second attempt to affix the wheel nut.

Lap 35 and Kirkwood’s in from the lead. Herta follows him.

Lap 38 and Dixon pits to get off the alternates. Slow right-rear tire change. Nine laps on new alternates.

Lap 39 and Lundgaard has 33.0s over fifth-place Kirkwood, which is impressive.

Lap 40 and Lundgaard’s in to replace the alternates with primaries.

Lap 42 and Robb and Shwartzman are first and second; Kirkwood in third set his fastest lap of the race.

Lap 53 and Robb pits for alternates, leaving Shwartzman in the lead with the same need to pit.

Lap 54 and Shwartzman pits.

Lap 54 and Kirkwood is back to the lead and has 1.5s over Palou and 3.6s on Rosenqvist.

Lap 60 and Palou’s taken the lead down to 1.3s. Rosenqvist is up to 3.9s.

Lap 62 and Newgarden is in. Appears to have a seatbelt problem.

Lap 63 and Newgarden is back in for more work on his belts.

Lap 64 and Rosenqvist pits from third.

Lap 65 and Palou and Herta pit.

Lap 65 and Kirkwood pits at the end of the lap. His final corners were filled with slower cars. Will Palou get by?

He does not. Excellent out lap by Kirkwood.

Lap 80 and Kirkwood’s 3.4s up on Palou. He’s got this under control.

Lap 90 and Kirkwood seals the victory.

Respectful aggression culture at Andretti is a recipe for success

Respectful aggression is the mindset Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach polesitter Kyle Kirkwood and front-row teammate Colton Herta say they will adopt in the 90-lap race. The Andretti Global lockout at a track where passing is often a challenge could …

Respectful aggression is the mindset Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach polesitter Kyle Kirkwood and front-row teammate Colton Herta say they will adopt in the 90-lap race.

The Andretti Global lockout at a track where passing is often a challenge could be the key to reaching victory lane, and after Herta and Kirkwood fought over the win last year at Toronto where Herta led home a 1-2 finish, the same spirited effort is expected on Sunday. But without incident.

Herta had gone without a win for multiple seasons at that point, and with the roles reversed, Kirkwood is chasing his first triumph since 2023.

“I think it’s just going to be not the same as Toronto because we were in a position there where we needed to win a race, right? It had been a while,” Kirkwood said. “I think here, of course, you don’t take unnecessary risks, but you also race your teammates. That’s part of it.”

Herta appreciates the trust placed by Andretti Global in its drivers; the third member of the trio, Marcus Ericsson, starts fifth.

“I’m glad that Andretti lets us race, and I think me and Kyle have always been extremely fair with each other in how we go about racing each other,” he said. “I think Toronto was an example. Thermal last weekend, we raced the basically the whole race nose-to-tail.

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“We understand that if there’s an opportunity to pass, we’re going to pass each other, but without kind of unnecessary risks. I think Andretti does a good job, like they did in Toronto, where they set ourselves up where we can be in the position to win a race. Then I think we’re really good at trying to manage that kind of relationship aspect of it.”

Herta also praised the shifting culture within the team, which was regarded as among the most dysfunctional within the paddock not so long ago.

“Yeah, it’s really good,” he said. “It hasn’t always been this way at Andretti, so there’s really no selfishness or no egos in the building. That usually comes from drivers. Luckily, we don’t have that amongst ourselves. [Teammates are] easy to work with. They provide really good feedback, and most importantly, what you want in a teammate, selfishly, is you want them to be extremely fast because you want to be able to look at what they’re doing and make yourself better. I think I’ve got two of those with me.”

Kirkwood agrees.

“We got three guys that can get things done,” he said. “Proven track record; multiple wins under our belts. We have different views on things, but at the same time we kind of all reconvene in a way. So it’s kind of nice having different outlooks, different driving styles, but at the same time we’re all really quick, and we can all trust each other that we can reference each other, which is not always the case. Sometimes you have really fast drivers, but you can’t reference them. That’s not the case with us. We have a good camaraderie amongst us, driving style and friendship.”

Kirkwood marches to Nashville pole as Palou ends up mired deep

The grid is set for the NTT IndyCar Series’ season finale and Kyle Kirkwood is on pole for the 206-lap Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway. The driver of the No. 27 Andretti Global Honda (201.520mph) will have Team Penske’s …

The grid is set for the NTT IndyCar Series’ season finale and Kyle Kirkwood is on pole for the 206-lap Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway. The driver of the No. 27 Andretti Global Honda (201.520mph) will have Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden sitting alongside him on the front row in the No. 2 Chevy (201.352mph).

It’s the American’s second career IndyCar pole; his first at Long Beach in 2023 was followed by the Floridian’s first victory.

“To actually get a pole on an oval is big for me and my confidence,” Kirkwood told RACER. “Good start to this weekend, and I think my racing on ovals has been a lot better. I’ve been finding myself up front quite a bit, but I’m still not fully there, still not doing things that some of the veteran guys are doing. So I’m still figuring that out.”

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Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist was a strong third in the No. 60 Honda (200.676mph) and he’s got Penske’s Will Power, a distant second in the championship, in fourth with the No. 12 Chevy (200.628mph). AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci was fifth with the No. 14 Chevy (200.497mph), and MSR’s David Malukas completed the top six in the No. 66 Honda (200.479mph).

“It wasn’t the smoothest run,” Rosenqvist said. “But fun laps and a fun track.”

The biggest news in qualifying, other than Arrow McLaren being forced to skip the session with Nolan Siegel as crash repairs were ongoing, was the plight of championship leader Alex Palou who put in a fast 201mph lap on the first of his two tours but fell off badly on the second and ended with an average that left him 15th in the No. 10 Honda (199.532mph).

With a pre-race engine change triggering a nine-spot unapproved engine penalty, the championship leader will start buried deep in the 27-car field once all of the grid penalties are applied.

UP NEXT: Final Practice, 6 p.m. ET (weather permitting as rain is forecast)

RESULTS

Big crash at close of second Iowa race after Robb clips Rossi

While Will Power was driving under the checkered flag after 250 laps of NTT IndyCar Series racing on Sunday at Iowa Speedway, behind him in Turn 2, all hell was breaking loose as four trailing drivers racing to the finish line crashed and two took …

While Will Power was driving under the checkered flag after 250 laps of NTT IndyCar Series racing on Sunday at Iowa Speedway, behind him in Turn 2, all hell was breaking loose as four trailing drivers racing to the finish line crashed and two took flight.

The incident started with A.J. Foyt Racing’s Sting Ray Robb, who came upon an off-the-pace Alexander Rossi from Arrow McLaren exiting Turn 2, and attempted to steer left in avoidance, but didn’t clear him, rode over Rossi’s left-rear tire, and was fired skyward and tipped into a series of barrel rolls as he crashed down — upside down — and slid to a stop in Turn 3.

Behind him, the crashing Rossi was followed by the crashing Kyle Kirkwood from Andretti Global and Ed Carpenter from his own team, who rode over Rossi and landed atop Kirkwood’s aeroscreen.

Rossi, Kirkwood and Carpenter were seen and released by IndyCar Medical. The series announced Robb was, “Awake, alert, and in good condition,” and would be transported to a local hospital for further evaluation.

“He’s pretty much like a parachute when you’re sitting perpendicular to the road,” Kirkwood said of Robb’s car. “When I lifted out of the throttle in the corner, I suddenly spun myself.”

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For Carpenter — who was taken out in Saturday’s racer when Sunday’s winner Will Power hit and spun Pietro Fittipaldi, who in turn hit Carpenter — it was a double dose of misfortune that felt highly unnecessary.

“I’m fine. Just angry,” he said. “I knew Alex was off pace up ahead. My spotter told me a few laps before. It looks like Sting Ray misjudged the closing rate somehow, even though it was clear Alex was slow. And then I spun trying to get down. Just a shame. Two days in a row. Two accidents that I was just a victim of. I just hate it for the team. Brutal.”

Firestone GP of Monterey, Saturday Day 2 – Qualifying recap with Kirkwood and Malukas

Qualifying is over for the eighth round of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season and Alex Palou has put his Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda on pole position. We spoke to his nearest challenger, Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood, who earned his best qualifying …

Qualifying is over for the eighth round of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season and Alex Palou has put his Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda on pole position. We spoke to his nearest challenger, Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood, who earned his best qualifying position of the year, and also caught up with David Malukas, who has returned to the series and impressed the Meyer Shank Racing team with 12th on the grid, despite still recovering from his preseason wrist injury.

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Chevrolet Detroit GP Saturday recap with Thompson and Kirkwood

Saturday recap from the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix with Vasser Sullivan Lexus driver Parker Thompson and Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood from the streets of downtown Detroit.

Saturday recap from the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix with Vasser Sullivan Lexus driver Parker Thompson and Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood from the streets of downtown Detroit.

Saturday morning dust-ups involve Herta, Ferrucci and Kirkwood

A Saturday morning pillow fight broke out on pit lane at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. The combatants in this mostly verbal exchange were A.J. Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci (pictured above) and the Andretti Global pairing of Kyle Kirkwood and …

A Saturday morning pillow fight broke out on pit lane at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. The combatants in this mostly verbal exchange were A.J. Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci (pictured above) and the Andretti Global pairing of Kyle Kirkwood and Colton Herta.

The matter at hand were the attempts by the trio to find clear space on the tight 1.6-mile street course to perform unencumbered laps to get reads on their cars before going into qualifying.

The opening salvo was produced by Kirkwood and Ferrucci as they approached a left-hand corner. With Kirkwood veering towards the right to setup for the turn, Ferrucci shot down the inside to pass Kirkwood and tried to get over to the right as much as possible to properly apex the corner, but Kirkwood started turning left and their cars made very light contact. The exchange incensed Kirkwood.

“Santino needs to be kicked out of the series,” he said across the radio to his No. 27 Honda team.

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Ferrucci and Herta also found each other during the same late-session window and the Foyt driver went to great lengths to prevent Herta from getting by in the No. 26 Honda to do a single-lap run in front of his No. 14 Chevy.

After the session, Kirkwood went to confront Ferrucci on pit lane and was grabbed and pushed backward by the Foyt driver before an IndyCar official separated them and moved Ferrucci rearward to the pit wall.

“You turned into me, you f***ing piece of s**t,” Ferrucci was heard saying on the broadcast. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Other than the grabbing of Kirkwood’s firesuit, the confrontation didn’t escalate into anything that could be confused with a serious physical altercation. To that end, Kirkwood laughed as he walked back to his pit box and the verbal pillow fight continued in separate interviews with the three participants.

“We’re in practice. I’m on a lap that’s gonna put us P3, right?” Ferrucci said. “I know everybody’s fighting traffic. I’m coming down the hill and who just turns into somebody and slides the car into you? I mean, it’s such a dickish move, man. I grew up karting with [Kirkwood], known him a long time. I’ve always been better with him than race craft, so I’ve never seen him do something like that. But you saw him turn into (Team Penske’s Josef) Newgarden yesterday. It’s a shame. It’s it’s tight track. We’re way quicker than this and it would have been nice to at least get one lap in.”

Told by NBC that Kirkwood placed the blame on him, the diminutive driver from Connecticut refused to back down and fired a homophobic shot at Herta for good measure.

“Well, if you go back and watch and you see him step on it and turn left, I don’t know what more evidence you need from that, man,” he said. “He’s got the onboard camera, not us. And then his little boyfriend teammate over there did the same thing. Leave it to them, man. We’re out here doing our own thing. You know it’s Detroit. I’m having a blast. Our crew’s all fired up. We know we’ve got a hot rod.”

NBC paid its next visit to Kirkwood, informing him of Ferrucci’s take on the situation.

“He said I did that?” Kirkwood said of being positioned as the guilty party in the contact. “Of course he’s gonna say that. Everyone stops here, right? Everyone has to wait, get your gap, get a clean lap in. It’s practice, relax. And that’s not what he did. He decided to do it to me; then he did it to Colton, nearly they collided. I don’t know what he’s doing.

“His lap was already ruined. He just ruined his next lap, too. It’s just dumb. It’s dangerous. He drove right into me, purposely tried to drive me into the wall. And then I went up and tried to talk to him about it. And then he grabs me, is like shaking me, like, ‘What are you getting mad at me for?’ It’s insane. But we’ve seen it before with him.”

Kirkwood shared what he was hoping to say to Ferrucci before the confab was interrupted.

“I was just going to tell him that’s completely unnecessary, like everyone needs to get their gaps, like everyone needs to get a lap in so you can try and tune on your car,” he said. “But if you’re crashing into people on purpose, then you’re not gonna be able to tune on your car, so it was just to see where his head was not because he clearly wasn’t on a fast lap anyways. It just makes no sense to me at all.”

The Floridian, who was the second-fastest driver in the session, had a snarky parting shot for the 20th-placed Ferrucci after being asked if he feared being raced more aggressively by Foyt’s pilot on Sunday.

“I think based on that, he’ll be a little bit behind us, so I’m not too worried,” Kirkwood said.

Herta swung the final pillow and brought Team Penske, which provides Foyt with technical support, into the chat.

“I don’t even know what I did,” he said. “I don’t know…that guy’s a head case. But I’m happy with our program. I’m not really sure what I did to make him mad. He passed me before the alternate line. Like, we’re all waiting for our gaps and he passed me, and so I passed him back and ruined his lap.

“He’s driving a Penske car to P20 again for the fifth consecutive weekend, so I’m happy with what we’re doing here. (Our) car is fast and we don’t have time for him and his shenanigans at the back.”

Herta leads feisty second Detroit practice

A frenetic 45-minute morning practice session for the NTT IndyCar Series on the streets of Detroit went as expected with locked brakes and cars stalled in or spinning their way out of the runoffs as they put in final preparations for this …

A frenetic 45-minute morning practice session for the NTT IndyCar Series on the streets of Detroit went as expected with locked brakes and cars stalled in or spinning their way out of the runoffs as they put in final preparations for this afternoon’s qualifying session for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. When it was over, Andretti Global’s Colton Herta was fastest, posting a 1m01.573s lap in the No. 26 Honda to lead teammate Kyle Kirkwood in the No. 27 Honda (1m01.738s) and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou in the No. 10 Honda (1m01.898s).

The top three were followed by two welcome surprises as Arrow McLaren’s Theo Pourchaire fired the No. 6 Chevy into fourth (1m01.943s) and Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Agustin Canapino went fifth fastest in the No. 78 Chevy (1m002.103s). Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin completed the top six with the No. 3 Chevy (1m02.112s).

Finding an opportunity to produce a single clean lap was a serious challenge for the 27 drivers.

“Thankfully I got one and it ended up being perfect and the tires were in the right temperature window,” Herta said. “You have to take the practice results with a grain of salt because there are guys that are really fast and just get screwed and don’t get laps. But luckily we were one of the lucky ones — I got to have a lap.”

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Christian Lundgaard set the first competitive lap of the session and before long, Canapino spent a brief moment at the top of the field. Kirkwood joined the party and then it was his teammate Herta who shot to first and stayed there and gave the team a 1-2. Palou was represented in third as the clock wound down to the last 10 minutes and soon he was joined by Pourchaire in fourth and Canapino in fifth.

The session cleared 44 of the 45 minutes without a need for a red flag, but Pourchaire stuffed the front of his car hard into the Turn 9 barrier and broke the front wing from his car. The session was duly flagged.

Marcus Ericsson’s struggles after his Friday crash persisted as his No. 28 Andretti Global Honda refused to depart pit lane. The car died altogether at the start of the session and while it eventually fired, it stalled while trying to leave. It took the better part of 15 minutes for the issue to be resolved and he was able to rise to 13th in the session.

A light clash between Kirkwood and Santino Ferrucci as they sought to create gaps for themselves to execute a clear lap resulted in contact as Kirkwood turned slightly towards the left as Ferrucci went by on the inside and was turning right to set himself up for the left-hand turn. Both cars were unaffected by the minor touch, but tempers flared.

“Santino needs to be kicked out of the series,” Kirkwood said to his team over the radio.

The Andretti driver went to confront the A.J. Foyt Racing pilot on pit lane after the checkered flag, and was met by a fiery Ferrucci who wasn’t having Kirkwood’s protestations.

“You turned into me, you f***ing piece of s**t,” Ferrucci was heard saying on the broadcast. “Don’t ever do that again.”

UP NEXT: Qualifying, 12:15pm ET, streaming on Peacock.

RESULTS

Harder Firestones making Long Beach an epic slideshow

If you love the sight of IndyCar drivers fighting oversteer, Friday and Saturday at the Acura Long Beach Grand Prix have been a gift as most of the field has dealt with sideways moments at multiple points on each lap. The snaps of opposite lock have …

If you love the sight of IndyCar drivers fighting oversteer, Friday and Saturday at the Acura Long Beach Grand Prix have been a gift as most of the field has dealt with sideways moments at multiple points on each lap.

The snaps of opposite lock have persisted after the street circuit’s surface improved overnight as rubber was ground into the corners, so what’s causing the constant sawing at the steering wheels?

“It’s not really the track grip, right?” Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood told RACER. “We’re doing the same lap times as what we did last year, if not quicker in qualifying. I think it has to do with the tire. It’s just a stiffer tire in general. They’ve made it more durable and that just causes you to have bigger snaps and it’s less forgiving, in a sense. That’s what it’s mostly due to.”

 

Polesitter Felix Rosenqvist also points to the harder Firestone tires—ones designed with higher durability — as the cause of the fun.

With Firestone having made harder tires to cope with the extra weight that was meant to be carried with IndyCar’s new-for-2024 hybrid energy recovery systems that have been delayed until summer, drivers are hustling cars around Long Beach with lighter cars that lack a tire that’s matched to their mass.

“I think also the tires are pretty hard right now for the weight of the car we have because we’re in a bit of a window here where we’re waiting for the hybrid,” Rosenqvist said. “When the tires are cold, it’s a bit icy and it’s easy to lose the rear. I feel like they get there eventually. My steering wheel was upside down out of Turn 5. I guess that’s good for you guys to watch.”