There is no doubt Kyle Kirkwood was one of the breakout stars in IndyCar in 2023.
In his second year competing in North America’s premier open-wheel championship, first with Andretti, the 24-year-old Floridian visited Victory Lane for the first time in his career on the Streets of Long Beach, and then repeated the feat in at Nashville. What’s more, he was the only driver to find the top step of the podium in a team that included Colton Herta, Romain Grosjean and Devlin DeFrancesco.
However, the year proved to be feast or famine as those wins were the only times Kirkwood placed among the top five in the 17 rounds en route to finishing 11th in the championship standings. The wins provided some solace in a year plagued by a combination of mistakes or being involved in random incidents.
Reflecting back on the year, the 24-year-old doesn’t believe there was much of an adjustment in moving to Andretti from AJ Foyt Racing, where he spent his rookie season in 2022, but rather continuing to get acclimated to the nuances of IndyCar.
“Where the learning came from is just myself within the series, still understanding IndyCar,” Kirkwood told Autosport. “You know, it's weird because you come up through the ladder series and you get into IndyCar, and you have the pace. That's not a question. It wasn't a question for me. I didn't think.
“There's still so much to learn within the series and how things operate and understanding the tyres, conditions, evolution, degradation, strategy, stuff like that, and I'm just now starting to understand it. I'm getting to the point where I understand the race that we're racing, whereas at the beginning of the year or last year, I didn't understand it. I was just like, 'Okay, I'm driving until they tell me to pit.'
Source: Autosport