LONG BEACH, Calif. – Kyle Kirkwood didn’t stay up front all day after his first IndyCar start from pole, but the Andretti Autosport driver finished there.
The second-year driver capped a stellar weekend for Michael Andretti’s program that included a 1-2-4 finish after he jumped Team Penske and Josef Newgarden on the final pit stop sequence of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Here’s how Kirkwood did it, becoming IndyCar’s initial first-time winner of the 2023 campaign.
Josef Newgarden creeps up with strong start, fast stop
Helio Castroneves brought out the 85-lap race’s first caution, spinning on cold tires coming into Turn 1, but in the few seconds the race was green, Newgarden jumped four cars, going from eighth to fourth. Having started on primary tires at a track that ate up the green alternates all weekend, Newgarden survived subsequent attacks from those around him and bided his time until Lap 19, when he snagged third place from Grosjean.
The next lap, Pato O’Ward dove inside on Scott Dixon, and the pair slammed tires, with Dixon ending up in the Turn 8 tire barrier. A couple of laps after the caution, the pits opened, and all but one car made its first of two planned stops. There, Newgarden leap-frogged Marcus Ericsson for second place and saved almost-certain contact with Kirkwood after fish-tailing out of his pit box.
Newgarden takes the lead on a chaotic restart
On the Lap 26 restart, Juncos Hollinger Racing rookie Agustin Canapino led the field to green, having opted not to pit. His JHR teammate Callum Ilott pulled off of pitlane and blended just in front of his teammate, forcing a stack-up of cars behind him. Castroneves got into Canapino while trying to get around. In that chaos, Canapino got into Kirkwood, giving Newgarden a window to get around them both and surge into the lead ‒ where he’d stay for 27 laps.
At that point, Kirkwood had fallen 1.5 seconds back of Team Penske’s two-time champ and last year’s Long Beach winner, but the young Andretti driver would proceed to slowly close that gap across the next stint, eventually coming within just two-tenths of the leader ahead of the final series of pit stops.
Kyle Kirkwood’s final pit stop
Newgarden kicked off the final series of leader stops on Lap 52. The following lap, Grosjean dipped in from third, and the Swiss-born Frenchman jumped Newgarden on the blend. Kirkwood pitted the following lap (Lap 54), along with Marcus Ericsson, and the Andretti driver’s No. 27 crew got him out of the pits ahead of both Grosjean and Newgarden to retake the lead.
With everyone in the lead pack on primary tires, no one held a significant advantage. Newgarden’s early pit stop forced him to conserve fuel more than the rest. He eventually finished sixth.
After a pair of ‘what could’ve been’ finishes to start the year, Grosjean finished runner-up at Long Beach, with Ericsson taking over the points lead in third place to go with his season-opening win at St. Petersburg. Colton Herta, who won at Long Beach in 2021, finished fourth, and Alex Palou fifth.