A heavy Kirkwood Milwaukee crash has left Kyle Kirkwood’s IndyCar title bid bruised before a wheel has been turned in anger, the Andretti Global driver wrecking his car in a late clash with Christian Rasmussen during the only practice session of the weekend at the Milwaukee Mile.
The contact came in the closing 30 minutes of Friday’s sole 90-minute session.
Kirkwood dived to the inside of Rasmussen on the exit of Turn 2, but the pair touched on the way into Turn 3.
The hit spun Kirkwood’s #27 Honda back into Rasmussen and launched both cars into the outside wall, Rasmussen’s #21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet briefly catching air as its right-front tyre climbed over Kirkwood’s left sidepod and brushed past the aeroscreen.
Kirkwood Milwaukee crash: “He turned in early”
Kirkwood, running fifth overall at the time, was measured afterwards but did not accept blame for the crash. “It wasn’t actually meant to be aggressive,” he told Motorsport.com. “I was just getting into some race running there. The Sam’s Club Honda was super fast.
“He started to turn in really early and I don’t know if his spotter didn’t tell him that I was still there on the inside, or if he expected me to turn down early. It’s unfortunate. That’s not the thing you want to end practice like.”
The timing could hardly be worse. Rasmussen is the defending winner at the mile oval, having taken his maiden IndyCar victory there a year ago, and both cars now face significant repair work before Saturday’s Snap-on 250 — the first leg of a doubleheader that also runs on Sunday.
Palou’s penalty offers Kirkwood a lifeline
The 27-year-old Floridian arrived in Wisconsin second in the standings, 91 points behind runaway leader Alex Palou with three races left, and fresh from victory in last weekend’s inaugural Freedom 250 Grand Prix in Washington D.C. On paper, only a run of near-perfect weekends keeps him mathematically alive; Palou is on the cusp of a fifth IndyCar crown.
Yet the Spaniard’s clinching weekend has been complicated too. RACER reports Palou is one of five drivers hit with grid penalties for race one, the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda dropping nine places — a meaningful handicap at a 1.015-mile oval where track position is everything and passing is a genuine effort.
Palou had topped the timesheets for much of practice before Josef Newgarden reclaimed top spot for Team Penske late on with a lap at 159.430mph. With qualifying, both 250-lap races and pit-stop work squeezed into a compressed schedule, teams had a single session to cover setups for all of it, which goes some way to explaining why the track was so busy when Kirkwood and Rasmussen found each other.
What it means for the title fight
Kirkwood needs Palou to have another difficult afternoon — and, crucially, needs to be there to capitalise. A repaired car and a grid slot earned from limited running is not the platform he wanted, but the nine-place drop for his rival at least offers a route into the race that did not exist 24 hours ago.
Race one is scheduled for 2:50pm ET on Saturday, with race two at 1:20pm ET on Sunday, both live on FOX. We previewed the weekend and the title permutations in full in our IndyCar Milwaukee doubleheader guide.
If Kirkwood is to author the miracle his championship needs, it starts with getting a rebuilt #27 to the flag.
