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2026 Grand Prix of Long Beach: Kyle Kirkwood looks to repeat and more

April 14, 2026

Kyle Kirkwood is leaning into IndyCar’s media machine as the series’ man of the moment.

After winning with a brave pass in Arlington, Texas, in early March and a fifth-place finish in Alabama three weeks ago, the NTT IndyCar Series current leader and 27-year-old two-time Grand Prix of Long Beach champion feels ready to embrace the responsibility.

“It feels pretty good, I’m not going to lie,” Kirkwood said. “When I first started in IndyCar, I wasn’t getting asked to do much. I kind of just showed up to the racetrack and maybe did one event a week for the sponsor, but now, yeah, there’s a lot more requests. There’s a lot less time between races and it’s been a good thing.”

The attention comes as Kirkwood enters his fifth IndyCar season, and fourth in the seat of the No. 27 Dallara-Honda for Andretti Global. The first driver to win a championship in every Road to Indy series, Kirkwood has been training for all of this.

“There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing in this world than drive an IndyCar and all the things that come with it,” he said. “I’m loving my time in the sport right now and I would not want it to be any different.”

CONFIDENCE IS HIGH

Kirkwood arrives in Long Beach as the event’s defending champion and winner of two of the last three races in Southern California.

“(The start of this season) is kind of proving to be maybe a little bit of a confidence boost; that we can contend for a championship and we can win races,” he said.

Three years ago, Kirkwood’s win at the 2023 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach was just the first of his career. He now has six IndyCar victories under his belt.

“The question is, ‘Can we be consistent?’, and I think a lot of those questions are being answered based on our performance and capabilities,” Kirkwood said.

The moment to overtake Alex Palou to win the inaugural Grand Prix of Arlington in Texas on March 15 was based largely on confidence or “intentional risk,” Kirkwood said.

“We had to drive through the field a little to get back to (Palou), but as soon as I got to him, I was like, ‘You know what, I just need to go right now,’” Kirkwood said. “Because if I make the decision to not (pass), who knows what’s going to happen in a couple laps. Maybe my tires will degrade, maybe he’ll get faster (or) maybe he’ll start defending, and I won’t be able to get by him.

“So as soon as I saw the opportunity to try to catch him off-guard a little bit, I set myself up through Turn 12 and then down into 14 I sprayed my overtake, used all of the hybrid system that I had and gave it a good launch and a good try at it and made it stick,” Kirkwood said. “I was a little but of a risk for a reward, I’d have to say, but it was an intentional risk for reward.”

LEGEND IN LONG BEACH

Over the past 20 years, four other drivers – Will Power, Scott Dixon, Mike Conway and Alexander Rossi – have won twice at Long Beach. All are icons of the sport.

Kirkwood is now a Sunday’s drive away from joining an even more legendary list that includes Mario Andretti, Al Unser Jr., Paul Tracy and Sebastian Bourdais as three-time winners.

“We have a good shot at another win, but No. 1 is putting a good lap together in qualifying,” Kirkwood said. “Having the right race strategy is very, very important, too, and it’s what got us back into the lead last year.”

Kirkwood earned last year’s poll but ran behind race leaders to save on tires and fuel before regaining the lead following a late pit and taking it across the finish line.

“Hopefully, we won’t have as big of a target on our back as I probably would anticipate because we are the most recent winners and we have won two of the last three,” Kirkwood said. “Long Beach is typically a two-stop race, and you’re trying to go as long as you can on alternate tires.”

Rossi, who won at Long Beach in 2018 and 2019, will be inducted into the Long Beach Motorsports Walk of Fame on Thursday afternoon.

BEST IN THE U.S.?

He was called a street-course “king,” “specialist” or “merchant” by industry writers after his first four series victories, so those two wins on the streets of Long Beach, one each in Nashville, Detroit, Madison, Ill., and now Arlington have given Kirkwood something of a reputation.

“I wouldn’t say that I anticipated what street courses were going to become for me,” he said. “My background is in carting and road courses and that style of racing, but street courses have suited the team as much as me. We’ve just been clicking on street courses.”

While the debate rages among fans whether it’s Kirkwood or Palou who own the streets in IndyCar, the two-time GPLB champ deflects from engaging with driver-focused ratings or polls.

“This team still has good racing to do,” Kirkwood said. “We’ve got to win on more than just street courses to win a championship. We gotta win on road courses (and) we gotta win at ovals, which we did last year.”

His win at Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Ill., in June helped shred some of the previous labeling.

“We just gotta keep that up, and we have to keep our form at every place we go because in IndyCar, it matters what you do on all the courses and not just the street courses,” he said. “We’re only a few races in, and you’re only as good as your last race, but it is a good feeling right now.”

Orange County Register

News Details

2026 Grand Prix of Long Beach: Kyle Kirkwood looks to repeat and more

CONFIDENCE IS HIGH

LEGEND IN LONG BEACH

BEST IN THE U.S.?

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