Kyle Kirkwood entered the Freedom 250 Grand Prix trailing Alex Palou by 133 points. Palou winning the pole bumped it up to 134. He needed the race of a lifetime to keep his title hopes alive.
Kirkwood took that as a challenge and delivered.
The driver of the No. 27 Andretti Global Honda led a race high 128 laps and fended off two challengers on late restarts to win on the streets of Washington.
“That was huge, right? After last weekend, my mistakes there, kind of flipped a switch where I was like these mistakes feel terrible,” Kirkwood said. “I hadn’t had one of those in a very long time.
“Sometimes those are actually good for me because all this week I feel like I’ve worked harder than I ever have in preparation for this event. I think those preparations paid off this weekend.
“Yeah, it was a great feeling to rebound after last weekend, to get here, to see all the fans, 100,000 people on both days is absolutely incredible. The whole place there’s people, rows of five in the pace laps, all the way around the track, 1.6 miles. Super cool to see.
“To be able to win in what will be considered probably my home race, right, being the Freedom 250 as an American, is something very special. I’ll cherish this moment for a very long time.”
It’s his seventh career win in 83 career NTT INDYCAR SERIES starts and second of the 2026 season. More importantly, he cut the gap to Palou down to 91 points, with three races left.
“I’m just going to go out there and try and win every single race and see where it goes from there,” he said. “It’s starting to pan out.
“I can’t control what Palou does. Maybe in very small circumstances you can. In the sense of where he finished today or where he was going to finish today, there is no controlling that because you’re in the lead. We just had a very fortunate day in the points championship.”
Christian Lundgaard made a run at Kirkwood in the closing laps. He even cut the gap to under a second. Then he hit the wall in Turn 7 with eight laps to go and didn’t make another challenge for the lead. As he brought his No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet home to a runner-up finish.
“Yeah, I feel like I had just a couple of laps where I was faster than him,” Lundgaard said, “and then I know the 12 laps where he was faster than me, so…
“Yeah, what an experience all weekend. The best background I’ve ever had on a racetrack obviously. Just being a part of it, seeing where the series is going, being a part of it.
“Obviously the race was long. I think we got a better result than we expected. We got three more races to go. I think I’m just happy to see Alex not win for once (smiling). I hear you all laughing, so you agree with me, which is great.”
Will Power rounded out the podium.
“Yeah, that first yellow kind of hurt us,” Power said. “Man, even at that point you have so many laps to go, you’re still over a hundred laps to go, we can certainly make a lot work from here. I saved a lot of fuel. I probably would have gone three laps longer than the guys around me.
“Yeah, a lot of on-track passes, to be honest, to move up. Good strategy. Good stops. It’s just becoming normal for us to do this. We’re starting to eliminate all the weaknesses and be strong everywhere and have a chance to win everywhere.
“Team’s made huge progression over this season, and you can see it now. It’s all coming online. I think the expectation now every weekend is to be on the podium, challenge for a win.
“I think next year we’ll be wanting to be all top five in the championship type stuff.”
Marcus Ericsson and Kyffin Simpson rounded out the top-five.
Nolan Siegel, Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden, Caio Collet and Romain Grosjean rounded out the top-10.
Kyle Kirkwood keeps title hopes alive with dominant drive in Washington
Race summary
Palou led the field to green at 1:18 p.m. ET. Kirkwood pulled to Palou’s outside, out-braked him into Turn 2 and exited Turn 3 with the race lead. Caution flew on the first lap for debris in Turn 4, which came from contact between Marcus Armstrong and Christian Rasmussen. Graham Rahal was the only driver to hit pit lane under the caution.
Back to green on Lap 5, the race settled into a green flag rhythm. Caution flew on Lap 18 for debris in Turn 3. David Malukas pitted from seventh under the caution. As did Sting Ray Robb and Santino Ferrucci (who changed his steering wheel and dealt with electric issues).
Back to green on Lap 23, the field again settled into a green flag rhythm. Just laps away from a cycle of green flag stops, Malukas ran wide in Turn 7 and pounded the outside wall. Robb, with no time to evade, t-boned him. This brought out a caution on Lap 37. Rahal, along with Rinus VeeKay, Simpson and Grosjean, stayed out to take the race lead.
Back to green on Lap 44, Rahal hit the wall coming to the line. Armstrong braked hard into Turn 3 and turned Rasmussen, who collected VeeKay in the process. This brought out a caution and IndyCar handed Armstrong a stop and hold penalty for avoidable contact.
Back to green on Lap 51, Kirkwood drove from third to the race lead with an overtake of Rahal in Turn 3. A cycle of green flag stops kicked off on Lap 65. Kirkwood pitted from the lead on Lap 80, as did second-place Scott McLaughlin. Power pitted from the lead on Lap 82 and Kirkwood cycled back to the front of the field.
By Lap 87, Kirkwood, with an eight-second lead over McLaughlin, caught the tail-end of the field. After one lap, Kirkwood lost a full second of his gap to McLaughlin. He passed Rasmussen by Lap 89 and Pato O’Ward on Lap 90. By then, his lead shrank to 5.5 seconds. On Lap 92, Kirkwood cleared Louis Foster into Turn 2, and stretched his lead back out. Kirkwood stretched the lead to 7.7 seconds on Lap 96, as he reeled in points leader, Palou, the last car on the lead lap. Even as he backed off to not waste his remaining push-to-pass, he pulled out to a 14-second lead with 41 laps to go. Marcus Ericsson kicked off the last cycle of green flag stops with 37 to go. Kirkwood pitted from the lead with 36 to go. McLaughlin pitted from the lead with 33 to go. Power pitted from the lead with 31 to go and Kirkwood cycled back to the lead.
With 30 to go, Kirkwood held a 10.7 second advantage over McLaughlin. That gap vanished with 25 to go, when Palou clipped the inside wall of Turn 4, spun around and broke the front wing of his car against the outside wall.
Back to green with 19 to go, McLaughlin got the jump on Kirkwood and dive-bombed into Turn 1 for the lead, but pounded the wall on exit. Felix Rosenqvist went over a bump, got loose and spun out in the same area and caution flew.
Back to green with 13 laps to go, Kirkwood got the better restart and pulled out to a 1.5 second lead. With eight to go, however, Lundgaard cut the lead down to under a second, but lost ground to him when he got loose in Turn 7 and lost that ground he made up. With six to go, Kirkwood pulled out to a two-second lead and drove away to victory.
Kyle Kirkwood keeps title hopes alive with dominant drive in Washington
What else happened
Exiting his pit box, Palou struck a tire in Mick Schumacher’s pit box. For this, INDYCAR handed him a drive-through penalty.
Palou pitted from 17th on Lap 67, but stopped the car just as he pulled out for a loose left-front wheel and went a lap down.
On Lap 79, O’Ward carried too much speed into Turn 6, pulled into the runoff, spun his car around and rejoined the race.
Kyle Kirkwood keeps title hopes alive with dominant drive in Washington
Nuts and bolts
The race lasted two hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds, at an average speed of 93.295 mph. There were seven lead changes among four different drivers, and six cautions for 29 laps.
Palou leaves Washington with a 91-point lead over Kirkwood.
The NTT IndyCar Series returns to action, Saturday, with the Snap-on Makers and Fixers 250. The first race of a double-header weekend at the Milwaukee Mile.
