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Mid-Ohio Indy Lights: Kirkwood dominates, heads Andretti 1-2

Kyle Kirkwood led the first race of the Indy Lights double-header at Mid-Ohio from pole to checkered flag, scoring his fifth win of the 2021 Cooper Tires Indy Lights season, and again move into the lead of the championship.

Kyle Kirkwood, Andretti Autosport

Kyle Kirkwood, Andretti Autosport

Road To Indy

Andretti Autosport’s pole-winner Kyle Kirkwood got the jump on David Malukas, and survived the HMD Motorsports driver’s attempts to pass him around the outside at the Keyhole (Turn 2) to establish a 0.7420sec lead at the end of the first lap.

Danial Frost in the second highest Andretti car retained third equi-distant behind Malukas with Linus Lundqvist in the Global Racing Group / HMD car in fourth ahead of Devlin DeFrancesco (Andretti) and Benjamin Pedersen (GRG/HMD). Toby Sowery of Juncos Racing was the main mover, climbing from ninth to seventh on the opening lap.

Over the first three laps, the top three separated themselves from Lundqvist, but by Lap 7, Kirkwood and Malukas were also pulling away from Frost, the latter falling more than one second behind the HMD driver, and by Lap 10 he was two seconds adrift. That said, Frost had gapped Lundqvist by 3.5sec as the Swede continued to run under pressure from DeFrancesco.

On Lap 11, Malukas ran wide at Turn 10, gifting second place to Frost, but somehow keeping teammate Lundqvist behind him.

At half distance, Kirkwood’s lead over Frost was out to 4.5sec, while Malukas was 4sec further back, with the Lundqvist vs DeFrancesco battle 2sec behind him.

By Lap 25, the closest battle was for sixth, between Pedersen and Sowery. The Juncos driver didn’t quite get it done at Turn 4 that lap, but the same place next time by, he passed the GRG driver around the outside, leaving him behind to fend off Andretti’s fourth driver, Robert Megennis.

Kirkwood eased off in the final lap and still won by almost seven seconds, with teammate Frost completing an Andretti 1-2, 3.5sec ahead of Malukas.

Kirkwood is now back in the lead of the championship by just two points from Malukas, with Lundqvist a further 11 points in arrears.

P

Name

Diff

Gap

Led

ST

Status

Team

1

Kyle Kirkwood

LAP 35

 

35

1

Active

Andretti Autosport

2

Danial Frost

6.8666

6.8666

 

3

Active

Andretti Autosport

3

David Malukas

10.4069

3.5403

 

2

Active

HMD Motorsports

4

Linus Lundqvist

13.2520

2.8451

 

4

Active

Global Racing Group w/HMD Motorsports

5

Devlin DeFrancesco

14.0368

0.7848

 

5

Active

Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport

6

Toby Sowery

14.6599

0.6231

 

9

Active

Juncos Racing

7

Benjamin Pedersen

22.0670

7.4071

 

6

Active

Global Racing Group wHMD Motorsports

8

Robert Megennis

22.6861

0.6191

 

8

Active

Andretti Autosport

9

Alex Peroni

26.3576

3.6715

 

10

Active

Carlin

10

Christian Bogle

42.5132

16.1556

 

12

Active

Carlin

11

Sting Ray Robb

43.2440

0.7308

 

7

Active

Juncos Racing

12

Nikita Lastochkin

44.9420

1.6980

 

11

Active

HMD Motorsports

13

Antonio Serravalle

6 LAPS

6 LAPS

 

13

Active

Pserra Racing

 

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