With 22 laps to go, Kyle Kirkwood pitted with race leader Alex Palou. His stop was two seconds slower and exited pit road trailing the reigning IndyCar champion. Over the next six laps, he reeled in Palou and cut the gap to under a second. With 16 to go, Kirkwood dove inside of Palou into Turn 14 to overtake him for the race lead.
Then a caution flew.
“I thought we weren’t going to do that, quite honestly, after the 500 a few years ago,” Kirkwood said. “I mean, I get it. Their first and foremost thing is to get a green-flag finish. Whatever it might take to get that done, I get it.
“Of course, when you see a five-and-a-half-second lead that you stretched and worked very hard to stretch go down to zero for one lap, it can get very frustrating inside the car.”
Christian Rasmussen stalled on track with four laps to go and forced a one lap shootout. Just after the restart, Nolan Siegel and Romain Grosjean wrecked, brought out the caution and handed the victory to Kirkwood.
“Passed Palou, which is a very rare thing to say in a race,” he said. “Yeah, it was kind of all or nothing. He was so good in the four, five, six, seven, eight, nine section, the tight, twisty bit. It was hard to get to his gearbox to make a pass on the straight. It put me in a position where we’re good on the straight, right now, trimmed more than him, good under braking, and I knew that he was going to brake a little bit later there because his car was bottoming more than ours.
“Yeah, just had to do a bit of a late lunge and surprise him a little bit because if he started defending there was probably no chance of us getting by him ’cause that was probably the only place we were going to be able to pass him.”
It’s his sixth career victory in his 71st NTT INDYCAR SERIES start and first of the 2026 season.
“I mean, it’s a statement on how good we are on street courses, right? We’re able to do this at a few street courses,” he said. “It’s incredible to see that we’re able to do it at another one. We’re adding street courses to our calendar.
“A lot of it’s due to this guy, the engineers, and the group that he’s been able to rally together to give us this performance, right? It’s not just me out there driving one of these cars. It’s all the hard work that goes into one of these street courses is why we have the performance we have. It’s the reason why we had the pole, finished 1, 3 and 4. Palou is always there (smiling).”
Palou led a race high of 16 laps on his way to a runner-up finish. Will Power rounded out the podium and earned his first podium finish of the season.
“Yeah, I tried hard, man,” Palou said. “Kirkwood was really fast. I could see already on second and third stint that I was pushing as much as I could, using OT to try to get gaps. He was closing 3, 4/10ths on me. I was like, Oh, man, it’s going to be tough.
“Yeah, he just passed me incredibly. It was a very awesome overtake. Should have obviously defended a little bit better. It’s very easy to say now.
“Yeah, honestly didn’t really have much for him. I think I’m really happy getting on the podium and trying to steal a little bit of Andretti’s party this weekend. Yeah, right? Will was incredible on those alternates as well, making them last. They told me he had to do 12 laps more. I was like, In two laps he’s just going to die.
“Very impressive.”
“Yeah, very nice,” Power said. “Honestly, I just wanted to have a clean weekend after the first two. Obviously last week we had a shot at the win or at least a podium. It’s very nice to get one today.
“Very happy with the new team. Very, very strong. Very strong. Still improving a lot, too. I think this will be the team to beat this year actually. I was saying three years it would take us to get everything, but I’m going to say this year (smiling). It’s good stuff.”
Pole sitter Marcus Ericsson and Pato O’Ward rounded out the top-five.
David Malukas, Felix Rosenqvist, Christian Lundgaard (who recovered from an early spin), Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi rounded out the top-10.
Kyle Kirkwood makes late overtake to win in Arlington
Race summary
Ericsson led the field to green at 12:20 p.m. ET. The field settled into a green flag racing rhythm, while also making green flag stops beginning on Lap 5. Ericsson pitted from the lead on Lap 16, as did Palou. Ericsson suffered a wheel gun issue and exited pit lane behind Palou. Power pitted from the lead on Lap 18. Rosenqvist pitted from the lead on Lap 20 and Power cycled back to the lead on Lap 21.
He pitted from the lead on Lap 22. As he left his pit box, he lost time exiting as Louis Foster came into his box and forced him to stop. Palou cycled to the lead.
Palou pitted from the lead on Lap 28 and took Firestone blacks. Rosenqvist pitted from the lead on Lap 35 and took Firestone reds. Power pitted from the lead with 25 laps to go. Palou pit from the lead with 22 to go.
With 18 to go, Kirkwood, who pitted with Palou with 22 to go, cut the gap to Palou from two seconds to under a second. With 16 to go, Kirkwood dove inside in Turn 14 and overtook Palou for the race lead.
Caution flew for the first time with four laps to go when Christian Rasmussen stalled his car on track near pit exit.
Kyle Kirkwood makes late overtake to win in Arlington
What else happened
Exiting Turn 2 on Lap 3, Mick Schumacher turned Lundgaard. Schumacher received a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact.
As Dixon entered his pit stall on Lap 5, he hit one of the tires of his teammate, Kyffin Simpson. Because Simpson nudged it into Dixon’s path, INDYCAR handed him a drive-through penalty for hitting equipment.
Josef Newgarden exited pit road on Lap 21, he made contact with teammate Malukas and spun in Turn 3.
Schumacher made contact with Newgarden, who was leaving pit lane, and spun in Turn 2, but turned himself around and drove away on Lap 39.
Kyle Kirkwood makes late overtake to win in Arlington
Nuts and bolts
The race lasted one hour, 55 minutes and 43 seconds, at an average speed of 99.086 mph. There were eight lead changes among five different drivers and two cautions for two laps.
Kirkwood leaves Arlington, Texas, with a 26-point lead over Palou.
The NTT IndyCar Series returns to action on March 29, at Barber Motorsports Park.
