By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
Kyle Kirkwood kept his IndyCar championship hopes alive on Sunday afternoon, taking the win in the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington D.C. The American from Jupiter, Florida dominated, leading 128 laps en route to his seventh career win and sixth on a street course.
Kirkwood rebounds after a disappointing 22nd place finish on the Streets of Markham to claim the “home race” win.
“After last weekend, my mistakes there [Markham], kind of flipped a switch where I was like these mistakes feel terrible,” Kirkwood said. “I hadn’t had one of those in a very long time. Sometimes those are actually good for me because all this week I feel like I’ve worked harder than I ever have in preparation for this event. I think those preparations paid off this weekend. It was a great feeling to rebound after last weekend, to get here, to see all the fans, 100,000 people on both days is absolutely incredible.
“The whole place there’s people, rows of five in the pace laps, all the way around the track, 1.6 miles. Super cool to see. To be able to win in what will probably be considered my home race, right, being the Freedom 250 as an American, is something very special. I’ll cherish this moment for a very long time.”
Even though he led 87 percent of the race, Kirkwood’s day was not without challenge. Alex Palou would be Kirkwood’s biggest adversary until a Lap 43 penalty for hitting a tire in Mick Schumacher’s box, unraveled the championship leader’s race.
After serving the penalty, Palou would be mired in 21st. The No.10 crew would take a gamble on an alternate strategy, pitting on Lap 67. At the end of the stop, the left-front lugnut was not tightened, costing Palou more time. The four-time IndyCar champion would go one-lap down and run as high as seventh. With 25 laps to-go, in what would be a rare third mistake from Palou, the Spaniard would spin going into Turn 4, ultimately ending his race with a 20th-place finish.
Palou could have clinched a fifth IndyCar title this weekend if he left D.C with a 165-point lead. That lead is now just 91 points going into the Milwaukee double-header on August 29-30.
Palou’s other direct championship rival, David Malukas, crashed on Lap 37 and moved to fourth in the championship, 142-points back.
After Palou’s misfortunes, Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin would assume the task of challenging Kirkwood and the No.27 team.
McLaughlin kept his race consistent all afternoon, staying put in the third and second positions. After the Lap 123 caution, McLaughlin saw his opportunity to steal the lead on the Lap 127 restart. Going into Turn 1, McLaughlin would position the No.3 Chevrolet to the inside of Kirkwood’s car and look for the daring, divebomb move. McLaughlin could not get on the brakes in time and went careening into the outside wall, ending the New Zealander’s day.
“It was hard to pass all day,” McLaughlin told the media after leaving the IndyCar medical trailer. “Saw an opportunity. He [Kirkwood] braked really early. It was the right move from him [Kirkwood] to brake that early, but I thought that ‘this was my chance’. Just locked the rears late and once I locked the rears, I was toast. I thought it was my opportunity and I went for it. I don’t regret it apart from how I finished the race.”
Starting from the ninth position, Christian Lundgaard earned his first top-five finish since Mid-Ohio on July 5, finishing second on the streets of the nation’s capital. The Dane was running in third during the last-half of the 147-lap contest, but after the Lap 133 restart following McLaughlin’s wreck, Lundgaard moved into second and looked to hunt down Kirkwood in the closing laps.
Lundgaard would come up short after spending a few laps closing the gap that would ultimately grow to 3.09 seconds at the finish.
“I feel like I had just a couple of laps where I was faster than him, and then I know the 12 laps where he was faster than me, so… Yeah, what an experience all weekend,” Lundgaard said. “The best background I’ve ever had on a racetrack obviously. Just being a part of it, seeing where the series is going, being a part of it. Obviously the race was long. I think we got a better result than we expected. We got three more races to go. I think I’m just happy to see Alex [Palou] not win for once.”
Lundgaard assumes third in the championship, just 110-points adrift of Palou, with three races-to-go.
Will Power continued his strong, late-season form, with another third place finish, his third-in-a-row. Power gives Andretti Global another double-podium, the team’s second in-a-row. Closing out the 2026 campaign was a goal for Power and the Andretti team as they look toward a solid 2027 season ahead.
“Team’s made huge progression over this season, and you can see it now,” Power said. “It’s all coming online. I think the expectation now every weekend is to be on the podium, challenge for a win. I think next year we’ll be wanting to be all top five in the championship type stuff. It will be interesting the next three races for us. I feel like we should be pretty good in Milwaukee. You never know in IndyCar, it’s so competitive. Slightly outside the window, you could struggle. Finishing how Ron Ruzewski told me how we need to finish, which is basically the second half of the year, be the points leader or be right there or be the strongest team. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Markham winner Marcus Ericsson finished fourth in the No.28 Honda, putting all three Andretti cars inside the top five. Kyffin Simpson gave Honda four cars in the top five and was the biggest mover of the race, driving from 23rd up to fifth.
Nolan Siegel was able to capture his best finish in IndyCar, bringing the No.6 Chevrolet for Arrow McLaren home in sixth.
“Long and hot day. P6, our best finish of the season, so I’m very, very proud of everyone on the No. 6 car,” Siegel said. “It was a pleasure to drive all weekend and what a place to do it. It was such a cool event. It absolutely set the standard for IndyCar. I’ve just been having a blast all weekend. It feels really good to put a good result on the board and to to do it here in the nation’s capital is so special. It’s an honor to be here and an honor to drive this car, and I’m looking forward to finishing the season strong.”
SEE: Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington D.C. Results
The Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington D.C. has been billed as a one-time event, but with a massive crowd of 215,000 over the two-day event, over $969,000 in merch sales on Saturday, discussions of the race returning are on the cards for President of the Penske Corporation and Freedom 250 Chairman, Bud Denker.
Denker mentioned to the media post-race the amount of people that came up to him, wanting the race to return next year, including First Lady Melania Trump.
“It was surreal. We sat with the president today, right,” Denker said. “I mean, this small-town boy from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, was sitting with the president today. The Department of War, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Interior, the Department… Every person was in this room but one, Secretary Mullin. He had to fly to Australia. To sit in there and every single one of them was hitting me about coming back, coming back, coming back. Melania, First Lady, on the way out says, ‘We look forward to seeing you again next year.’ Pressure is on. Even the first lady is involved in this thing, right? I’ve been saying, so has Roger, ‘Let’s see how it goes the first year.’ As Dana White said after the UFC fight, these are very expensive propositions in this city. It was for him, and it was for us. You don’t raise the kind of revenue to cover your costs. Roger and I will talk about it. Mr. Trump hit me 15 times today about having to have this. His view is interesting. Interesting, his strategy is interesting. ‘Let’s do it for five years’, is what he’s saying, because that guarantees you’re going to be here through my term, then two more years for whoever is in office next. That’s his strategy.”
Luckily for Denker and the rest of the group that was tasked with bringing the Freedom 250 to life, the physical capital from the event, such as walls, fences and bridges are going to be used again, not just for a potential return to D.C, but for races in Arlington and Detroit.
“Some of the capital is already done,” Denker said. “All the walls you see, we painted every wall. I don’t like walls that are concrete. We painted every single wall and put stars on them. The walls have been all bought. It cost us over three and a half million dollars. They’re going to sit in a lot on New York Avenue for who knows how long. $300,000 to lease this lot. Those walls are like the half-life of uranium. They don’t go away. Those walls are going to sit. You can only transfer four per truck. 300 truckloads of those walls had to come from Fredericksburg, Virginia, to come here, because you can’t haul them across the country. It’s too expensive.
“The investment is already made in the walls and some of the infrastructure. That’s a sunk investment. I’d love to have a number of years more because you depreciate that asset. We’ll see. The fence is from Arlington and Detroit. We share that. The bridges are from Arlington. We share that. The tires you saw here are from Detroit. We’re able to share the assets. Very transferrable. I don’t think we get one pushback from any person that we worked with in this city to not have this race again.
“You can imagine the number of meetings I had to have with Johns Hopkins University to have you folks in this building. Can you imagine the number of meetings I had to have with Chairman Ferguson to have our race control in the Federal Trade Commission Building and spotters on the top of the building. National Archives, National Gallery of Art. There were many, many, many meetings to get where we are. You know what we built? We built trust and transparency. Because we have that with the city, every single agency, because of the team I have, there would be nobody to say not to do this again. I’m confident of that. The decision’s up to us.”