Indy Lights Laguna Seca: Kirkwood takes Race 1 win, points lead

Kirkwood made a perfect start from pole, holding off fellow front-row starter Linus Lundqvist (Global Racing Group w/HMD) who in turn fended off his championship aspirant teammate in the HMD Motorsports car, David Malukas. Behind them their other teammate Benjamin Pedersen took fourth ahead of Danial Frost (Andretti).

The other two Andretti cars, those of Devlin DeFrancesco and Robert Megennis banged wheels in Turn 4, with the latter falling off the track briefly and losing momentum. On Lap 2, Frost lost fifth to Rasmus Lindh in the Juncos Hollinger car, and Megennis would have to pit after five laps with possible suspension issues.

By then, it appeared Lundqvist had nothing for Kirkwood who held a 2sec lead, and Malukas was looking a tad antsy to get past his teammate and at least contain the damage of Kirkwood potentially winning the race. The Andretti driver, by earning pole position for both races, had already reduced Malukas’ points lead from five to three, and the HMD driver didn’t help his cause by running wide at Turn 4 into the sand on Lap 9, and losing third to Pedersen.

Halfway through the 30-lap race, Kirkwood’s lead over Lundqvist was 7.4 seconds, while Pedersen was a further 1sec down, and Malukas was struggling in his dirty air.

Then out came the full course yellow on Lap 18, as Christian Bogle’s Carlin car appeared to drop fluid and went off the track into Turn 2, and got buried in the sandtrap.

The Lap 22 restart saw Kirkwood get a good jump on Lundqvist, who kept Pedersen and Malukas in his mirrors, while Lindh retained fifth. DeFrancesco moved up to sixth after running his other teammate Frost wide to gain sixth place. That allowed Sting Ray Robb to move the second Juncos Hollinger car up into seventh, while Race Control gave DeFrancesco a five-second penalty to be added at the end of the race for jumping the restart.

It took just two laps for Kirkwood to stretch his lead to three seconds; three laps later it was 5.6sec, and entering the final lap it was 8.4sec! He almost made it look too easy, and Malukas’ teammates showed no sign of relinquishing their positions to aid his championship quest.

Lindh held on to fifth, while DeFrancesco’s penalty dropped him to ninth.

Kirkwood's lead is now eight points, with three races to go - one tomorrow at Laguna Seca, and Mid-Ohio double-header next month.