{"id":270620,"date":"2026-04-16T11:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/270620\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:31:08","slug":"kyle-kirkwood-primed-for-another-grand-prix-of-long-beach-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/270620\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Kirkwood primed for another Grand Prix of Long Beach win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Maybe it\u2019s because Kyle Kirkwood<\/a> grew up close to the water in Jupiter, Fla. Maybe it\u2019s because the race comes early in the season, when everything is still fresh.<\/p>\n

Or maybe it\u2019s because the race is the closest thing his engineering team at Honda Racing Corp.<\/a> has to a home game on the IndyCar circuit. Any or all of those guesses are as good as anything Kirkwood can come up to explain his success at the seaside Grand Prix of Long Beach<\/a>, where he\u2019ll enter the 177-mile race as its defending champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really know why, exactly, that place suits me better than anywhere else,\u201d he said. \u201cFor sure I\u2019m just more comfortable around that circuit. Every year we go back to Long Beach it\u2019s just incredible the performance that we\u2019re able to put on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of Kirkwood\u2019s six IndyCar wins, including his first, came at Long Beach<\/a>. Only four men in the 50-year history of the race, have won more often \u2014 and Kirkwood has started there just four times.<\/p>\n

Two of his three IndyCar pole positions came at Long Beach. And over the past three Long Beach races, he\u2019s led 100 laps, more than twice as many as any other driver.<\/p>\n

That success has helped him climb the leaderboard in the championship standings. He finished a career-best fourth last year and will come to Long Beach atop the table this year, holding a two-point lead over Alex Palou after four races.<\/p>\n

\u201cLong Beach is a special one to us, right?\u201d said Kirkwood, 27, who has a win and three other top-five finishes in 2026, marking his best-ever start to a season. \u201cOf course we\u2019re not in the position right now where we\u2019re like, \u2018oh, we need to win this race to win the championship.\u2019 But somewhere in the back of our mind we know that this is one of our best opportunities to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because the 11-turn, 1.968-mile Long Beach course is so tight, passing is difficult. That makes Saturday\u2019s qualifying and the pit stops in Sunday\u2019s 90-lap race crucial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe name of the game around Long Beach [is] less than just having a straightfoward race where you just dogfight, just go out there and try to pass the car in front of you. It\u2019s more strategy and a bit of a chess match,\u201d said Kirkwood, whose Andretti Global team is known for its strength on tight, bumpy \u201cgreen\u201d circuits such as Long Beach.<\/p>\n

\u201cHalf of a second in the pit lane is a lot of time on a race track at 180 miles per hour. You\u2019ve got to make sure that you don\u2019t give up that gap so it plays a big role. There\u2019s likely at Long Beach only two or three pit stops. It makes a lot of pressure on those two or three stops.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kyle <\/p>\n

Kyle Kirkwood takes part in a practice session at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in February.<\/p>\n

(David Jensen \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Palou, whose Ganassi team excelled in the pits last April, agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year we were able to move up front because of the pit stops,\u201d said Palou, who has finished in the top five in each of the last four Long Beach races but has never won there. \u201cObviously some drivers lost position. When you have a great team behind you, that backs you when [you] are in the pits, it just makes your race and your weekend a lot easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Kirkwood has been able to keep Palou in his rear-view mirror at Long Beach, he has never finished ahead of the Spaniard in the season points race, with Palou winning four of the last five championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll go down as one of the best drivers in IndyCar history,\u201d Kirkwood said. \u201cPeople look at it like \u2018man, he\u2019s just beating up on everybody.\u2019 It\u2019s actually pretty cool to be able to compete against somebody that\u2019s going to be considered one of the best in the world for many years to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always trying to keep up with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two drivers will be sharing a cheering section this weekend since both use engines built by Honda Racing Corporation USA, which is headquartered in Santa Clarita<\/a>. Eleven other IndyCar drivers also have Honda power plants and it has become customary for the drivers to visit the Honda facility in either Santa Clarita or Torrance the week before the Long Beach race, which marked its golden anniversary with Kirkwood\u2019s win a year ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s obviously a home race for them, which is even more pressure for us to execute,\u201d said Kirkwood, who is based in Indianapolis. \u201cLast year was a big year for them, right? Winning it in the 50th year, it was pretty special.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Kirkwood, however, it was just another day at the beach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe it\u2019s because Kyle Kirkwood grew up close to the water in Jupiter, Fla. Maybe it\u2019s because the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[116399,117608,117609,287,104939,11348,117607,117606,116406,131,133,132,117604,1741,117605,2211,2695,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-270620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-alex-palou","9":"tag-career-best-fourth-last-year","10":"tag-championship-standing","11":"tag-driver","12":"tag-grand-prix","13":"tag-home-game","14":"tag-indycar-circuit","15":"tag-indycar-win","16":"tag-kyle-kirkwood","17":"tag-long-beach","18":"tag-long-beach-headlines","19":"tag-long-beach-news","20":"tag-long-beach-win","21":"tag-lot","22":"tag-pit","23":"tag-race","24":"tag-weekend","25":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}