Tag: Kyle Kirkwood

Kirkwood says Nashville win ‘redemption’ from Detroit, Toronto

Kyle Kirkwood said winning today’s third Music City Grand Prix at Nashville helps make up for Andretti Autosport Honda giving him good cars for other street races and being unable to capitalize. Kirkwood started eighth for today’s race, tracked …

Kyle Kirkwood said winning today’s third Music City Grand Prix at Nashville helps make up for Andretti Autosport Honda giving him good cars for other street races and being unable to capitalize.

Kirkwood started eighth for today’s race, tracked teammate Romain Grosjean in the first stint, and beat him on the overcut, and then enjoyed a superior strategy to get him to the front. Once in the lead, even dominant pole winner Scott McLaughlin could do nothing about the Andretti driver whose first win came back in April at Long Beach.

“It was phenomenal afternoon — we absolutely nailed everything, it felt like,” said the only driver to have won USF2000, Indy Pro 2000 and Indy Lights on his way to IndyCar. “We had a great strategy. Car was extremely fast. Through the entire race, I feel like we were probably one of the fastest cars.

“Andretti Autosport, AutoNation Honda keep giving me a great car that’s good on street courses. This should be more than two wins, to be honest, on street courses, given the cars they’ve given me.

“I’m thrilled with this one here today. This is kind of redemption from last year. A dumb incident. Redemption from Toronto. Redemption from Detroit.”

He continued: “A lot of things happen in the pit strategy. The first pit stop, a lot of things happened there. I passed a few cars. Wasn’t a bunch. I passed Colton [Herta], [David] Malukas and I think Will [Power] technically for position. We kind of overcut Romain and got McLaughlin, and Palou pitted. I think that’s kind of what cycled us up there.

“It wasn’t like I drove through the field from eighth place. It was more like we played our strategy, played our cards right, did everything right when we had clean air. It cycled us up to the point.”

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Kirkwood admitted that when he and Grosjean were running primary tires in the opening stint, he had no intention of passing him. It was switching to the alternate Firestone green sidewalled tires and nailing his out-lap that vaulted him ahead of the ex-Formula 1 driver.

“In the first stint, I told the team to tell Romain I’m not going to pressure him, we’re going to kind of cut through some people. It worked out in my favor that I saved some more fuel and I was able to overcut him and put in a really good lap on that pit. It worked out super well for us.”

Kirkwood said he’s uncertain why street courses have allowed him to shine — “I wish I knew exactly what it was so I could pin it down for the other places I go to, as well” — but then came up with an explanation.

“I think a lot of it has to do just with comfort around walls, adaptability. I feel like there’s some drivers that just have outright raw pace. I feel like I’m one of the drivers that can adapt to things really quickly. I might not have the super pace that some of these guys pull out of a hat randomly sometimes, but I adapt to tracks really well.

“That’s a reason why last year I come to new tracks and I’m already pretty quick. I think it just has to do with that — the track is always evolving, I feel like I’m already up to speed.”

Kirkwood also deflected criticism of Andretti Autosport for its up-and-down results in 2023.

“Honestly, the team has done a great job,” he insisted. “Every weekend we’ve gone into, I think we’ve done everything pretty much exactly how it should be played.

“I think we just had a lot of incidents this year, whether it’s my fault and I’ve done something dumb, or we got into something that was like a dumb incident that we can’t control. There’s been a lot of both, to be honest!

“Just executing. Today was just such a smooth race. Strategy played in our favor. I was hitting my marks the entire time and everything worked out well for us.”

Street savant Kirkwood secures second IndyCar win in Nashville

Kyle Kirkwood drove a masterful race and Bryan Herta delivered a perfect strategy to beat Nashville pole-winner Scott McLaughlin and points leader Alex Palou to the checkered flag after a late-race restart. The young Floridian, who scored his first …

Kyle Kirkwood drove a masterful race and Bryan Herta delivered a perfect strategy to beat Nashville pole-winner Scott McLaughlin and points leader Alex Palou to the checkered flag after a late-race restart.

The young Floridian, who scored his first win at Long Beach this year, spent 34 laps in the lead of the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, and was able to keep McLaughlin at bay following the red flag in a largely crash-free event. Palou, on an alternate strategy to those around him, was saved by a yellow, meaning he didn’t have to make a third pitstop and cede his third place to his closest championship pursuer, Josef Newgarden, who came home fourth, just ahead of 2022 Nashville winner Scott Dixon.

Team Penske Chevrolet’s Will Power had a panicked pre-race moment as he discovered he was missing his earbuds on the grid so was late getting away from pitlane. He was allowed to resume his seventh place on the grid, second of the drivers – behind Romain Grosjean – to start the race on Firestone’s primaries.

As in the Indy NXT race in the morning, the original start was waved off as the 27-car field was packed up, but next time by, Penske’s Scott McLaughlin made a good start to stave off Pato O’Ward, while Colton Herta understeering at the first turn forced Alex Palou to back off a little, allowing David Malukas into fourth for Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Honda.

On lap 3, Kirkwood passed Power for seventh, while Newgarden – like Power and Kirkwood, running on primaries – couldn’t prevent Lundgaard passing him for ninth at Turn 8.

By lap 6 of 80, McLaughlin held a 1.8s lead over O’Ward who had pulled 2s on Herta, who was 1s ahead of the Malukas-Palou-Grosjean-Kirkwood battle, which saw Palou slip ahead of the Coyne driver on lap 7.

Alexander Rossi pitted from 11th on lap 10, switching from alternates to primaries, the same lap on which Grosjean passed Malukas for fifth, signaling the primaries coming into their sweet spot. Lundgaard and Felix Rosenqvist (Arrow McLaren) stopped next time by, while Malukas lost a further spot to Kirkwood before pitting.

McLaughlin had a 2.7s lead over O’Ward who had pulled 5s on Herta before the first caution flew. Malukas’ rear wing collapsed and gearbox seized shortly after leaving the pits.

When the pits opened, Palou came in to swap his alternates for primaries, but his principal rivals did not. When the field went back to green on lap 15, McLaughlin retained his advantage over O’Ward who had nudged him under yellow, but Herta suffered, losing out to teammates Grosjean and Kirkwood, and also Power, before being ushered down an escape road by Dixon. Herta then pitted.

The highest runner who had already stopped was Rinus VeeKay, up to sixth place for Ed Carpenter Racing, splitting Power from Newgarden.

What was most alarming for the opposition was that leader McLaughlin had pulled 4s on O’Ward in just five laps since the restart, the No. 3 Penske proving exceptionally kind on its alternate tires. O’Ward, by contrast, was working hard to hold off Grosjean and Kirkwood, and he lost out to both of them on lap 22 after a huge lock-up as he came off the bridge. After Power and VeeKay got him, O’Ward got the hint and made his first stop.

McLaughlin’s lead was ebbing away when he stopped on lap 25 as Grosjean and Kirkwood were charging on their primary tires. Grosjean and Kirkwood ran 1s apart, 5s clear of Power, VeeKay (stopped already), Newgarden, Dixon and Marcus Ericsson.

On lap 28, Grosjean and Power pitted from first and third, and then it was time for Kirkwood, Newgarden and Dixon to stop. Grosjean came out ahead of McLaughlin, while Power lost out to VeeKay, Newgarden and Dixon, yet was ahead of O’Ward.

With everyone having stopped at least once, early stoppers Ericsson and Rossi were out front, and Palou, who had stopped under caution, was third. Third became first, when Ericsson and Rossi stopped on lap 33. Points leader Palou now held a 1.6s lead over Kirkwood, with Meyer Shank Racing’s IndyCar debutant Linus Lundqvist in third (he also stopped under the caution) until Grosjean and McLaughlin passed him.

In sixth ran rookie Agustin Canapino of Juncos Hollinger Racing and Jack Harvey (both also lap 14 stoppers), although the Argentine pitted on lap 37.

Kirkwood (alternates), Grosjean and McLaughlin were pressing Palou hard at half distance in this 80-lap race, but Palou didn’t need to stop until the end of lap 44 and he rejoined in 17th.

The Andretti Autosport driver was now able to eke out a small gap over teammate Grosjean who was watching his mirrors for his old foe McLaughlin. Three seconds covered the next six — Newgarden, Dixon, Ericsson, VeeKay, Rossi, Power and O’Ward, but it was Grosjean who felt the pressure first, running wide under braking for Turn 9 and McLaughlin was up into second. Dixon, meanwhile, chose that same lap to stop, and the following lap Newgarden stopped, while Rossi and VeeKay sideswiped on the run to Turn 9, and Power got around the pair of them. Race control would blame VeeKay for the collision and penalize him.

Kirkwood reported his tires were done, and pitted on lap 51, leaving McLaughlin out front. When the Andretti Autosport driver emerged from the pitlane, it was ahead of Palou. When McLaughlin stopped on lap 52, he came out behind Kirkwood but he, too, was ahead of Palou. Grosjean and Power stopped on lap 53, leaving Kirkwood out front, 2.5s ahead of polesitter McLaughlin. Palou in third was needing to run slow or hope for cautions to get to the end of the race. Newgarden was still just ahead of Dixon. Ericsson, Grosjean, O’Ward, Lundgaard and Harvey completed the top 10 ahead of Power and Helio Castroneves. Grosjean slipped ahead of O’Ward on lap 56, and the following lap the front-row starter also fell victim to Lundgaard.

Power passed Harvey for 10th on lap 59 and started homing in on O’Ward, while nearer the front, teammate McLaughlin remained 2.5s adrift of Kirkwood with 20 laps to go. With a dozen laps to go, that gap was out to 3.5s, but the desperately fuel-saving Palou had fallen some 18s down before being informed he should give up trying to run in economy mode – a third stop would be necessary. Or would it?

Out came the second caution on lap 70; debutant Lundqvist had struck the wall terminally. This was a blessing for Harvey who had lost his front wing on a wall and was able to pit under caution.

The restart on lap 74 between Turns 9 and 10 saw Kirkwood get a good jump on McLaughlin, but toward the back there was a collision between Rosenqvist, Canapino and Benjamin Pedersen of AJ Foyt Racing who all ran long at Turn 11.

With 75 laps complete, the race was red-flagged, the drivers boiling in their cockpits in hot and humid conditions, and they readily welcomed the fans and water bottles from their teams.

With one warmup lap before the restart, the drivers had four racing laps remaining, potentially. Grosjean was sent around Ericsson for sixth under yellow, race control’s response to Ericsson blocking the Frenchman on the previous restart. Grosjean was the only driver on alternates for the restart, but they were worn.

At the green flag, Kirkwood immediately pulled away from McLaughlin to the tune of 1.4s, the polesitter having to keep his eye on Palou. Further back, Castroneves demoted his former teammate Power for 10th. Next time by, O’Ward demoted Lundgaard, and Power regained 10th.

Kirkwood got his lead out to 2s, but McLaughlin pegged it back next time by while being chased hard by the revitalized Palou. The Long Beach winner held firm to win by 0.7633s, with Palou easily holding off his closest championship pursuer Newgarden to claim third. Dixon was fifth, untroubled by Grosjean, Ericsson, O’Ward, Lundgaard and Power.

Having not scored a top five this year besides his Long Beach win, Kirkwood is now a two-time victor, while Palou’s lead over Newgarden is out to 84 points with four races to go.

RESULTS

Kirkwood already building off best career oval result at Iowa

Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood showed a lot of promise at the Texas Motor Speedway oval in April and again in May at the Indianapolis 500, but quality finishes were derailed by contact in both races that weren’t a byproduct of driving errors. …

Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood showed a lot of promise at the Texas Motor Speedway oval in April and again in May at the Indianapolis 500, but quality finishes were derailed by contact in both races that weren’t a byproduct of driving errors.

Combine those two unrewarding outcomes with a rough introduction to IndyCar oval racing as a rookie last year with A.J. Foyt Racing, and the young Floridian had plenty of reasons to feel encouraged by his run to seventh on Saturday at Iowa, his best oval result to date.

The 2021 Indy Lights champion also led the entire Andretti team home, with stablemate Romain Grosjean the closest behind him, 17s back in 11th.

“We learned a lot just now,” Kirkwood said. “Felt like we had really good pace in the stints, which was something that I think was surprising for us. So we were a little bit different than our teammates, and I think we’re all able to build off of that, based on what my pace was, especially at the end of stints. We had a couple of times to where we were just an absolute rocket ship.”

The 24-year-old was strong in the latter stages of the race and wants to see what he and his race engineer Jeremy Milless can find to take the No. 27 Honda closer to the podium in Sunday’s 250-lap closer to the event.

“I want to say our third stint, the No. 27 car was on rails, and we need to go back and look to see exactly what that was, and probably tune on it and get in that window for tomorrow, because that’s when we really made up those positions,” Kirkwood said.

“So we’re going to look into it, see what we can get and roll into the race tomorrow with hopefully a car that’s even better than today.”

Rain turns fortunes upside down for bulk of IndyCar field in Toronto

The driver leading the NTT IndyCar Series championship who’s had a nearly perfect season lines up 15th. The driver closest to him (Alex Palou), Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon, who goes into Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto race holding second …

The driver leading the NTT IndyCar Series championship who’s had a nearly perfect season lines up 15th. The driver closest to him (Alex Palou), Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon, who goes into Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto race holding second in the championship, starts seventh.

Josef Newgarden, the driver sitting third in the standings, will take the green flag from 11th on the grid, and you’ll have to look to fourth in points to find the first title contender who didn’t have a rough day in qualifying on the slippery street circuit — Marcus Ericsson on the second row in P4.

Colton Herta, last year’s Honda Indy Toronto polesitter and the polesitter for the last two NTT IndyCar Series races, had intentions to earn another, but was a big surprise in his failure to transfer into the Firestone Fast 12. The Andretti Autosport driver, fastest in the session prior to qualifying, wasn’t alone.

Beasts in the dry, Herta’s frustrating run to 14th was compounded by Kyle Kirkwood—fastest on Friday—who lines up eighth and Romain Grosjean who settled for ninth.

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The greatest surprise, though, was the aforementioned Palou, whose worst start of the year prior to Toronto was seventh. To the Spaniard’s credit, he was in worse shape last year in Canada when he started 22nd and rocketed to eighth, so all hope is not lost.

“I just think we didn’t really put together everything we had,” said an untroubled Palou. “We’re going to have to start from the back, but we know we have a fast car and we can make it from there. It’s gonna be a pretty busy race. It’s the first (challenging starting spot) of the year; hopefully the last one, but yeah, we will have to work for it, for sure.”

Kirkwood rolls with the bumps to lead opening Toronto IndyCar practice

Bumps and track evolution were the centerpiece of Friday’s opening practice session for the NTT IndyCar Series on the streets of Toronto. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong was the early pacesetter with a 1m03.5s lap around the 1.8-mile circuit, …

Bumps and track evolution were the centerpiece of Friday’s opening practice session for the NTT IndyCar Series on the streets of Toronto.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong was the early pacesetter with a 1m03.5s lap around the 1.8-mile circuit, and with 75 minutes made available to teams and drivers to adapt to the bone-jarring course and its increasingly severe surface, Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood lowered the best lap to a 1m01.8 on Firestone’s primary tires.

Once the field switched to the faster green-banded alternate rubber in the final 15 minutes of the lone outing for the day, Kirkwood fired in the top lap of the session with a remarkable 1m00.8075s tour in the No. 27 Honda to lead a strong 1-2 for Andretti with Romain Grosjean’s No. 28 Honda close behind (+0.05s).

Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist broke up the Andretti party in third with the No. 6 Chevy (+0.0532s) and had Colton Herta in his shadow with the No. 26 Andretti Honda in fourth (+0.1060s). McLaren’s Alexander Rossi was next in the No. 7 Honda (+0.1625s), and in sixth, CGR’s Marcus Ericsson led the team home in the No. 8 Honda (+0.1865s).

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Outside the lead group, Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Callum Ilott was quick to open the event after running 13th in the No. 77 Chevy (+0.8053s). Meyer Shank Racing’s Helio Castroneves also ran well in 14th with the No. 06 Honda (+0.8166s), and in 16th Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal was once again the fastest among RLL’s trio in his No. 15 Honda (+0.8908s); teammate Christian Lundgaard was directly behind him in the No. 45 Honda (+0.8921s).

Ed Carpenter Racing’s Ryan Hunter-Reay closed the session as the fastest intrasquad driver with the No. 20 Chevy which ran 18th (+1.046s); teammate Rinus VeeKay was 23rd in the No. 21 Chevy (+1.7794s).

Series newcomer Tom Blomqvist was the busiest driver on the day as he turned 39 laps in the No. 60 MSR Honda in a substitute role for MSR’s injured Simon Pagenaud. Lacking the opportunity to learn the track on a simulator before his last-minute call-up, Blomqvist was wise to tread carefully around the circuit and returned the car in one piece. To his delight, he wasn’t the slowest driver in the field, earning 26th (+2.9904s) among the 27 entries in attendance.

“I just wanted to take it easy to get an understanding of the car and the track,” Blomqvist said. “It took a while to get your head around it, but yeah, I just wanted to build up to get through today.”

Barring a flick-spin or two by drivers to get themselves out of a runoff area and a few light brushes with the walls, the session was largely free of drama as no yellow or red flags slowed the action.

RESULTS

Kirkwood ponders gravity of upside-down Indy moment

Kyle Kirkwood has a thought on how to handle the next time he finds himself hanging upside down and firing backwards at more than 100mph in his Indy car: Leave his visor down. If being hit by the crashing and spinning Felix Rosenqvist while in sight …

Kyle Kirkwood has a thought on how to handle the next time he finds himself hanging upside down and firing backwards at more than 100mph in his Indy car: Leave his visor down.

If being hit by the crashing and spinning Felix Rosenqvist while in sight of a top-six finish with 16 laps to go in the Indy 500 wasn’t wholly unexpected, the decision by the driver of the No. 27 Andretti Autosport Honda to reach up — while inverted and amid a shower of sparks — to open his visor while in the midst of his own crash was another unforeseen aspect of the Floridian’s race-ending journey.

“I wouldn’t say that was my brightest moment,” Kirkwood said. “I’m not gonna lie. A lot of people asked me if gravity pulled the visor open and honestly, I didn’t know what to answer until I watched the video. You know, I just completely lost vision of where I was because I was upside down and it was completely dark. I’ve never had that situation before in a race car, so natural instinct was to open my visor to see where I’m at.”

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Kirkwood used one thumb to open his visor and the other to radio his race strategist Bryan Herta as his wheel-shedding crash was taking place.

“And yeah, I was still upside down…sliding on my lid and as most people know, the [in-car] radio that is sent back to IndyCar, the feedback is always a bit late,” he continued. “So when you hear spotters talking and whatnot, it’s usually two or three seconds behind. So I’m actually radioing back to Bryan Herta saying, ‘Get me out of this!’”

With a number of cars in front of him that were due to make their final pit stop, Kirkwood was on pace to deliver Andretti Autosport’s top finish of the day until the Arrow McLaren driver’s No. 6 Chevy slid up the track into his car.

“Wish it didn’t come when I’m essentially running sixth with 16 laps to go, but I guess that’s Indy for you,” he said. “It honestly didn’t start off that good. We were not good. In the beginning, we struggled with the car balance and with [tire] vibrations. Our second stint was horrendous with vibrations and I lost a couple positions. I was up into 13th at one point and fell back to my starting position of 15th.

“Man, we made one change on the car, got a good set of tires on that didn’t get massive vibrations like everyone was dealing with, and I went from I think 10th all the way up to second in the second-to-final stint. The car came alive. We felt like we were one of the good cars out there and it was disappointing what happened.”

IndyCar confirms no injuries from fence-clearing wheel at Indy

IndyCar has confirmed that there was no serious injuries caused by the loose wheel from Kyle Kirkwood’s car that cleared the Turn 2 fence during Sunday’s Indianapolis 500. Kirkwood’s No. 27 Andretti Autosport Honda was hit by the crashing No. 6 …

IndyCar has confirmed that there was no serious injuries caused by the loose wheel from Kyle Kirkwood’s car that cleared the Turn 2 fence during Sunday’s Indianapolis 500.

Kirkwood’s No. 27 Andretti Autosport Honda was hit by the crashing No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet of Felix Rosenqvist as it rebounded off the Turn 2 wall. The cars collided in a manner that severed the tether that is designed to keep wheels from becoming detached, and Kirkwood’s left rear broke free and flew over the high fence lining the wall.

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The wheel threaded between the two packed grandstands and came to rest on the hood of a car in the parking lot, and IndyCar Series representatives confirmed that there were no injuries caused by the wheel itself. Other debris from the accident did enter the grandstand, and one person was taken to the infield medical center for checks and was cleared.

While airborne wheels have become exceedingly rare since the tethers were introduced, IMS and IndyCar owner Roger Penske said the series will investigate the incident.

“I saw what had happened; saw it bounced on top of a building and went and hit a car over there, which obviously is very concerning,” Penske said.

“We have tethers on the wheels, and it was a rear wheel that came off, and I’m sure the guys at IndyCar will look at it, will determine what really happened. We haven’t seen a wheel come off in a long time. We have high fences here. But we were very fortunate we didn’t have a bad accident.”

Felix Rosenqvist’s flying tire smashed into a parked car after narrowly missing Indy 500 crowd

Thankfully, the tire only hit a parked car and no bystanders.

It’s a miracle no one was injured in this terrifying incident at the 2023 Indianapolis 500.

During the final 17 laps of Sunday’s race, Felix Rosenqvist spun out on the track after hitting the wall. Kyle Kirkwood’s car clipped Rosenqvist on the way by, causing the tire of the latter’s car to fly off out of the track in a scary moment.

MORE INDY 500: Kyle Kirkwood’s on-board camera captured a terrifying angle of his Indy 500 crash.

Thankfully, Rosenqvist’s tire cleared the fans in the stands nearby, as it had just enough height to miss the stands completely. Here’s how the crash unfolded, with the flying tire missing the stands.

So, where did the tire land? Not too far away after it hit a parked car sitting nearby!

It’s really incredible that no one was hit by the flying tire as it made its way out of the track. And thankfully, Rosenqvist and Kirkwood were both uninjured after their scary crash.

Here’s how racing fans reacted after Rosenqvist’s flying tire narrowly missed the Indy 500 crowd and smashed into a parked car.

Points to ponder from IndyCar 2023’s first quarter

We’ve put the first quarter of the NTT IndyCar Series season to bed, and with that in mind, it’s time to make a few observations and draw a few conclusions about all that’s taken place before we hit the fast forward button and blast through the …

We’ve put the first quarter of the NTT IndyCar Series season to bed, and with that in mind, it’s time to make a few observations and draw a few conclusions about all that’s taken place before we hit the fast forward button and blast through the month of May, starting with Saturday’s Indianapolis Grand Prix.

• Spanning the opening four rounds, this has been the season of Romain Grosjean. With the 37-year-old leading three of the four races and showing himself to be Andretti Autosport’s most consistent threat and its steadiest performer, he heads to Indy sitting fifth in the championship, just 15 points out of the lead. That breakthrough victory can’t be far away.

• As much as I didn’t anticipate Grosjean would assert himself as Andretti’s top dog (so far), I also failed to imagine a scenario where Colton Herta would get through the four opening races with zero poles and zero wins. Herta’s had more than enough adversity to open the season and holds P10 in the championship, but so has Kyle Kirkwood, whose lone finish inside the top 10 came with his Long Beach win. It’s a bit of deja vu from 2022 for Herta, who entered the Indy GP sitting P11 in the championship. Herta, rolling into the Speedway, while P3 among Andretti’s four drivers? That’s a shocker.

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• Kirkwood’s one spot ahead of Herta in the standings in P9. If it weren’t for his terrible luck at St. Petersburg (launched over Jack Harvey) and the suspension failure at Texas, he’d be a lot closer to Grosjean in the championship. And he’s almost out of bad finishes if he wants to be a title contender; you only get three or four poor results before championship aspirations start to fade, and registering two with 13 rounds left to run means Kirkwood needs to race clean and avoid cartoon anvils over the next five months.

• Marcus Ericsson’s doing something for the first time in his IndyCar career, and it bodes well for the future. A poor qualifying run to P16 in Texas? He flipped that into a finish of P8. Another underwhelming start at Barber where he rolled off P13? Improved to P10 by the checkered flag. Ericsson’s turning bad starts into better results, which is why he’s leading the championship and will continue to do so if he can keep landing on the podium as he’s done twice this year. He’s one of only two drivers — along with Ganassi teammate Alex Palou — to finish inside the top 10 at every round, and that’s how title bids become possible. The only fix Ericsson needs right now is to get his qualifying results back in order.

• Piggybacking on Ericsson’s season to date, Pato O’Ward has been a beast with a pair of seconds and a fourth. If he could go back to Long Beach, avoid the unwise lunge on Kirkwood that caused him to spin and trade a likely podium for P17, O’Ward would be the runaway championship leader.

• Leaving Barber last year, Team Penske landed at the Indy GP as Chevy’s top squad with Scott McLaughlin holding P2 and Josef Newgarden at P3 in the standings; O’Ward and Arrow McLaren, in P5, were second on the Bowtie’s depth chart. The tables have been turned departing Barber where McLaren is Chevy’s No. 1 team heading into the Indy GP, with O’Ward in P2. McLaughlin, in P4, isn’t far behind.

• Newgarden and Kirkwood are having extremely similar seasons where one big win has been surrounded by largely forgettable results. P6 in the standings, Newgarden’s been wearing his anger and frustration on the outside — readily visible in person, and on the broadcasts — which only emerged sporadically last season. Maybe “Angry Josef” is the persona that’s needed to earn a third championship.

• As noted, Palou has been a vision of consistency with all four finishes being between P3 and P8. If there’s a surprise here, it’s not in his solid performances; it’s in how he’s yet to look like a threat for victory, with a brief exception at Texas. Coming off a turbulent 2022 where it took until the 17th and final race for Palou to deliver a strong win, I didn’t anticipate the new season getting under way without him being in the mix for victory on a regular basis.

• Chevrolet caught Honda by surprise last year and ran away with the manufacturers’ championship after winning the first four races and seven more of the remaining 13. In response to its shellacking by the Bowtie, Honda’s taken two of the first four rounds this year and, thankfully, there doesn’t appear to be a major difference between the two, which should make for good fun as both appear capable of winning every race.

• The only caveat to the apparent engine parity is the Indy 500, where Honda mopped the floor with Chevy in 2022. One brand owned the season; the other owned the biggest race. Will we see a reversal of fortunes in qualifying and the race? Or will Chevy match or exceed the power and fuel economy Honda used to such devastating effect at the Speedway? I can’t wait to find out in a few weeks’ time.

• The mounting number of unforced errors by Helio Castroneves has been hard to watch and harder to ignore. Three off-track excursions of his own making at Barber, along with the solo lap 1, Turn 1 spin and crash at Long Beach, have placed the 48-year-old on the hot seat.

• The four-time Indy 500 winner’s struggles are emblematic of his Meyer Shank Racing team’s season. To his credit, Castroneves has MSR’s only top 10 — a P10 at Texas — and every other result when combined with Simon Pagenaud’s output has been P15 or worse. Said another way, of the eight total races with both drivers, seven of the eight finishes have been between P15 and P26, which isn’t sustainable. I can’t think of a tandem that needs to have a transformative Indy 500 more than Castroneves and Pagenaud.

• Rookie Sting Ray Robb heeded the advice of many entering Long Beach: Just get to the finish. And after two DNFs to open his season, the dialed-back mindset helped. A fiery end to Barber wasn’t his fault, but it did compound the issue of completing so few race laps. Of the 525 race laps run in 2023, Robb’s missed out on 101 in just four races.

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Barber bites back at IndyCar stalwarts in qualifying

Kyle Kirkwood, the polesitter from the most recent race, spun on new tires, damaged his car, and fell to 12th in the Firestone Fast 12 session. Rinus VeeKay, the polesitter from last year’s Barber Motorsports Park NTT IndyCar Series race, got caught …

Kyle Kirkwood, the polesitter from the most recent race, spun on new tires, damaged his car, and fell to 12th in the Firestone Fast 12 session. Rinus VeeKay, the polesitter from last year’s Barber Motorsports Park NTT IndyCar Series race, got caught in a bottleneck with Team Penske drivers and then ran off track on his last flying lap and dropped to ninth.

IndyCar’s all-time pole winner Will Power also fell off the circuit and plummeted to 11th. Championship leader Marcus Ericsson simply lacked the speed to make the Fast 12 and settled for 13th. Those were just four of many IndyCar front runners who were expected to vie for strong starting positions but find themselves with a lot of passing to do over 90 laps on Sunday in Alabama if they want to salvage their weekends.

“It was just a dumb mistake, to be honest,” Kirkwood said of looping his No. 27 Andretti Autosport Honda and ripping a downforce-producing component from his car’s diffuser. “We lost the rear-left strake and that just caused a ton of understeer in the left-hand corners and a ton of oversteer on the right-hand corners.”

Power pointed to Team Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin as one of the authors of his adversity and also reckoned an engine on the verge of needing a rebuild conspired against finding greater success.

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“Scott went off in Turn 1 on the money lap and just put all that grass on (the circuit),” he said. “So I went wide there and lost some time there and was definitely up (on pace) coming to that. And then in Turn 13, the wheel locked and unwound itself because there was so much grip in the middle of that corner. And I just had to get out of the throttle and ran off, which screwed the next lap. But we’ve been a tenth-and-a-half down with the engine this weekend. We’re just hanging in there.”

Championship leader Marcus Ericsson was out of touch as Chip Ganassi Racing stablemates Alex Palou and Scott Dixon qualified second and fifth, respectively. Lining up 13th was not what Ericsson had in mind after delivering two strong qualifying performances at St. Petersburg and Long Beach.

“Yesterday we were really happy, and then today, in the morning session, we felt like the car was not as good,” he said. “So we went back a little bit to what we had yesterday and it felt a lot better. I think the car was pretty nice to drive, but it’s missing a few tenths. Disappointing.”

Kirkwood’s teammate Colton Herta didn’t have a spin or lose any bodywork from his car to explain the lack of speed with his No. 26 Honda at Barber.

“I never qualify well here; I’ve never been in the Fast Six,” he said after placing 14th. “We should transfer but unfortunately we didn’t. Have to look at what went wrong and why we’re so slow, but we shouldn’t be getting knocked out in round one.”