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Kyle Kirkwood won the 2025 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in dominant fashion, keeping the championship leader Alex Palou at bay throughout the race. The Andretti Global driver reflected on the Long Beach race and sent an ominous message to his rivals, revealing two other circuits where Andretti Global is expected to perform well.
Long Beach has always been a hunting ground for the Andretti Global team, with Colton Herta winning the race in 2021, finishing P2 in 2024, and Kirkwood winning the race in 2023 & 2025. The 2025 Long Beach race winner featured on Conor Daly's Speed Street podcast.
Kirkwood reflected on Andretti Global’s performance at Long Beach and hailed how the team usually goes well around the street circuit. Detailing the same, he revealed that Long Beach is only the third-best circuit for the team, and that Detroit and Toronto suit their car better.
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Sending an ominous message to the rival teams about the same, Kyle Kirkwood said:
“Andretti stays a little bit ahead on the street courses. Yeah, I mean, Long beach Is a special one to the team, and I couldn't really tell you why we're so good there. I actually would rate Long Beach as potentially the third best track that we go to. I think Toronto and Detroit are actually two of our better circuits.” (44:00 onwards)
“It's just Long Beach is a much more straightforward race, and it typically produces less tired deg than the other street courses. And I would say for us, tire deg is probably not our strong suit,” he added.
Kirkwood ran a perfect race at Long Beach, where he started on pole position and was in the effective lead of the race throughout the race distance. None of the drivers who started on the primary tires threatened Kirkwood's lead, and while Palou did come close, the Andretti Global driver didn't give the Spaniard even a sniff of the race win.
Kyle Kirkwood on learning a great deal by following Alex Palou at St. Pete
Kyle Kirkwood started behind Alex Palou at the season opener in St. Petersburg. The Andretti Global driver followed the defending champion around the street circuit for the major part of the race, and suggested that he learned a great deal from it, which further helped him keep the CGR driver at bay at Long Beach.
Speaking about the same, Kirkwood said:
“I understand that while I watched him do it in front of me, I understood it today when he was in my mirrors, which is a big part of today's race, and how I managed it with fuel save, making sure that we kept going a lot longer than him, and how I managed the car to only push in the times I knew that he would be pushing too.”
Alex Palou undercut Kyle Kirkwood at all three pit stops at Long Beach in an attempt to overtake the Andretti driver in the pits, but failed to do so as the overcut strategy was more powerful around the street circuit in California.
