By David Morgan, Associate Editor
ARLINGTON, Texas – Kyle Kirkwood was a man on a mission Sunday in Arlington.
After a “mental error” on Saturday that kept him out of the Fast Six, the driver of the No. 27 Andretti Global Honda was still among the favorites in the inaugural Java House Grand Prix of Arlington and they showed exactly why on race day.
Rolling off from seventh place, Kirkwood asserted himself as a contender early on and even after a pit road miscue, he was still in the fight, rebounding back into the lead battle, which eventually came down to a head-to-head challenge with Alex Palou in the closing laps.
Kirkwood found himself nearly five seconds in arears of Palou following their final pit stops, but with the pace in Kirkwood’s Honda, it was seemingly only a matter of time before he brought the fight back to Palou to duel it out for the win.
Lap by lap, the delta between the two shrunk and with 15 laps to go, it was time for Kirkwood to make his move.
As they charged towards Turn 10, Kirkwood lunged at Palou in the braking zone, diving underneath him to clear him by the time they exited out the other side of the right-hander.
Kirkwood would set sail from there, building a lead of more than five seconds on Palou and it seemed that it would be an easy Sunday drive on to the win.
But with four laps remaining, Christian Rasmussen would crash, drawing a caution to rescue his stranded machine. In the blink of an eye, Kirkwood’s lead had vanished, setting up a one-lap shootout for the win.
On the restart, Kirkwood would have to hold off not only Palou, but his Andretti Global teammate Will Power as well to see who would be crowned the winner of the inaugural race.
However, the pace of Kirkwood’s Honda would prevail on the restart as he was able to get a jump on his competitors, which he held until a crash further back in the field brought out the yellow once more to seal the deal for Kirkwood and Andretti.
“Passed Palou, which is a very rare thing to say in a race,” Kirkwood said of the winning move. “Yeah, it was kind of all or nothing. 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.
“Yeah, 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.”
Kyle Kirkwood takes the lead at the Java House Grand Prix of Arlington! pic.twitter.com/BUsoQ5l1cu
— INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) March 15, 2026
Another look at Kyle Kirkwood's pass for the lead. pic.twitter.com/FcSus7bzDR
— INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) March 15, 2026
Palou added that he gave it all he had in the battle against Kirkwood, but the Andretti cars were just too much in the end and he was happy coming home with a runner-up finish.
“I tried hard, man. Kirkwood was really fast,” said Palou. “I could see already on second and third stint that I was pushing as much as I could, using OT to try to get gaps. He was closing 3, 4/10ths on me. I was like, Oh, man, it’s going to be tough.
“Yeah, he just passed me incredibly. It was a very awesome overtake. Should have obviously defended a little bit better. It’s very easy to say now.
“Yeah, honestly didn’t really have much for him. I think I’m really happy getting on the podium and trying to steal a little bit of Andretti’s party this weekend.”
Will Power would round out the podium finishers, with polesitter Marcus Ericsson finishing the race in fourth place to give Andretti a 1-2-4 finish on the day. Pato O’Ward finished the day in fifth-place as the top Chevrolet driver on the day.
The remainder of the top-10 went to David Malukas, Christian Lundgaard, Scott Dixon, Alexander Rossi, and Marcus Armstrong.
Kirkwood now sits as the overall points leader after the first three events of the season, sitting 26 points ahead of Palou and 33 points ahead of O’Ward.
But Kirkwood noted that he’s not looking too far ahead in the points battle, it’s just one foot in front of the other and focusing on the next task ahead, which is the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park on March 29.
“We’re three races in. I don’t want to focus too much on the championship. I want to focus on the next race in front of us, maximizing our performance,” said Kirkwood.
“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.”
c92rec