Kyle Kirkwood never lost confidence in his ability to win races, even through the doldrums of a rookie season in the IndyCar series which saw the most coveted American open-wheel racing prospect of a generation already labelled as a ‘bust’.
“I think all the real ones know that I was able to do it,” Kirkwood said after capturing his first IndyCar win in the Grand Prix of Long Beach. “My team definitely believed in me, that’s the most important thing. Hopefully this is just the first of many.”
Kirkwood won from pole position – a task that’s historically been less frequent than one would expect at a street circuit where on-track overtaking often comes at a premium – and led 53 out of 85 laps to win Sunday’s race.
This was the kind of performance that had become all-too familiar for those who followed his progress in the Road to Indy developmental ladder. But one thing that Kirkwood wasn’t familiar with was taking in the magnitude of being a winner in American open-wheel racing’s premier category.
“The feeling I got at the end, I was trying to hold tears back in the car which is something I’ve never really felt before all through the ladder system,” said the 24-year-old. “It almost feels like through my entire open-wheel ladder series career, I always wanted more.
“I’d win a bunch of races and I’d be like, ‘Okay, I need to get to the next one, keep progressing.’ Today was the first time I was able to actually soak it in and acknowledge I’ve done something incredible.”
From 2018 to 2021 Kirkwood competed in all three steps along the Road to Indy ladder in the series now known as USF2000, USF Pro 2000, and Indy Nxt. He clinched all three championships in successive seasons with a jaw-dropping 31 wins in 50 starts. And many believe he’d have won the title in the series then known as Indy Lights a year sooner, if the Covid-19 pandemic hadn’t forced the championship into a one-year hiatus.
If you add in Kirkwood’s results in the FIA Formula 4 United States and Formula Regional Americas Championships, that adds two more championship titles to Kirkwood’s junior formula racing record and pushes his record to an astonishing 55 wins in 87 races since 2017.
In that time, Kirkwood grew accustomed to dominating races from the front and leaving his pursuers far in the distance. “Not to sound cocky or anything,…
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