Paul Kelly – INDYCAR Staff Writer
Nobody can call Kyle Kirkwood just a street-circuit specialist anymore.
Kirkwood used pace found with help from his teammates and masterful strategy in a chaotic, exciting race to win the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline on Sunday night at World Wide Technology Raceway.
SEE: Race Results
It was the fifth career victory for Kirkwood and career-best third win this season. But most importantly to Kirkwood, it was his first career oval victory after four wins on street circuits.
“My first oval win; I’m over the moon right now,” Kirkwood said. “Ovals have eluded me for a very long time, so it’s nice to get that first one and break that ice.
“An oval win and a road course win is what I wanted. I didn’t want people just to think of me as a street course guy or else they’ll just have me going to street courses. A little bit of job security there. This is a big one, a big one for the guys. This is huge, massive.”
The podium was filled with three INDY NXT by Firestone champions. Kirkwood drove his No. 27 Siemens Honda fielded by Andretti Global to victory by .5398 of a second over Pato O’Ward in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. Christian Rasmussen finished a career-best third in the No. 21 ECR Splenda Chevrolet after starting 25th, making 62 on-track passes.
Six-time NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion Scott Dixon finished fourth in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, his best result since he placed second in the season opener in March at St. Petersburg.
Santino Ferrucci continued the recent upswing of A.J. Foyt Enterprises as he produced his third straight top-five finish this season in the No. 14 Bommarito Automotive Group Chevrolet.
The 260-lap race, in which 14 of the 27 drivers led, came down to an intriguing gambit between two fuel strategies and navigating thickets of traffic over the last 50 laps. There were 254 passes for position, tying the series record for WWTR set last year.
Dixon, a master of saving fuel, was the last car not to stop during the second-to-last pit cycle and took the lead on Lap 194. Then David Malukas brushed the Turn 4 wall on Lap 196 in the No. 4 Clarience Technologies Chevrolet of A.J. Foyt Enterprises, triggering the fourth and final caution of the race. Dixon cruised behind the pace car in the lead, which allowed him to save more fuel in a possible attempt to need to make just one more pit stop.
Then Dixon stopped when the pits opened on Lap 200 and stayed in the lead due to his one-lap gap before the stop. On the restart on Lap 207, Dixon led O’Ward, Kirkwood and Conor Daly in the No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet.
Kirkwood passed O’Ward and stalked Dixon, pressing him to use more fuel, but couldn’t pass. Andretti Global then called Kirkwood to the pits for his last stop on Lap 233.
Dixon and strategist Mike Hull knew “The Iceman” couldn’t stretch one tank of fuel for 60 laps on the 1.25-mile oval without significantly more caution laps, so Dixon pitted on Lap 236 and handed the lead to O’Ward.
O’Ward made his final stop on Lap 238, with Ferrucci taking the top spot. When Dixon, Kirkwood and O’Ward cycled through their final stops, Kirkwood ended up the leader among that trio due to speedy work by his Andretti Global pit crew.
Ferrucci led a group of four cars that still had to make their final stop, all running ahead of Kirkwood, O’Ward and Dixon. But Ferrucci, Marcus Ericsson in the No. 28 Fresh Connect Central Honda of Andretti Global, Callum Ilott in the No. 90 PREMA Racing Chevrolet and Felix Rosenqvist in the No. 60 SiriusXM Honda of Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb-Agajanian all pitted from the lead by Lap 256, handing the lead back to Kirkwood. He never trailed thereafter despite pressure from O’Ward.
“The starts and the restarts were big,” Kirkwood said. “We were not too happy with the car yesterday, and we got some help from the teammates and made the car really good. In the beginning, I really didn’t think we had it, but as it got dark and it cooled down, this No. 27 Andretti Global Honda just came alive.”
NTT P1 Award winner Will Power crashed in Turn 4 on Lap 47 due to a tire puncture on his No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet. That was the portent of a tough night for Team Penske, which has a record nine wins in this event.
Five-time WWTR winner Josef Newgarden crashed out of the race while leading on Lap 130 in a frightening collision with rookie Louis Foster of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Foster brushed the wall in Turn 4, damaging his steering, and careened into the path of the onrushing Newgarden, who hit and then climbed Foster’s No. 45 Droplight/Desnuda Tequila Honda before landing upside-down on its roll hoop and aeroscreen, showering sparks. Both drivers were unhurt.
Two-time WWTR pole winner Scott McLaughlin, who led 51 laps, was eliminated on Lap 216 after a mechanical problem in the No. 3 DEX Imaging Chevrolet.
While Kirkwood joked in victory lane about this win providing him with job security, that’s the least of his concerns so far in his breakout season. Kirkwood and points leader Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing (five victories) remain the only drivers to win in the eight races so far this season. Honda also stayed unbeaten as an engine manufacturer in the series this season.
Palou’s championship lead over O’Ward was trimmed from 90 to 73 points after Palou finished eighth in the No. 10 Ridgeline Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. Kirkwood is third, two points behind O’Ward and 75 behind Palou.
The next race is the XPEL Grand Prix at Road America on Sunday, June 22. Live race coverage from the 4.014-mile road course starts at 1:30 p.m. ET on FOX, the FOX Sports app and the INDYCAR Radio Network.
