By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
Kyle Kirkwood has cemented himself as a championship contender in the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season.
A championship defining drive from the 27 year-old from Juniper, Florida, who claimed his sixth career IndyCar win on Sunday at the inaugural Java House Grand Prix of Arlington, leading 16 laps.
Kirkwood made a stellar pass on four-time IndyCar champion Alex Palou, with 55 laps to go, which would be the winning move of the race.
“It was kind of all or nothing,” Kirkwood said when describing the move on Palou. “He was so good in the four, five, six, seven, eight, nine section, the tight, twisty bit. It was hard to get to his gearbox to make a pass on the straight. It put me in a position where we’re good on the straight, right now, trimmed more than him, good under braking, and I knew that he was going to brake a little bit later there because his car was bottoming more than ours. Just had to do a bit of a late lunge and surprise him a little bit because if he started defending there was probably no chance of us getting by him ’cause that was probably the only place we were going to be able to pass him.”
Kirkwood would create a gap to Palou that would reach 5.2 seconds, before a late-race caution came out for Christian Rasmussen. Kirkwood would drive away from Palou on the one-lap shootout before the race ended under caution.
Kirkwood and Palou would prove to be the two dominant cars on the day, but Kirkwood would have the slight edge over Palou. The Andretti Global driver would use his strong pace on the primary tire to catch Palou on the final stint to make that pass on Lap 55.
Kirkwood and the No. 27 JM Bullion/Gold.com Andretti Global crew leaves Arlington with a 24 point lead over Palou, a feat Kirkwood has not accomplished in IndyCar, until Sunday. The rise to the top for Kirkwood should not be a surprise to fans, media or anyone that works within the sport, as he is becoming the next American star in IndyCar.
Described by everyone as a “street course merchant”, Kirkwood claimed his first four career wins on street courses at Long Beach, Nashville and Detroit, but 2025 was a breakout year of sorts for the Floridian. Kirkwood captured wins at Long Beach (his second at the famed street course), Detroit and Gateway, his first win on an oval, en route to fourth in the points standings.
In 2025, Kirkwood was the only driver to bring the fight to the No.10 crew during the first half of the season. Now in 2026, Kirkwood is a serious threat to challenge Palou, even more so than last year. Kirkwood has notched three top-five finishes in 2026, including the win on Sunday, including fighting for a podium late in the running at St. Pete on March 1.
If you had to ask Kirkwood a weak point of his season so far, odds are, he would say qualifying has hurt the No. 27 team the most. Even with arguably the best car in the field, starts of 15th, 11th and seventh so far in 2026, has Kirkwood looking into how to start closer to the front.
“We had a hiccup on the car in St. Pete,” Kirkwood said. “We knew we really had a fast car there. Thought we had a shot at getting the pole here. Phoenix was a bit of a head-scratcher for me. Thought I got it right. Maybe I didn’t. Yesterday I had a mistake on my one push lap. Quite honestly I need to sit down and figure out what I need to do differently for qualifying, just do that. It held us back at St. Pete. Maybe not at Phoenix. Might have held us back here a little bit and made it very hard for us to win the race today. It would have been a bit easier if we were up front earlier in the race. Something I’m going to sit down and figure out
Even though the season has started off strong, Kirkwood isn’t focused on the title fight with Palou, but instead wanting to maximize the team’s performance, as well as go for his first win on a natural road course at Barber Motorsports Park on March 29.
“I don’t want to focus too much on the championship,” Kirkwood said. “I want to focus on the next race in front of us, maximizing our performance. Of course, we’re good at street courses. We’ve figured out short ovals now. We’re going to a road course next. That’s where we need to thrive. There’s a lot of work to do. We want to be the biggest threat. Every driver does. We’re currently the biggest threat to him and the entire rest of the field. But we need to continue that because we got a lot of races to go.”