Kyle Kirkwood is looking to attack the 2026 IndyCar campaign head on. Coming off a three-win season last year, the American driver looks for more consistency in his fifth year at the top of American open-wheel racing.
More podiums needed for title bid in 2026
Kirkwood’s season started off by being the only one to be able to keep Álex Palou out of the winners circle. He won three times in a period where the champion-to-be was deemed invincible. However, where the Spaniard managed to finish on the podium for most of the races, the three victories were the only podiums for Kirkwood.
So when asked where he wanted to keep improving on, his answer was straightforward: “Keep pushing.”
“That’s the main thing for us,” Kirkwood answered. “It’s important that we get those wins. Those wins are what kept us alive in the championship, and then it will be important to add it with some consistency. The only podiums I got last year were three wins. We need more podiums, we need more top 5s. We had a handful of top 5s but not enough podiums.“
Kyle Kirkwood glad IndyCar got rid of Iowa in 2026
The Andretti driver also lacked performance in the second half of the season. With just two top 10s after Mid-Ohio, it was clear that the performance wasn’t there. A sigh of relief could be heard from Kirkwood when he noticed Iowa was kicked from the 2026 IndyCar calendar. With a 26th and 18th place finishes, it’s not hard to guess why.
“Then the races that we maybe weren’t so good at, thankfully Iowa is gone for us. That’s one we don’t have to fix because it’s now off the schedule. But Portland, Indy, GP were a couple tracks that we were not phenomenal at, so we need to fix that and we need to fix some of our short oval stuff.
“Even though we won on a short oval, some of the cars that were the fastest all went on, so we got a little lucky with that if I am being honest. So we need a bit of performance in those places, too.”
New tracks might suit Kirkwood perfectly
Both Arlington and (likely) Washington DC were added to the 2026 IndyCar schedule, which might play into Kyle Kirkwood’s strengths, as almost all his wins have come on street tracks.
“Yeah, obviously Andretti has been very good at street courses in the however many years I’ve been watching INDYCAR if I’m being honest. It’s important that we have those. I think that’s going to help our championship run even more so.
“It’s a little tough to see Toronto go off the schedule, but hopefully with the addition of Markham that will just bring us right back in the mix.“
So a promising schedule, although Kirkwood still wants to see some improvement on other types of tracks.
“It looks good. It’s a promising layout for the season for Andretti Global, one of the tracks that we were the least good on, two of those races are now gone with Iowa and the addition of another street course, maybe the addition of another. Who knows anything about that. I don’t know.
“But yeah, things are looking up for us, and if we can just get a little bit better, like I mentioned here, if we can just get a little bit better at some of the road courses and some of the short ovals we’ll be really good.“
No-blame attitude going into 2026
With the performance dwindling in the second half of 2025, Kyle Kirkwood and the #27-crew enter the 2026 IndyCar season with a no-blame attitude. Both team and driver have dropped the ball sometimes, but rather than blaming each other, they tackle the issues together.
“I think we’re confident enough to take it on the chin with how we feel a race went or performance went,” Kirkwood explains. “I’ll definitely take it if I know I didn’t do something right, and the team does the same thing. They’ll take it if they’re like, hey, sorry the performance wasn’t there. There’s times and places last year that I know were on me for sure. It’s just capitalizing on — or making those things better, and that’s what the focus is always.
“We’ve got a good camaraderie between engineers, mechanics and drivers, and we’re all very honest with each other, which I think is very important to have within a team, rather than pointing fingers.
Better spread of races makes for an exciting start
With a string of races kicking of the 2026 IndyCar season, Kirkwood is excited to begin. This is in contrast to previous years, where there was a big gap between St. Petersburg and the next race.
“I’m excited for the start of the year,” Kirkwood said. “I hope you guys are, too. It’s the first time that we’ve had races back to back to back. We always start off the season with — I feel like it’s all this big energy, everyone is excited. We get to St. Pete, one of the best races of the car, we get huge viewership, and then we sit dormant for two or three weeks.“
In addition to his IndyCar duties, Kirkwood will also start the 12 hours of Sebring. This will be his second big endurance race of the season, after participating in the 24 hours of Daytona earlier this year.
“It’s going to be great,” Kirkwood explains. “We have two or three in a row and then I actually go to Sebring to race the 12 Hours, so I get six weekends in a row of racing which is awesome for us. We sit around for five or six months and all we want to go racing, and having a bunch of races right in a row, it’s like kicking off everything in the right direction.
“So we’re excited for it. The cadence of the year looks really nice. It’s not all filled right after May. It’s kind of a little bit more spread out, and I think it’s going to be great not only for us as drivers, the mechanics, the longevity of how we feel throughout the season but also for the fans, too, because they get to watch INDYCAR on a more regular basis.”
