Written by Archie O’Reilly
IndyCar’s final qualifying session of 2024 has resulted in a first-time oval-pole sitter, with Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood adding to his only previous pole position on the streets of Long Beach in 2023. He will line up alongside Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden.
Here is how the front row reacted to qualifying at the Nashville Superspeedway after 16 years away from the 1.33-mile concrete oval…
Kirkwood’s biggest oval achievement
Kirkwood has had a strong third season in IndyCar and second with Andretti. Currently seventh, he is set to improve on an 11th-place championship finish in 2023.
And while he is yet to win after two victories last year, there has been a sizable step forward in consistency. He has only twice finished outside the top 12 and four times outside the top 10.
“On the whole it’s been a very good season for us,” Kirkwood said. “We’ve made good progress year over year. Obviously there’s a lot of hype around winning a race and especially around winning your first race.
“So for me maybe it’s not been the most glamorous season but it’s been a very consistent and solid season where if we had a couple big finishes we’d be in a fight for the championship. I’m proud of what we’ve been able to do. I’m proud of the progression we made, especially on the ovals.
“If you look at the trend and the direction we’re progressing on all circuits, I think we might be one of the steepest slopes out there. So proud of what this team has been able to do. I’m proud of my efforts, too, although it hasn’t been as glamorous or hasn’t been all over the media.”
Kirkwood is yet to finish higher than seventh - achieved three times - on an oval. But taking a first pole on a track type regarded as IndyCar’s backbone is a step in the right direction.
“I’ve been showing some oval skills,” Kirkwood said. “If I’m being quite honest, I wasn’t the proudest after quali performances at Milwaukee or Gateway or Iowa. So to actually get a pole on an oval is big for me and my confidence.
“I think my racing on ovals has been a lot better. I’ve been finding myself up front quite a bit. But still not fully there. Still not doing some of the things that the veteran guys are doing. I’m still figuring it out but the pole is a nice step in the right direction.”
Leading the field to green for the 2024 season finale, Kirkwood views it as an “important” opportunity given the absence of a win and only a single podium so far this season. Taking Nashville pole ticks one thing off that he had missed this year despite two front-row starts.
“It was a good two laps,” he said. “I think we rolled off the trailer exceptionally. We made minor changes in practice, got a good feel for what we needed in quali and it was a good two laps. I think we figured out everything we needed to and it panned out for us.
“I’m a little surprised actually that we were that quick right out of the gate.”
Kirkwood was able to obtain some feedback from teammate Marcus Ericsson and Meyer Shank Racing allies David Malukas and Felix Rosenqvist given they ran ahead of him in qualifying. Every little bit of learning does help.
“You’re trying to learn as much as possible without the nerves getting to you,” he said. “You get a little antsy when you have that long of a wait going into your qualifying.
“For me it’s trying to stay calm and focusing on what the other drivers are doing. So I’m watching the No.28 car and the Meyer Shank cars and seeing what they’re doing and how it can apply to us. It’s important to stay focused and not let the nerves get to you.”
Newgarden’s Milwaukee bounce-back
Was Josef Newgarden’s Milwaukee doubleheader weekend, with two retirements, one of the outright worst of his career?
“That’s a good assessment,” he said.
But as the only driver other than Kirkwood to notch a two-lap average qualifying speed in the 201 mile per hour range, he has rebounded at Nashville for a home-state front-row start.
“I think it would be irresponsible to not be happy with it,” Newgarden said. “I think it’s good. I’m a little disappointed. You always look back at it after the fact and say: ‘We could have done this a little bit different.’
“We had one limiter hit at the end of the second lap and I think that second lap was actually going to be faster. It was trending faster off of Turn 2… I think it could have been the difference. But the team did a great job. The car was really great to drive.
“Honestly, it was amazing - so comfortable and very simple to put the laps together. Probably could have been more aggressive too. We’re happy with it. We’ve got a good field of view to start the race, which is fantastic.”
Playing a role in Power’s title bid
Newgarden’s teammate Will Power will line up in fourth as he looks to overturn a 33-point deficit to Chip Ganassi Racing’s championship leader Alex Palou, who qualified 15th and has a nine-place engine penalty.
Newgarden is willing to help his long-time teammate if required.
“You start trying to get too clever and orchestrate something… I think that’s when you get in trouble,” he said. “So the name of the game for us is to run a normal programme, trying to do the best job on the No.2 car.
“Of course the priority for us is if we’re in a position that we need to figure out how to seal that off, we will all do that. We’re prepared to do what’s necessary with the championship because we’re all in it together at the end of the day.
“But I think the way you get there is by running a normal race in a lot of respects. So we’ve just got to do our jobs, take care of each other as normal and hopefully the chips kind of fall our way and we can bump things up.”
Navigating the big Turn 3/4 bump
One of the biggest talking points of IndyCar’s return to the Nashville Superspeedway has been a large bump between Turn 3 and 4. It caused Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel to helplessly crash early in the opening practice session and triggered multiple other incidents across Indy NXT’s first practice session too.
“I think the bump is definitely the overriding concern of everybody right now,” Newgarden said. “It’s kind of nice and it definitely has character. It’s not like all over the track - there’s just this one point. But you’ve got to account for it and you’re somewhat setting the car up around it.”
The concrete Nashville oval has a lot of unique quirks.
“It is a rough track. It’s quite wavy,” Newgarden said. “It feels more like a street course surface throughout the whole thing. I don’t think it is more physical - you’re just kind of noticing the heaving motion of the car is different than what you typically get on an oval.”
How could the track race?
At the forefront of drivers’ minds is how the track will end up racing. At the time of qualifying, after only a single session of running on a track that all bar three drivers - Power, Scott Dixon and Graham Rahal - had never raced on, there was not great optimism.
“The second lane so far was not friendly, just to be transparent,” Newgarden said. “It was tough to utilise it so it’s hard to see how that’s going to trend. But right now it’s tough… It’s hard to say right now. I don’t know if it’s there. I really hope it does [come in]. Everybody does.”
Kirkwood, for obvious reasons, hopes the racing - so long as he remains out front - is not conducive to the sort of passing seen at Gateway and Milwaukee.
“At this point now, I hope it rewards the guy that has clean air because it’s likely that I’ll have it,” the pole-sitter said with a chuckle. “If you look back at the races in 2007 and 2008, it was a one-lane track and it seemed like everybody was, for the most part, getting passes done by getting runs and passing in a straight line, not necessarily running two-by-two.”
The oval alternate-tyre factor
Following an initial experiment at Gateway last year, IndyCar has added an alternate tyre compound for this weekend’s event. It is mandatory that drivers use the compound twice in the race - unlike only once at Gateway - along with running at least one set of primary tyres.
This adds an additional strategic element - much like on a road or street course - in a bid to encourage good racing. In Kirkwood’s words, the element of unknown “is going to throw a wrench into things” come the 206 laps on Sunday afternoon.
“I think it’ll be quite pivotal,” Newgarden said. “It’s a very big difference than anything we’ve had before on the ovals. I think it’s going to be critical to understand what you like and what you want to run. It’s going to be almost the name of the game in a lot of ways.”
In Kirkwood’s eyes, it is “good to throw something in there that’s going to make people think about it a little bit more and do something better and out-think or outsmart people” given Nashville Superspeedway has tended to be a predominantly one-lane track.
“I think you’re going to need deg to have a race right now,” Newgarden said separately. “And that’s only one factor in if this thing will race well. The likelihood of the second lane coming in… transparently it seems low. But these things are so difficult to predict.
“It’s sometimes tough to get this package right first go. This is a new car from when we used to run here. We put our best foot forward as a series. Firestone did a great job trying to bring us something that’s going to work here. If we don’t get it right this weekend, we will get it right in the future.
“And you’ve seen that we can do that: Gateway was a great show, Milwaukee was a great show. It is very possible for us to figure out the formula but it is a difficult formula to work out because it requires something different. It’s not plug and play for each track. So it’s tricky to find solutions.”
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