08/23/26 03:29:00
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08/23 15:27 CDT Kirkwood gives the Freedom 250 an American winner on the
streets of downtown Washington
Kirkwood gives the Freedom 250 an American winner on the streets of downtown
Washington
By NOAH TRISTER
AP Sports Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) --- Kyle Kirkwood gave the Freedom 250 an American winner,
racing to his second victory of the IndyCar season on the streets of downtown
Washington in a dominant performance Sunday.
In a race set up as part of the country's 250th birthday celebration, President
Donald Trump gave drivers the green flag at the start and D.C. Mayor Muriel
Bowser served as grand marshal. Kirkwood crossed the finish line in front of
the U.S. Capitol 3.09 seconds ahead of Christian Lundgaard, after leading for
128 of a possible 147 laps.
Will Power and Marcus Ericsson, Kirkwood's teammates with Andretti Global,
finished third and fourth.
Pole winner Alex Palou, who had a chance to clinch the series title, finished
20th in his second-worst showing of the year.
After Trump's green flag, the field quickly went under caution because of
debris in Turn 4. The first big wreck came when David Malukas went into the
wall and Sting Ray Robb could do little to avoid crashing into him coming
around a turn. Just like that, two of the race's eight American drivers were
out.
Several cars went onto pit road, and that's when the day started to fall apart
for Palou. He appeared to hit a tire in someone else's area while exiting, and
he was assessed a drive-through penalty.
Later, on another pit stop, one of Palou's tires was loose when he started
driving. That caused another delay, and he ended up off the lead lap. Palou
later spun coming through a turn. His lead in the standings dropped from 133
points over second-place Kirkwood to 91 with three races to go.
Kirkwood had a commanding lead before Palou's spin caused a caution. On a
restart with 19 laps remaining, Scott McLaughlin tried to pass Kirkwood and
went into a tire barrier. Then Kirkwood pulled off a strong restart with 13
laps to go and Lundgaard didn't mount much of a threat as the 250-mile race
wound down.
Misplaced blame?
Marcus Armstrong was penalized for avoidable contact when he sent Christian
Rasmussen into a spin. Rinus VeeKay went into the wall during that incident but
appeared unaware of Armstrong's culpability when he went on TV for an interview.
"If Rasmussen's around, you know you're going to crash. Either he does or you
do," VeeKay said. "It sucks. It's stupid. It's a long race, and some people
seemingly don't know that."
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