Kyle Kirkwood converted his pole position to a win Sunday, controlling most of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
The Andretti driver held the lead into turn one and led for the whole first stint of the race. He lost the lead in the second stint but took the lead on pit strategy and never looked back on the road to his first career win.
“Through my entire ladder series career, I always wanted more,” Kirkwood said. “Today was the first time I was able to actually soak it in and acknowledge that I’ve done something incredible.”
His team believes today was a sign of great things to come.
“He knows how to win … When he was out front, he knew what he needed to do,” team owner Michael Andretti said. “He’s got all the ingredients to be a future champion many times over.”
Rounding out the podium were Kirkwood’s teammate, Romain Grosjean, and Ganassi’s Marcus Ericsson.
It was a bad day for most drivers who started on primary tires.
On lap 22, McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, aware that he’d reached the crossover point at which his primary tires were faster than other drivers’ alternates, made a desperate attempt to pass Ganassi’s Scott Dixon. Contact between the two put Dixon into the wall and brought out a yellow flag.
“From my point of view, it’s a low percentage move,” Ericsson said. “That move on [Kirkwood] could’ve taken out me and [Kirkwood] and [Grosjean].”
The caution came out at a convenient time for the alternate tire runners — only shortly before their scheduled pit stops — but meant Penske’s Josef Newgarden, teammate Scott McLaughlin, O’Ward and others had to pit significantly earlier than they planned.
Those three drivers each saw their races unravel in the last two stints.
O’Ward’s lunge dropped him from the top five to 13th. The Mexican driver never recovered from the incident and finished a lap down in 17th.
Newgarden and McLaughlin moved to the front after O’Ward’s incident, putting them first and third, respectively. Both slowed significantly at the end of the stint, with both drivers struggling on the softer, alternate tires.
Newgarden, in particular, then had to save more fuel than the rest of the field in the final stint. The Tennessean found himself in third at the end of the pit cycle but dropped to ninth in his efforts to make it to the end.
Low fuel was an issue for more drivers than just those who started on primaries. Grosjean finished with 153 seconds of “push to pass” — an accessible 50 hp — still unused to preserve fuel.
“I did not even want to go for the win today,” Grosjean said. “It would have been taking too much risk.”
With his podium, Ericsson reclaimed the lead of the series championship, opening up a 15-point lead over O’Ward.
IndyCar returns in two weeks as drivers take on their first road course of the season at Barber Motorsports Park.