Kyle Kirkwood gives PGA Tour defense for IndyCar's latest "double-edged sword" gamble
Kyle Kirkwood reflected on last weekend's IndyCar race at the Thermal Club as he shared his clear opinion on IndyCar's move to race at the private race club in California. The Andretti Global driver compared IndyCar’s move to the PGA Tour while labeling it as a double-edged sword.
The second race of the 2025 IndyCar season took place at the Thermal Club. The circuit hosted its first IndyCar race in 2024 which was a non-championship exhibition race. 2025 was the first time a championship race was held at the circuit, and many came out and questioned the series' decision to race at a private race club.
Kyle Kirkwood came out to support IndyCar in their initiative as he highlighted the characteristics of the track, which led to an interesting race with a high number of overtakes. The Andretti Global driver also compared IndyCar's move to the PGA Tour, which also organizes events at private courses.
The #27 Honda driver featured on the recent episode of the Pit Pass Indy podcast. When the host asked Kyle Kirkwood about the decision to race at Thermal Club, he said (3:45 onwards):
“I mean, I've got a lot of thoughts. It depends. You know, everything that I'm going to say, there's a double edged sword. I think it's a very interesting circuit. It doesn't seem like there's going to be a lot of passing here. If you just look at the geometry of the course.
“But with that being said, I think Tire deg could change that quite a bit. When you look at the actual event as a whole, doesn't have a lot of people out here, but nor does the PGA. They go to a lot of private events and they don't allow as many people in.”
The Thermal Club GP faced broadcast issues as FOX’s online stream and broadcast went offline around Lap 20 and only came back 15 laps later, that too without audio or graphics. According to reports, there was a technical issue at the circuit.
Kyle Kirkwood detailed why he dropped like a rock in the final laps
Kyle Kirkwood started the race in P8 and was on course to finish in P4. However, the Andretti Global driver started to struggle with tire degradation and dropped like a rock to finish P8. Kirkwood detailed the struggles after the race, as he said (via Frontstrech):
“Oh, we just got extreme tired deg [degradation], and it was from a tire that you wouldn’t expect it to happen from. So I’m very disappointed in that. There was no indicator in the previous three stints [of the tires]. We ran very good, very clean, very fast the entire previous three stints, and then on the last stint, one of our tires just decided to go off a cliff only six or seven laps into it. So, disappointing.”
Kyle Kirkwood’s teammate Colton Herta finished the race in P4 but was issued a penalty by the race officials after the race. The #26 Andretti Global entry was fined $25,000 and 10 championship points.