McLaughlin pipped by Kirkwood for Nashville win

After two late full course yellows and a red flag period, Kyle Kirkwood picked up the second win of his IndyCar Series career in Sunday’s Music City Grand Prix on the streets of Nashville.

When the green flag flew on Lap 77 in the 80-lap race, Kirkwood pulled out to a lead that could not be overcome, winning by 0.7633 seconds over pole-sitter Scott McLaughlin.

“He was so fast at the end,” Kirkwood said of McLaughlin. “We were really good on just the initial lap, but right there at the end, man, they were so fast and they ran me down just in that last lap. But I’ve got to give it up to the 27 crew, they played everything in my favor to be honest. They gave me all the tools I needed, I really only made a couple of passes on track and they cycled me to the front on strategy and we just made really smart decision and hit all of our marks so just a solid day for the 27 crew no doubt.”

IndyCar points leader Alex Palou overcame a risky strategy call to finish third ahead of Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon rounding out the top five.

Race control waved off the start of the race because they were not satisfied with the field’s alignment but the field received the green flag the next time by.

McLaughlin led from the start and pulled away to a sizable gap before the race’s first true full course yellow. David Malukas had a structural failure of some kind in the rear of the car that caused his rear wing to collapse at the same time his gearbox failed.

The #18 Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports Honda went into the Turn 9 runoff trailing some small flames.

The race resumed on Lap 15 and McLaughlin pitted 10 laps later, handing the lead to Romain Grosjean.

Grosjean pitted three laps later to hand the lead to Kyle Kirkwood who pitted one lap later.

After Marcus Ericsson picked up the lead for a handful of laps, Palou ascended to the lead when the 2021 Nashville winner pitted on Lap 33.

Palou led the next 12 laps before pitting on Lap 45, giving the lead back to Kirkwood, and race strategies then became more defined. Palou needed more full course yellow laps to stretch his fuel to the end. Many competitors were expecting more full course yellow laps, given that the previous two runnings of this race had a combined 17 full course yellow periods between them.

The yellow flags did not materialize in the middle of the race for Palou. Running in third place with higher and higher fuel saving demands being placed on the Spaniard from the pit wall, the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing crew then told their driver to start pushing and that they would pit.

Shortly after Palou set the second fastest lap of the race to that point, Linus Lundqvist hit the wall at the exit of Turn 11. The No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda was out of the race with a damaged right front suspension, bringing out the much-anticipated full course yellow.

After a brief cleanup, the race resumed on Lap 74. Within 20 seconds, chaos returned to Nashville in Turn 11. Colton Herta hit the same wall Lundqvist hit. Shortly behind Herta, Ryan Hunter-Reay went inside Felix Rosenqvist, pushing the Swedish racer onto the loose tire debris on outside groove, sending the #6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet into the wall leaving Agustin Canapino with nowhere to go.

Benjamin Pedersen was also trapped and hit the No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet, causing a three car stack into the barrier. Race control called for the red flag to clean the incident area, bringing everybody to pit road.

After an 11 minute delay, race control brought the field back under yellow with another late race restart. Kirkwood pulled away immediately and eventually had a gap of over two and a  half seconds. McLaughlin and Palou reeled in the Floridian but were unable to complete the pass, leaving McLaughlin to finish second at Nashville for the second year in a row.

Palou’s points lead over Newgarden grew four points to 84 with Dixon third, 126 points behind Palou and McLaughlin 142 points out of the lead with four races remaining.