NASHVILLE — Kyle Kirkwood drove a flawless race in holding off the field for two late race restarts to take his second career NTT INDYCAR SERIES win. The Andretti Autosport driver held off a Penske driver and pole sitter Scott McLaughlin and current points leader Alex Palou breathing down his neck to give Andretti Autosport their 72nd Indy Car victory.

“Yeah, it was phenomenal afternoon,” Kirkwood said. “I mean, we absolutely nailed everything it felt like, to be honest. We had a great strategy. Car was extremely fast. Through the entire race, I feel like we were probably one of the fastest cars. I look back, I have no idea, but I assume we were.

“Andretti Autosport, AutoNation Honda keep giving me a great car that’s good on street courses. This should be more than two wins, to be honest, on street courses given the cars they’ve given me.

“I’m thrilled with this one here today. This is kind of redemption from last year. A dumb incident. Redemption from Toronto. Redemption from Detroit.

“Doesn’t feel as good as the first one. The first one was absolutely amazing at Long Beach. Now this is a step in the right direction. This helps us in our championship, get us back in the top 10 range, I imagine. This was a phenomenal day for Andretti Autosport on the 27 car.”

Kirkwood pit for the final time on Lap 52 and came out of the pits ahead of Palou. When his teammate Romain Grosjean and Penske’s Will Power pit on Lap 52 and 53 respectively, Kirkwood inherited the lead on Lap 54 and would never look back in leading the final 27 circuits around the 2.17-mile Nashville street course.

The win looked like it was going to come easily before that Lap 71 caution for rookie Linus Lundqvist who slammed the Turn 11 wall bringing out just the second caution of the day. On the Lap 74 restart, a chain reaction crash behind off the final corner between Felix Rosenqvist, Agustin Canapino and Benjamin Pedersen occurred.

The red flag was displayed for which the drivers baked on pit road for 11 minutes. They’d get back going on Lap 77 and Kirkwood pulled away en route to the win.

McLaughlin finished .7633-seconds behind with Palou, Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon rounding out the top five.

Here are my top five takeaways.

Strategy Race Helps Kirkwood Win

Kyle Kirkwood noted that he didn’t pass many cars on Sunday but despite doing so and coming from 8th at the start, he won. That’s a full credit to the No. 27 Dallara-Honda team for Andretti Autosport in having a great strategy day and flawless pit stops to score him the win.

“A lot of things happen in the pit strategy,” Kirkwood admitted. “The first pit stop, a lot of things happened there. I passed a few cars. Wasn’t a bunch. I passed Colton, Malukas and I think Will technically for position. We kind of overcut Romain and got McLaughlin and Palou pitted. I think that’s kind of what cycled us up there.

“It wasn’t like I drove through the field from eighth place. It was more like we played our strategy, played our cards right, did everything right when we had clean air. It cycled us up to the point.”

Kirkwood noted that a win like this is just as satisfying as one to where he dominated like he did in Long Beach to where he won 53 of 85 laps.

“I think they’re both extremely satisfying in different ways, right? As a driver, if you just drive through everyone, you feel like you race super well, you get a satisfaction I guess within yourself.

“You also get a satisfaction on days like today where the team executed. Then you have this aura around you, you have kind of this feeling within the team that everything’s clicking, which is something that’s so important for future races, not only just that one race.

“Honestly, I think ones like today are even better than ones where you feel like the driver is on top of the world.”

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Lap 71 Caution Helps Palou, Keeps Championship Advantage

Sometimes all you need is a little bit of luck. That’s the kind of year that Alex Palou is having. He took advantage of the early race caution for David Malukas’ rear wing falling off unexpectedly on Lap 13. While running third, Palou elected to hit pit lane under caution as it was looking then puzzling that only three total cars, Palou included, chose to pit at that time.

For a race that has a lot of attrition and caution laps, this one didn’t and as a result, could have opened this championship race right up.

Palou pit on Lap 14 and extended it to Lap 45 for his second stop. However, that’s a 35 lap final stint when these cars hold a max of 31-32 laps of fuel. He’d have to save massively or hope for cautions.

Their plan all along was to get the help for cautions.

Out of the 160 combined race laps turned in the first two editions of this event, 43% of them were under caution periods with 38% of the cars being loaded back on the haulers early after crashes.

The inaugural race saw 9 cautions for 33 laps. Last year’s was one less yellow (8) but more caution laps (36).

This one? Just three cautions. However, only one came in the first 70 laps which if that Lap 71 crash doesn’t happen, Palou was going to have to pit again.

Barry Wanser, his strategist, told him a few laps prior to push hard to build a gap in anticipation of having to hit pit road. Palou would do just that.

Then came that championship saving caution.

“Today we were, like, done,” Palou admitted. “We couldn’t really save that much fuel. It was impossible. We were already saving and losing like 2 seconds a lap, 2.5. They told me to go.

“We did one full lap of going because we wanted to get some lap time, try and pass some cars that were, like, 20th or whatever. Suddenly the yellow came. I was like, Yeah. Then another yellow that helped me a lot so I could at least be a bit more aggressive or defensive on the last restart.”

He’d be able to save enough fuel under that caution, plus getting the benefit of the doubt for a second one on the Lap 74 restart and bring his No. 10 Dallara-Honda home on the podium in third.

“I try and get advantage of that. I’ll try and get advantage of that because I know it’s not often,” he said of that luck. “Last year we didn’t win a race until the last race. I thought that every race we had something wrong going on, on our strategy or race. This year is the opposite. I’ll take it.

“Yeah, we made a really aggressive call on that first yellow, like lap 13 or 14. We pitted. It was the plan honestly. We spoke about it. I was pushing for it. It wasn’t the right call today.

“We expected a lot more cautions throughout the race. So, yeah, we learned I think we were super, super lucky today. Luck was on our favor because we were not going to make it. Then those yellows came.

“But, yeah, it was a very stressful race. I think I lost like five years of my life just trying to save fuel, a lot of fuel, and praying for a yellow. It finally came, which was good for me, not for you. It was perfect for me.

“Yeah, it was overall a really good day. Could have been a lot cleaner and a lot easier. We wanted to make it a bit too hard.”

Palou said that he wasn’t too shocked to see just 8 caution laps this year. He noted that if you look at Detroit, Belle Isle, the past three years, it was two years in a row it was completely, like, crash-ville as well. Suddenly the last one, no cautions till the last lap.

“It goes that way when we know it’s tight, we know there’s going to be a lot of yellows. We should have thought about that maybe more. It was just purely our fault,” he continued.

Josef Newgarden had nothing for Palou on the two restarts and would finish behind Palou allowing the gap to grow from 80 points to 84 with four races remaining.

“I was just wanting to finish the race,” said Palou. “Without our issue on strategies, I was wanting to go for the win honestly. I thought we had the car and the pace to fight for the win today.

“Yeah, we lost an opportunity, but also super happy to be on the podium, especially with the lap that we needed today, that we got it.

“Yeah, it was a 10 out of 10 day at the end results-wise.

“Until they give us the trophy… I think Josef can win the last four races. Why not? Everybody can do it. We can do it, as well.

“Yeah, on this championship, on this series, unfortunately I don’t think you can just take it easy, especially now with all the work we did. We don’t want to race to finish ninth. Maybe on the last race I would take that, absolutely.

“But, yeah, with Indy road course coming up, we won there on May, I think we know we have a fast car. We have an opportunity to win there again. Then Scott told me that he’s going to win at Gateway. That’s it.”

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McLaughlin Runner-Up Again, Frustrated With Restarts

For the second consecutive year, Scott McLaughlin led the field to green in the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix. For the second straight year, McLaughlin finished a close second too.

McLaughlin led 25 of 80 laps but just didn’t have enough over the final stint to pass Kyle Kirkwood as the New Zealand native had to settle for another runner-up finish on these 2.17-mile streets.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m disappointed,” McLaughlin said. “But it is what it is. I think we had a really fast car today. Just that first yellow destroyed a few things, which is probably going to play. You hope it doesn’t come, but it came. You take it or lose your advantage, try to reset and go again. That’s what we decided, the latter.”

McLaughlin led the first 24 laps before hitting pit road for the first time of the day on Lap 25. Most thought he messed up by not pitting under that first caution of the day on Lap 14, but that proved to be a potential mistake if he had.

It nearly cost Alex Palou to where McLaughlin was never worried about pit cycles. He pit for the final time on Lap 52. However, Kirkwood was already ahead and with the advantage.

McLaughlin had nothing for him over that final stint. Even with the help of two late race cautions, he never could get by on the pair of restarts.

“Yeah, we did pretty well. We were able to come back a little bit. But overall Kyle (Kirkwood) just had that little shorter stop that he could do, away they went.

“I was trying to do my best to hunt him down at the end. I just had a poor restart. I had no temp in my rear tires for some reason. So annoying. I don’t know what happened. Like I didn’t change my procedure. I’m normally pretty good on restarts, but I was terrible.

“Yeah, got to do a little bit of study on that. I think if I was a little bit closer, I might have been able to maybe throw a little dive bomb at him. Unfortunately couldn’t.”

While he feels like this was a race that got away from him, McLaughlin also feels irate with how these races are restarted.

“I just think from a sport perspective, though, the restarts are a joke,” he said. “We need to, like, I think we need to start on the start/finish line. We cannot pass until the start/finish line. You’re always going to have these yellows. You’re always going to have these clusters that cause red flags and make us look like…

“Yeah, there’s no cadence. Once there’s a yellow flag on a street circuit, it’s just a free-for-all. People bomb. We’re well within our rights to do that. If we want to have a pure race, we could have had a 10-lap shootout, me and Kyle there at the end. Instead we’re stop, start, stop, start. The action is fantastic. We just have no race.

“I just think everywhere we go, we don’t have to have it for ovals, but I think it happens at Long Beach. We talked about doing it, like, about not passing till the apex of the last corner. At least that.

“I think when it goes green, there’s kamikazes at the back and don’t care. Well within their right to throw it inside when it turns green. That’s fine. But we just have this terrible just stop, start, amateur-ish looking finish to races.

“I’m going to speak to Jay about it, Novak. We just need to go apex last corner or start/finish line. Just make a point where you can’t pass just to get it going.

“Look, I might be wrong. I might crash in turn one. What I’m saying, I’ve done it in Supercars. Formula 1 does it. Other sports around the world do it. It just gets the race going.

“Everyone is on cold tires. Someone is going to have a mistake. The guy behind him is going to go, I have a crack. People getting hurt. Rah-rah. I just think it looks amateur-ish, it really does.

“Road America this year, I passed Rahal before the last corner. I felt like a kamikaze. You have to run the rules how they’re run.

“It’s just such a simple thing. We move restarts, we do that, we do that. Nothing works until we, like, police it. We have to police something. It pisses me off, it really does.”

While it’s not a win, McLaughlin still carries on the momentum into next weekend’s race at Indy. This was his 2nd runner-up in the last 3 races and sixth consecutive top six result too. He’s qualified on the front row in five of the last seven races including four straight too.

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Honda Perfect 5-for-5 On Street Courses

Chevrolet is undefeated on ovals (4-0). Honda ends the year undefeated on street courses (5-0). With Kyle Kirkwood winning, he gave Honda a clean sweep on the city streets and their 7th straight win on them when dating back to last season even.

Also, Honda took 11 of the 15 podiums too. It went Ganassi-McLaren-Ganassi in St. Pete, Andretti-Andretti-Ganassi in Long Beach, Ganassi-Penske-McLaren in Detroit, RLL-Ganassi-Andretti in Toronto and now Andretti-Penske-Ganassi in Nashville.

That’s 6 podiums for Ganassi, 4 for Andretti, 2 for Penske and McLaren each and 1 for RLL. Honda’s led 54 of 80 laps on Sunday.

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Dixon Nets 199th Career Top 5

Scott Dixon’s quietly strong season continues to get overshadowed again. The six-time series champion brought his No. 9 Dallara-Honda home in fifth on Sunday for his 199th career top five finish in his 381st career start. In fact, this as his 318th straight race for which tied Tony Kanaan for most consecutive starts in Indy Car history.

He will break the record next Saturday at Indy for which will be another record setting day for him there. He has led the most laps in Indy 500 history and one pole shy of tying the poles record too. Now, he’ll get the most consecutive starts record too.

It’s been a wildly strong season for him for which no one is talking about. Sunday was Dixon’s 7th top 5 finish in 13 races run this season and 12th top 10 at that. He’s finished worse than 7th just once and that came when he was punted by Pato O’Ward while running in the top seven at Long Beach.

On a weekend that saw him make an uncharacterizable bad mistake in qualifying for which he crashed in the final seconds in the second round which relegated him to a 12th place start, he still rebounded to finish in the top five for a third straight year here.

I mean just look at his finishes since May: 6th, 6th, 4th, 4th, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 6th, 5th. Most years, that would be good enough for a points lead. But, when Palou has finished 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 8th, 3rd, 3rd in the same stretch, Dixon’s run begins to get overshadowed.

Big Machine Music City Grand Prix Results

1. (8) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 80, Running
2. (1) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 80, Running
3. (4) Alex Palou, Honda, 80, Running
4. (9) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 80, Running
5. (12) Scott Dixon, Honda, 80, Running
6. (6) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 80, Running
7. (20) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 80, Running
8. (2) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 80, Running
9. (13) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 80, Running
10. (7) Will Power, Chevrolet, 80, Running
11. (17) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 80, Running
12. (18) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 80, Running
13. (16) Marcus Armstrong, Chevrolet, 80, Running
14. (19) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 80, Running
15. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 80, Running
16. (27) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Chevrolet, 80, Running
17. (24) Sting Ray Robb, Honda, 80, Running
18. (21) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 80, Running
19. (10) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 78, Running
20. (23) Agustin Canapino, Chevrolet, 77, Off Course
21. (3) Colton Herta, Honda, 76, Mechanical
22. (14) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 73, Contact
23. (25) Benjamin Pedersen, Chevrolet, 73, Contact
24. (22) Jack Harvey, Honda, 71, Contact
25. (11) Linus Lundqvist, Honda, 69, Contact
26. (26) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 65, Contact
27. (5) David Malukas, Honda, 11, Mechanical

Race Statistics
Winner’s average speed: 85.396 mph
Time of Race: 01:58:02.3028
Margin of victory: 0.7633 of a second
Cautions: 4 for 8 laps
Lead changes: 9 among 6 drivers

Lap Leaders:
McLaughlin, Scott 1 – 24
Grosjean, Romain 25 – 27
Kirkwood, Kyle 28
Ericsson, Marcus 29 – 32
Palou, Alex 33 – 44
Kirkwood, Kyle 45 – 50
McLaughlin, Scott 51
Grosjean, Romain 52
Power, Will 53
Kirkwood, Kyle 54 – 80

NTT INDYCAR SERIES Point Standings: Palou 513, Newgarden 429, Dixon 387, McLaughlin 371, Ericsson 357, O’Ward 353, Power 337, Lundgaard 297, Kirkwood 290, Herta 285, Rossi 276, Grosjean 241, Rosenqvist 241, Ilott 203, VeeKay 199, Rahal 197, Malukas 181, Armstrong 173, Ferrucci 163, Castroneves 162, Canapino 142, DeFrancesco 133, Harvey 130, Daly 120, Robb 105, Pedersen 97, Pagenaud 88, Hunter-Reay 76, Sato 65, Carpenter 40, Kanaan 18, Andretti 13, Blomqvist 5, Enerson 5, Legge 5, Lundqvist 5