In his first season with the crew and simply his second as a full-time driver within the IndyCar Sequence, Kyle Kirkwood has emerged as one of the best out of the Andretti Autosport camp thus far in 2023. The 24-year-old clinched his second win of the season yesterday at Nashville’s Music Metropolis Grand Prix, including to his maiden IndyCar triumph on the streets of Lengthy Seaside again in April.
Sunday’s end result pushed Kirkwood to ninth within the championship standings, 5 factors away from his closest teammate, Colton Herta, and nicely away from the remaining Andretti drivers, Romain Grosjean and Devlin DeFrancesco, who sit at thirteenth and twenty second within the standings, respectively. With Kirkwood forward of Herta within the standings with simply 4 races left within the season, the Floridian may have taken the symbolic torch from Herta because the chief of the 4 Andretti drivers.
Maybe that torch was handed in April, when Bryan Herta, Colton’s father and race strategist since 2021, moved over from his son’s #26 automotive to Kirkwood’s #27. Whereas Colton owns probably the most wins of any Andretti driver since 2021, a crew resolution was made following the opening race of the season at St. Petersburg, breaking apart the father-son duo whose working relationship was marred by frequent mid-race spats over the radio.
Talking on the brand new pair’s working relationship after their win in Nashville., Kirkwood stated “It’s clicked proper from the beginning. We’ve executed tremendous nicely collectively. Bryan is a wealth of information. I all the time belief.. him to name one of the best technique, it doesn’t matter what. I’ve by no means doubted him, not for one minute.”
The swap is working in favor of Kirkwood to an extent, with the second-year driver forward of Herta in each the factors and wins columns regardless of much less a constant season general. Herta has two extra top-10 finishes and a further pole place to his identify so far in ’23.
Nevertheless, Kirkwood doesn’t view racing in opposition to his teammates the identical as racing in opposition to others, saying “I are likely to not contemplate teammates as opponents. I believe all of us work collectively tremendous nicely.” after a battle with Grosjean in Nashville. The now two-time race winner praised Andretti Autosport afterward in Sunday’s post-race press convention, stating “Truthfully, the crew has executed a fantastic job. Each weekend we’ve gone into, I believe we’ve executed all the things just about precisely the way it needs to be performed.”
Regardless of the 2 wins Kirkwood has earned this season, it’s clear that Herta remains to be the lead man at Andretti, a minimum of for now. Though the 23-year-old was denied a Tremendous Licence by the FIA with a view to compete in Components 1 in September, he nonetheless seems to be the person that Michael Andretti desires to take with him ought to a possible Andretti F1 entry come to fruition. This might truly work in favor of Kirkwood. If Herta leaves for F1 in some unspecified time in the future within the close to future, Kirkwood would seemingly slide as much as the #1 spot at Andretti’s IndyCar outfit ought to he stick with the crew.
