Why Kyle Kirkwood is America's new IndyCar ace-in-waiting

We’ve seen superstar Formula 3 drivers fumble at Formula 2, and F2 champions fail to make a mark in Formula 1, but actually the steps at the very start of a racing career are the ones that can feel like trying to vault over chasms. Some great kart drivers can’t make the transition to cars, while others adapt swiftly to wingless cars such as F1600 and then struggle to feel the limits of a car with aerodynamic downforce. They need more track time that they don’t have because that would require more money that they don’t have.

Kyle Kirkwood, the 2021 Indy Lights champion, is very different. He doesn’t just succeed at each level, he excels. He won on his debut in F1600 in 2015. He scored a win and eight other podiums in Formula 4 US the following year to claim third in the championship for Primus Racing, before moving to Cape Motorsports for 2017 and demolishing the opposition – admittedly not deep that year. The same could be said for F3 US in 2018, too, which he conquered from the seat of an Abel Motorsports entry – but while doing that he was simultaneously out-racing the opposition in USF2000 and taking that title, too, for the Cape brothers. Across the two series that year, he won 27 of 31 races entered.

The Road To Indy scholarship system meant that by winning USF2000 he had a hefty six-figure sum in his back pocket to get an Indy Pro 2000 ride with RP Motorsport for 2019, and he promptly won nine of the 16 races and the championship.

Understandably, Michael Andretti jumped at the chance to sign Kirkwood for the 2020 Indy Lights season. Except there was none, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a dearth of entries. So Kirkwood spent last year peddling a Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F at a couple of IMSA’s endurance rounds, and also competed in four races with Forty7 Motorsports in the IMSA Prototype Challenge, winning one of them.

Those who thought this sportscar dalliance might slow his open-wheel career momentum were deluding themselves. This year he may have started his Lights campaign relatively slowly – one win in the first six races – but that was largely because at first Andretti Autosport truly didn’t look a match for the relatively new HMD Motorsports. But Kirkwood would go on to claim nine more triumphs and the championship, and his own performances were as near flawless as can be expected. In his first race of the season, he made a minor mistake at the first turn that unfortunately sent rival David Malukas of HMD into a barrier, while his last race of the year was wobbly. But in the 18 races in between, Kirkwood often produced magic that echoed what we saw in USF2000 and Indy Pro 2000 – his race craft is frankly astonishing.

But let’s start at the end – that shaky finale. After dominating the first of the weekend’s races at Mid-Ohio from pole position, Kirkwood needed only to finish in the top 11 out of 12 starters come Sunday to clinch the championship, even were Malukas to win the race. But then a huge variable was thrown into the mix: soaking conditions in qualifying meant that lap times were some 35 seconds slower than what the field of Dallara IL15-AERs can produce in the dry, and Kirkwood was among those who went off and he damaged his front wing. That restricted him to fifth on the grid while Malukas took pole.

When Malukas then slid off at Turn 1 at the start, Kirkwood moved up to fourth and it seemed to be all over for the HMD driver. But in fact it was Antonio Serravalle who helped reset the title contenders’ targets: he also went off on that opening lap, and needed rescuing, which brought out the yellow. That allowed Malukas to catch up with the rest of the pack, and he would put in a stirring drive to finish second behind dominant team-mate Linus Lundqvist. But Serravalle’s eventual retirement with damage also meant that Kirkwood could finish no worse than 11^th and therefore had the title in his pocket. The new champion had a spin after getting up to third place but recovered to claim fifth despite a further off on the last lap.

Kirkwood is a cool customer – his lack of agitation in cockpit is one of the keys to him usually making perfect judgment calls in races – but even he admits that the breaking of the title tension came as a huge relief.

Kyle Kirkwood, Road to Indy/Cooper Tires/Construction Contractors Club Dallara, Andretti Autosport

Photo by: Indy Lights

“It was insane,” he tells Autosport. “The team was on the radio saying, ‘Antonio’s out of the car, he’s retired,’ and that was so much weight off my shoulders. I had felt under a lot of pressure.

“Through qualifying, everyone was going off – myself included, obviously – because you couldn’t build temperature in the tyres as we were going so slow. It was wet, it was cool, and the track was, I don’t know if it’s just this time of year, but that was by far the worst I’ve ever felt Mid-Ohio. Usually it’s a fun track to drive in the wet and it reminds me of my kart days – you can’t run the dry line, because you need to be on the grippier unused parts of the track. But last Sunday, even if you went off line you were getting wheel spin, and down the straights we still couldn’t go full throttle. Absolutely treacherous.

“It was like we were racing on algae. There were places where the grass offered more grip! Putting my right side tyres on the grass at Turn 2 was much faster, and going into Turn 12, where I went off in qualifying, if you went wide there and got into a slide, you actually had more grip when your wheels touched the grass. We were doing that so much that that became the groove, like we were dirt racing.”

After multiple alarming moments over the course of the day then, Kirkwood came home an extremely worthy champion. As the first driver to win the championships at all three levels of the Road To Indy, you might expect the fact that these titles were achieved with three different teams would make him proud. But two of Kirkwood’s defining qualities are veracity and the absence of conceit.

“Honestly, I think I was in the best predicament every single year,” he said. “I’ve never felt on the back foot in terms of the quality of the team on the Road To Indy. Cape Motorsports is obviously the best team in the history of USF2000, and then RP Motorsports showed tremendous pace the previous year in Indy Pro 2000 so that made the decision to join them for 2019 quite easy. Their engineer Stefano Alessi came from Prema, and after his time here he went back to Trident in F2, so he is absolutely top-tier. Yeah, RP Motorsports was a tremendous team to work for.

“And now Andretti Autosport – I’m their third straight champion in Lights, so I think we can say they know what they’re doing with these cars.”

Mention Portland’s Indy Lights double-header to anyone who was there to witness it, and they’ll agree that Kirkwood’s clinical coolness while forcing his car to achieve more than should have been possible was simply remarkable

True. But if he’s too modest to say it, someone should point out that Kirkwood was the difference-maker in IP2000 for RPM, and in Lights for Andretti, too. For instance, this year his team-mates Danial Frost, Devlin DeFrancesco and Robert Megennis went winless and finished the championship in fifth, sixth and seventh respectively. Combined, they chalked up fewer podiums than Kirkwood scored wins.

It has been notable that while he’s accumulated 31 victories in his 49 races on the Road To Indy, the Jupiter-born driver has scored ‘only’ 17 poles – although seven of those came this season. When asked if this suggests he’s gotten better at running one hot lap against the stopwatch and again he’s blunt.

“No, to be honest,” he says. “I do feel we maximised in qualifying but what really made the championship for us was when we capitalised on race pace and opportunity. Like at Detroit, when we passed Linus for the win, that was super-important. And Portland, where we started from fifth and finished second in the first race, and then the next day started fourth and won. Races like that are what gave us our championship this year; without that progress, the final rounds last weekend would have been a lot more stressful.”

Mention Portland’s Indy Lights double-header to anyone who was there to witness it, and they’ll agree that Kirkwood’s clinical coolness while forcing his car to achieve more than should have been possible was simply remarkable. Not for the first time it appeared that HMD (and the Global Racing Group cars that were part of HMD’s squad) appeared to have the advantage, yet Kirkwood beat everyone but Malukas on Saturday, and then demonstrated his race savvy on Sunday to score the win. Down the pitstraight to start lap 2, he appeared in prime position to pass second-placed Lundqvist but instead it was the Swede who swung right to attempt a move on leader Malukas. The latter moved across to protect his line, Lundqvist hung tough, but locked his right-front into the braking zone, mounting the curb to avoid running into his team-mate.

Race winner Kyle Kirkwood, Andretti Autosport, second place Danial Frost (Andretti), third place David Malukas (HMD).

Photo by: Road To Indy

Kirkwood, displaying innate prescience, had already eased out of the fight, took his normal racing line, allowed his rivals to compromise each other, and on the exit of Turn 2 through Turn 3 passed the pair of them. He then hung onto the lead, leaving his rivals to overheat their tyres in fruitless pursuit, and scored one of his finest victories.

When Kirkwood then delivered two of the most dominant Indy Lights performances anyone could remember in the Laguna Seca double-header, he pulled a 15-point lead on Malukas in the title race. But he respects his rival who claimed seven victories, and the HMD team that gained a further three wins thanks to Lundqvist.

“HMD kept us on our toes this year,” he says, “I think they had an advantage over us more often than we had the edge on them. The only track I think we had a really clear advantage was Laguna Seca. Everywhere else, they were right there with us or slightly ahead. Even at Mid-Ohio [the summer rounds there], everyone said that we had an advantage but David was right on my pace.

“And then there were tracks like Indy GP, Barber, Portland where we weren’t going to beat them in qualifying and even some of the races like Indy GP and Barber we weren’t close to them. So I think they did an incredible job from what they had in 2019 to where they are now – a huge effort that’s paid off.”

Something else that’s paid off, in retrospect, was the canning of the 2020 Indy Lights season. While Kirkwood says that for the first month after the cancellation he was “immensely frustrated at being stagnant – the worst thing for a race car driver to feel”, he admits his sportscar rides with Forty7 and Vasser Sullivan provided very useful training.

“Those experiences were actually a blessing, because without them I wouldn’t have learned anything about strategy, pitstops, fuel-saving, tyre-saving – things that I’ll need in IndyCar and I wouldn’t have had beforehand without IMSA. Obviously my focus is on getting to IndyCar full-time, but I definitely want to carry on doing IMSA endurance races. I loved working with the Vasser Sullivan guys – Aaron Telitz and Jack Hawksworth came from Indy Lights and IndyCar, and so did their engineer Geoff Fickling, and it was great fun working with them.”

Nonetheless, for a driver used to conquering a championship in his first year, it must have been annoying to basically give up a season, pause his career, given that he’ll turn 23 this month – two years older than Herta and Pato O’Ward who respectively have three and two full IndyCar seasons under their wheels already.

“Yeah, it’s a little bit strange to think they’re younger than me,” he admits, “and a couple of them were actually at lower levels than me in karting – Pato [O’Ward], Rinus [VeeKay] were running Micro karts when I was running the Minis. But I feel it’s still worked out well for me and I’ve matured the way I needed to. Without family backing to help, I haven’t managed to skip any levels, but I’ve done what I needed to by winning races and that’s allowed me to carry on working in the same direction as those other guys who are now winning IndyCar races.

Kirkwood says he's gained a lot of experience driving the Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F in IMSA alongside Jack Hawksworth and Aaron Telitz.

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

“And I’ve never stopped accumulating experience in that time and learning. I feel like I know which changes do what to a race car, and that’s really important when you don’t have much track time. I don’t think my driving ability has escalated through the years, but constantly building experience has given me a greater and greater understanding of the cars’ tendencies, how they react to my driving inputs and how they react to technical adjustments. It helps that I’m genuinely intrigued by a lot of it.

“I think that’s what’s given me the edge, and I’ve even started passing that on to younger guys who I’ve seen are quick: ‘You need to understand everything about the car as soon as possible.’ Because there are times when we only get one practice session before qualifying, you’ve got to pretty rapidly improve the car and tune it for the track. I’ve got to the stage where I can throw a lot of ideas out there about how to make it better, based on this year or previous years, and the engineer will say, ‘OK, that could work and that could work,’ and so we throw those changes on the car and sure enough, they work.

“That comes from experience – and learning from those experiences – and knowing what to apply and when. So that’s another positive to me being a couple years older – I’ve got a lot of background that I can draw on.

“And,” he adds reflectively, “I’m also glad that I’m almost 23 because I’m not sure I could have handled the current situation if I was 19 or 20.”

"The records are great but they haven’t sunk in yet because I’m so focused on what I need to do to get a ride in IndyCar next year" Kyle Kirkwood

That “current situation”

As noted already, Kirkwood is the first driver to clinch the championship in all three categories of the Road To Indy, he has that astounding win-to-start ratio of 31:49 in Road To Indy (far and away the best yet seen). And he also has a $1,369,425 scholarship cheque for three IndyCar races in 2022 – including the Indianapolis 500 – in his back pocket.

It’s a sparkling CV, and one day he’ll have time to reflect on his body of work over the last seven or eight years and draw satisfaction from it. But right now he’s got one thing on his mind.

“The records are great but they haven’t sunk in yet because I’m so focused on what I need to do to get a ride in IndyCar next year. In the middle of the season, I was thinking if we win the championship everything will be great, everything will fall into place, I’ll be able to prepare for 2022. But now we have the championship and my whole mindset is still on what I need to do right now to solidify an IndyCar seat.

“I was able to reflect a little bit on Sunday night at the RTI banquet – that was nice, especially to see the people I’ve worked with and raced with over the years. But on Monday, it was back to work.”

You would think there would be a series of team owners brandishing contracts and knocking on his door, but apparently it’s more complicated than that. There are proven veterans available, there are young guys with (much) larger amounts of cash available, and Kirkwood says getting just three IndyCar races under his belt in 2022 is the “worst case scenario” – he’s pursuing a full-season deal. And the ones who are interested are stymied because he’s still under contract with Andretti, so they can’t yet make a move. The youngster can listen to offers, but he can’t negotiate.

 

Photo by: Road To Indy

Of course, there wouldn’t be a problem if Andretti Autosport didn’t already appear to be full, with Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi remaining onboard for next year, Romain Grosjean newly signed to replace Ryan Hunter-Reay, and DeFrancesco set for the #29 (not yet confirmed publicly) to replace James Hinchcliffe.

Running a fifth car is well within the team’s capabilities for three races – Kirkwood would actually be the sixth Andretti Autosport driver at Indy, as Marco Andretti will return as per 2021 – and Michael Andretti might be able to also offer him rides in his Formula E team in the meantime. But as stated, the Lights champ wants more than just three IndyCar rides and seems lukewarm about diverting to Formula E: “It’s something to think about, I guess, but my ultimate goal is IndyCar”.

Of course, as recently as 2019, Andretti did effectively run five cars in with the satellite Harding Steinbrenner operation tacked on to run Colton Herta. But just two years later, that would be a tough arrangement to replicate – even with the help of technical partners Meyer Shank Racing who have grown to two full-time entries – given the dearth of engineers and crew members as IndyCar booms, and IMSA teams start expanding in preparation for the series’ for the 2023 LMDh-caused growth.

Perhaps most significant among the potential drawbacks to Kirkwood staying in the Andretti family is that, come the end of 2022, who’s to say there’s any more likelihood of a vacancy in Michael’s IndyCar roster then than now? And he won’t even have the added appeal of a scholarship cheque.

For Kirkwood, all this casting around for a drive is a trip into largely unfamiliar territory.

“Remember, most of my progress from one category to another, right back to karting, was through scholarships,” he says not boastfully but simply stating facts. “And even during a couple of those years, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the season if I hadn’t won as many races as I did, because I was just funnelling every prize dollar back into the funding for the ride! Thankfully the Cape brothers in my first season of F4 and my USF2000 season had faith in me and allowed me to do it that way.

“But as I said earlier, I’m not stressing about it. It should work out. I mean, both for USF2000 and Indy Pro 2000, my deals didn’t come about until two weeks before the start of the season.”

Kirkwood reckons that Honda are interested in him because he has links that go back as far as his karting days, so he reasons that it’s “more likely” that he’ll end up with an HPD-affiliated team. But those doors are beginning to close. For instance, Dale Coyne should soon confirm Takuma Sato in one of his cars and, notwithstanding Jimmy Vasser’s and James Sullivan’s links with Kirkwood through IMSA, it’s Coyne who has final say on the identity of the #18 driver, too, and he’s indicated that he’s far closer to the Malukas camp.

Kirkwood beat Malukas (#79) to the title, but as of right now, the latter's graduation to fulltime IndyCar looks more certain.

Photo by: Road To Indy

Rahal Letterman Lanigan is expanding to three cars next year, but there Graham Rahal will be joined by Jack Harvey and – according to good Autosport sources – Christian Lundgaard, who made a startling impression on his IndyCar debut this year.

Looking across the divide to the Chevrolet teams, Arrow McLaren SP is hoping to run a third car at Indy and several races afterward with a view to a full-time third car in 2023, but the team is too smart to make a rookie’s first race the 500. And anyway, a senior insider has informed us it won’t be Kirkwood. Team Penske isn’t known for running rookies, although it did break with tradition by bringing Scott McLaughlin over from Supercars. And Ed Carpenter Racing can offer a road/street course ride in his #20 car plus an Indy 500 seat, but both Ed and Kyle admitted Monday they have not been in contact with each other. Which leaves… Foyt? The team needs money, needs pace and experience in the cockpit, and needs to deepen its engineering department.

"I don’t think there’ll be pressure on me to overperform, and I don’t see me putting that pressure on myself. I’ll just do the best I can" Kyle Kirkwood

If Kirkwood’s “worst case scenario” does come to pass, and he has only three races to make an impression in 2022, you’d assume that would ramp up the pressure to over-perform.

“I don’t think that will be an issue because I always just drive to the best of my ability,” he replies. “Regardless of how we finish, I stay level-headed, and I always try to do the same before a big race, too, whatever’s at stake.

“I won’t try and overextend what is possible. I think team owners and others are going to be pretty understanding if I come in and do three races without much experience at all, and everyone I’m up against is full-time, and most of them have multiple years with this car, with the tyres, with their engineers. The only thing I know well are the tracks.

“So I don’t think there’ll be pressure on me to over-perform, and I don’t see me putting that pressure on myself. I’ll just do the best I can.”

“Andretti has to find a way to keep hold of Kirkwood, surely,” said one senior member in a rival team last week. “I just can’t believe he’ll release him, because he wouldn’t just be letting go of someone who may be the next Herta or [Alex] Palou. In a couple of years, he could have one of his own guys fighting against Kirkwood for the championship – and losing.”

 

Photo by: Road To Indy