Alex Palou didn’t finish first in Sunday’s INDYCAR race at Arlington. But he couldn’t help but praise winner Kyle Kirkwood for his clean racing in the Java House Grand Prix of Arlington, the series’ debut on the streets adjacent to the Dallas Cowboys‘ AT&T Stadium.
While Kirkwood took the checkered flag for his first win of the 2026 INDYCAR season, Palou finished second and Will Power finished third to complete the podium. All three drivers led the race for 16 laps.
Midway through the 70-lap race on the 2.73-mile street course, Power took the lead and held on for about 10 laps, until he had to pit and Palou took control on Lap 46. But less than 10 laps later, Kirkwood started eyeing the lead.
[INDYCAR RESULTS: Kyle Kirkwood Outlasts Alex Palou at Arlington]
Kirkwood, driver of the No. 27 Andretti International Honda, handed Palou in Flip 13, led the remainder of the race and held on for a caution-plagued victory. And whereas Palou most likely would have most well-liked a special end, he lauded Kirkwood’s racing, significantly his “superior move” for the lead.
“Hats off to him,” Palou mentioned of Kirkwood throughout his INDYCAR on FOX post-race interview. “It was tremendous clear, and it was fairly spectacular.”
Palou — who began second behind pole-winner Marcus Ericsson, Sunday’s fourth-place finisher — acknowledged he and his No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda simply did not have the velocity to catch Kirkwood on the ultimate restart. At one level late within the race, Kirkwood had an almost a six-second lead over Palou and everybody else, and with a late warning main right into a last-lap shootout, there was at all times an opportunity Palou might move for the lead.
However he mentioned his automotive simply did not have it Sunday at Arlington.
“We’ll get them in a pair weeks,” Palou added, referencing INDYCAR’s subsequent race, the Kids’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix on March 29 at 1 p.m. ET on FOX and FOX One.
