Kyle Kirkwood hints at never-before-seen action at Long Beach GP with new IndyCar rules
Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood came out before the upcoming IndyCar race at Long Beach and detailed his expectations from the race weekend in California. The 26-year-old revealed that the recent changes introduced by the open-wheel racing series have led to uncertainty for the teams.
IndyCar introduced the hybrid system midway through last year, and it will be run at Long Beach for the first time. The electric boost out of the corners and the tire strategy will likely decide the race's outcome. The series has also increased the race distance from 85 to 90 laps and introduced a softer alternate tire option.
Kyle Kirkwood pointed at all these factors, especially the tires and race distance, and explained how the race, which has always been an alternate tire race, will switch to a primary tire race given the softer, less durable alternate compound. Explaining the same, the Andretti Global driver said:
“You could play it a little bit differently from St. Petersburg, because everyone that started there on the primes was just hoping for no yellow in the beginning.”
“Long Beach really isn’t the same. The place has always been an alternate race, and I think now, with the current tire, there’s almost no way that it will happen, given that now the race is even longer. So it’s going to be a different one than we’ve seen there in the past because of that,” added Kyle Kirkwood.
The last race weekend at Thermal Club was crucially decided by the tire strategy where Alex Palou opted to save the new soft alternate tires for a later stint, compared to Pato O'Ward who started on the shiny new set. The pace difference was humongous after the Spaniard switched to the softer set, which arguably won him the race as he passed both the McLarens in the final 15 laps.
Kyle Kirkwood detailed the strategy to stop Alex Palou from winning the 2025 IndyCar championship
Alex Palou started his title defense by winning consecutive races at the start of the 2025 IndyCar championship. Kyle Kirkwood, who has shown pace in the Andretti Global recently came out and explained how the drivers need to stop the CGR driver from taking an early lead if they want a shot at the championship. He said (via FOX Sports):
“We’ve got to do the same thing that they're doing -- we got to win races. We can't let them get a big head start. That is one thing that Palou has done in the past couple years: He gets a huge head start, then everybody claws back at him at the end of the season. He's kind of on cruise control at that point. We need to not let him get out front and hold him back a little bit.”
Kyle Kirkwood has a good record at Long Beach as he won his first-ever IndyCar race at the 1.9-mile street circuit in 2023.