As Mile IndyCar weekend opens, Kyle Kirkwood has high hopes, huge climb

WEST ALLIS – Kyle Kirkwood was still walking on air when he got to the Milwaukee Mile five days after winning IndyCar’s first race in Washington.

But then it was time to strap on his helmet and focus on business.

“I’m trying, trying my hardest,” Kirkwood said before the weekend’s lone practice session of the Snap-on 250 doubleheader weekend Aug. 28. “A lot of people, everybody’s still talking about D.C. and rightfully so because it’s such a good event. But we’ve got to switch gears here now.”

Kirkwood has three races to overcome a nearly insurmountable points deficit as Alex Palou works toward his fourth straight NTT IndyCar Series title and fifth overall.

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The 90-minute practice Friday leads into qualifying at 10:05 a.m. Saturday. The first of two timed laps for each driver sets the field for the Snap-on Makers and Fixers 250 at 1:50 p.m. Saturday and the second does the same for the Snap-on Milwaukee Mile 250 at 12:20 p.m. Sunday.

“This [weekend] weighs the most out of the championship,” Kirkwood continued. “Double points, a weekend with two races and in qualifying you have an opportunity to get two poles in two laps.

“So this is a big weekend for us in the championship and it’ll decide whether we’re fighting for a championship or we’re fighting for second.”

Kirkwood’s best finish at the Milwaukee Mile was eighth in the second half of a 2024 doubleheader.

He’ll need more, as well as a lot of help, to eat into Palou’s lead of 91 points quickly enough to stay in contention. The maximum a driver can earn in a race is 54 points (50 for first place plus one for leading a lap as well as one for the pole and two for leading the most laps). Last place in a field of 25 is worth five.

In a single race at the Mile in 2025, Palou led the most laps and finished second. If he were to earn maximum points in the first half of this doubleheader, the 29-year-old Spaniard would clinch with two races remaining.

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“I haven’t really looked much” at clinch scenarios, Palou said. “I know that we have a good cushion, but at the same time, I know that a bad race suddenly kills like 40, 50 points. So, although we have a good cushion, there’s still three races to go.

“If I have the chance to go for the win, I’ll go.  I know that’s going to be the best scenario possible. And I wouldn’t really be mad if something goes wrong trying to go for the win.”

Then there’s always Sunday, and Palou would still have a sizeable cushion.

Drivers and teams went into the only practice session of the weekend with varying agendas.

For Kirkwood it was mostly about backing up what was learned in the July test, when all three Andretti Global Hondas were fast.

“We don’t have a lot of time to figure stuff out, right?,” Kirkwood said. “One practice, not a lot of tires. It’s going to be a struggle to really just make sure we got everything and hopefully we roll off the trailer well because that’s going to be the most important thing this weekend.”

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Teams have 14 sets of tires to use throughout the weekend. The value of having fresh tires available in case of a caution flag late in a race became clear a year ago, when Christian Rasmussen stopped with 37 laps to go, restarted seventh and raced his way to the front and past Palou in 13 laps on the way to his first victory.

Given that history, and the limited practice time and tires, Marcus Ericsson, one of Kirkwood’s teammates, went into the session focused on his car for race conditions.

“Of course, it would be nice to qualify on the front row or on pole. That would be fantastic,” Ericsson said. “But at the same time, if I qualify 15th but I know I have a really good race car, I’ll take that. Because it’s going to be two long races and you’re going to be able to drive from the back to the front if you have a good race car.”

For Palou, the session was about trying to get closer to his pace of 12 months ago than what he showed at the test, when he was about three-tenths of a second behind leader Scott McLaughlin on a 22 ½-second lap.

He aimed to find strong qualifying and race setups all within the constraints of the short session.

“Like, it’s 5 p.m.,” Palou said. “We’re not gonna race or qualify at this time, the track is gonna be very different.”

(Check back after practice for updates.)

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: As Mile IndyCar weekend opens, Kyle Kirkwood has high hopes, huge climb