NTT INDYCAR SERIES: ACURA GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH

April 12, 2025

Colton Herta

Kyle Kirkwood

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We'll wrap up qualifying ahead of tomorrow's Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach with a front row for tomorrow's race. Colton Herta is on his way. He'll start second tomorrow, but currently joined by Kyle Kirkwood at 1:06.1. Three-tenths better than his teammates in this all-Andretti front row ahead of tomorrow's race. Kyle, the driver of the No. 27 PreFab Honda for Andretti Global. The second NTT P1 award here at Long Beach. Third career pole. Last time you won the NTT P1 here it was a clean sweep, 2023. We'll see what happens tomorrow. Congratulations.

No shocker, though, Andretti, pretty strong here at the streets of Long Beach.

KYLE KIRKWOOD: I mean, exactly. No shocker, right? Andretti has been really good here in recent years. Even more so this year. We rolled off the end of the season last year really, really strong at street courses.

Toronto was our last street course, right? I guess, St. Pete, but that one is more like a road course than it is a street course to me. Yeah, we've been really strong, especially these more bumpy, less grip street courses, and proved it here once again here today.

THE MODERATOR: Begs the question, how does the car feel, look tomorrow?

KYLE KIRKWOOD: That's the big question, isn't it? I don't think anyone really knows because yesterday track was green, a little bit warm, sun was out. Then this morning it's just been super cool, overcast, marine fog, and completely flip-flopped from yesterday. It will probably flip-flop again tomorrow.

We probably won't learn anything in the morning, if I'm being honest. It's going to be guessing, and couldn't ask for a better team to guess with.

THE MODERATOR: Colton Herta, another former winner here at Long Beach, joins us. Starting second in tomorrow's race. Driver of the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda for Andretti Global with Curb-Agajanian. Second front row start here in 2025.

Just your thoughts on a nice start to the weekend for Andretti Global, Colton?

COLTON HERTA: Yeah, it's great. I think at Andretti this is one that I personally mark my calendars for and we mark our calendars for that we tend to come here with good race cars. I'm glad to see that hasn't changed.

Now onto the race and, like Kyle said, try to learn as much as we can tomorrow and see what we can do on both sets of compounds.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Kyle, what's the pressure like? What's the mental plan for only making one run versus two?

KYLE KIRKWOOD: In qualifying you're talking about? A lot of guys ran on used. I kind of told my team, it's whatever they prefer doing. It didn't really make a difference because everyone was doing the prep lap and then one push lap, and that was kind of it. Your third lap, at least for us, wasn't phenomenal.

I pretty much told them, It's going to be different regardless, so you get that prep lap to kind of get a feel for things and then you go for it. I'm not sure why they decided to go with that. I just told them, You guys choose, tell me what to do.

Q. For both of you: You saw several cars go off course. Colton, I think you did, right?

COLTON HERTA: Yeah.

Q. Is that something that should be expected tomorrow, or is that just qualifying here?

COLTON HERTA: I think that's mostly qualifying here. I mean, you can definitely expect it. It's tough the street circuits because there's no margin for error. At least for me and my feeling, the way to the hybrid has made the street courses a little bit more difficult, especially under braking.

So maybe that's some of it, but I think it's pretty typical to a few guys crash in qualifying here. I crashed also in round one. I was just able to make it across the line, but completely destroyed the toe link in the left rear coming out of 11, but the TV doesn't really catch all of those, but a lot of people have kind of moments and incidents like that.

But I think it's just the nature of this track and street course racing in general with INDYCARs. It's so competitive, you have to get everything out of it.

KYLE KIRKWOOD: I have nothing to add for that, yeah.

Q. You obviously had great success here in '23, Kyle, and now you're on the pole here again in '25. What do you like so much about Long Beach that it's conducive to you?

KYLE KIRKWOOD: What I like most about it is I've done pretty decent here, if I'm being honest. Street courses for some reason suit me. They also suit Andretti and our philosophy on how to develop a car.

So you tend to like the tracks that you do best at, and this is one of them. This is just an enjoyable track to drive. It's not, like, a typical street circuit where it's just 90-degree corners. There's a lot more character to it than just that and some pretty massive brake zones and disparities from high and low speed corners.

It tends to be pretty enjoyable to drive just as a driver.

Q. It's really for both of you, but Kyle, earlier in the week you mentioned that you just have to come to this track and have something for Palou. Does it feel good to have Andretti Global have two somethings for Palou?

KYLE KIRKWOOD: Yes. I mean, that is important. I think it still is early in the championship, of course, but you obviously want to keep beating the guy that is the most likely to win.

Yeah, I think him coming off two wins is important for us to jump in and get ahead of him. This is the starting position, right? We're there, but we need to maintain it tomorrow, so hopefully we got good race cars. I think we'll dig into it a little bit more tonight.

We have really good race cars here in the past, so there's no reason why we shouldn't, but hopefully we'll learn a little bit in practice tomorrow and set off on the right foot.

We have two opportunities to do it. Three with Marcus, right? Marcus was super fast too. I think out of the three of us, we need to get something done here this weekend.

Q. Alex starts behind you. He starts third.

KYLE KIRKWOOD: Yeah.

THE MODERATOR: Just keep him there.

KYLE KIRKWOOD: Just because he starts there doesn't mean we can't beat him.

Q. This question goes to Colton Herto. I think I'm surprised that I might be the first to mention this, but I know this is your home race here in Long Beach, California. It must feel pretty good to start on the front row for this race, but I want to know, I'm just very curious, did you think that qualifying was over when you slapped the wall there earlier in session one?

COLTON HERTA: No, I knew we could get it fixed. More so because we were in group one, we have about 25 minutes until we run again, so there was plenty of time for the issue that I caused.

Yeah, the guys did a good job. They always do a good job repairing the car. I've done that to them a few times. I've done it here before also where they had to fix it in between rounds.

Yes, they never cease to amaze me how fast they can fix the cars that I break.

Q. Kyle, by winning from the pole here in 2023, just how important is it at this course where it's so hard to pass to be able to start from the pole?

KYLE KIRKWOOD: I mean, it definitely helps, right? It helps even more given that you have teammates around you as well. Yeah, it is very important.

I know when we raced here in '23, we did not lead the whole race. We had to do a little bit of strategy. Strategy will come into play a little bit to how it dictates the race, but it definitely helps to be able to kind of control that strategy and kick it out from the lead.

So see to you it goes. Hopefully I maintain the lead in the first stint and from there it's clean sailing, but that's not how INDYCAR racing typically goes.

Q. If history should repeat itself, the prestige of winning the 50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach...

KYLE KIRKWOOD: That would be massive, right? Winning any INDYCAR race is massive. Winning at Long Beach is even bigger. Then winning something that's so historic and the 50th anniversary here would be even more special.

Yeah, I would love to. I think anybody would say the same thing, right? It's a pretty big deal.

Q. Maybe a little bit premature to ask this, but I will anyway. I know that going into the race in Toronto last year where you guys locked out the front row, kind of understand the message from the team was, Don't take any risks, try to make sure you guys get home one-two, whatever that might look like. Is that probably going to be the same message tomorrow? I know you probably haven't spoken to Rob and other folks. Does it change because this race is earlier in the season? What do you guys think about the potential risk factors of battling for the lead tomorrow?

KYLE KIRKWOOD: I think it's just going to be a little -- not the same as Toronto because we were in a position there where we need to do win a race, right? It had been a while.

I think here, of course, you don't take unnecessary risks, but you also race your teammates. That's part of it, so yeah.

COLTON HERTA: Yeah, I'm glad that Andretti lets us race, and I think me and Kyle have always been extremely fair with each other in how we go about racing each other. I think Toronto was an example. Thermal last weekend we raced the basically the whole race nose-to-tail.

I think we understand that if there's an opportunity to pass, we're going to pass each other, but without kind of unnecessary risks. I think Andretti does a good job, like they did in Toronto, where they kind of set ourselves up where we can be in the position to win a race. Then I think we're really good at trying to manage that kind of relationship aspect of it.

Q. Is there any chance with all three of you in the top five that you'll split strategies at all, or do you get very selfish and just want to go for the one that you think is going to work for you guys?

COLTON HERTA: I think that's up to the team. You know, as a driver, you want the strategy that is going to win you the race, but yeah, I think that they'll look at all the options.

I don't really know what the race is going to look like at the moment. That's kind of what we'll need to discuss tonight, but I think they usually give us each a fair shot at trying to win. It's usually what tends to happen.

THE MODERATOR: You agree with that?

KYLE KIRKWOOD: 100%.

Q. This event has many different other major events, and the vehicles run on different tires. Did you have any issues today with that? Do you anticipate any tomorrow in the race, or none of the above? There's no deduction for wrong answers.

KYLE KIRKWOOD: I was a little surprised how slow the initial part of qualifying was, and I assume the historic cars ran before us. I didn't really pay attention. That was likely why we started off a little bit slower, and it evolved a lot through qualifying.

I think maybe we'll pay a little bit more attention to that now. I didn't expect it to be as big. Usually at street courses, just cars running on track make things faster. Especially with an IMSA race, usually this place grips up quite a bit.

Yeah, that caught me out a little bit, but nonetheless, I think it's somewhat easily predictable now.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about tire strategy during qualifying? It seems like you guys might have leaned towards let's use alternates plenty now to make sure we have a great starting spot. A, is that correct, and B, does that speak to a thought that you are going to try to save your primaries as much as possible for tomorrow?

KYLE KIRKWOOD: In some way shape or form. We really haven't done enough lap on the alternates to know, but if St. Pete is any indicator, yes, you're not going to want to run very long on the alternates, which is why you see most of the guys just use them all up right away. Even in Q1 you saw a lot of guys double down or use used on the second quallie.

Yeah, to some extent, yes, but we also need to get laps on them and know where they actually stack up.

Q. Kyle, when you were on the Zoom conference on Monday, you mentioned that this is traditionally a softer tire race, and we have the not-reds that have been used here before, but now we have the guayule green tires, similar to what there was at St. Pete that those tires I don't think the drivers felt would be the choice to run multiple sets in the race. So I know you probably haven't done enough laps yet, but is this tire different from St. Pete, and what do you think is going to happen tomorrow in the race?

KYLE KIRKWOOD: It's the same tire as St. Pete, so there's no difference there, but we have seen in the past that St. Pete causes a bit more deg than other tracks. It might bring it back into play. Don't really know at this moment until we get through practice tomorrow.

Q. Just want to hear your thoughts on just the vibe of Andretti right now and whether or not there's a feeling as if you guys are pushing each other to be the best version of yourself behind the wheel and how much that was potentially a result of this front-row lockout?

COLTON HERTA: Yeah, it's really good. It hasn't always been this way at Andretti, so there's really no selfishness or no egos in the building. That usually comes from drivers. Luckily, we don't have that amongst ourselves.

They're easy to work with. They provide really good feedback, and most importantly, what you want in a teammate, selfishly, is you want them to be extremely fast because you want to be able to look at what they're doing and make yourself better. I think I've got two of those with me.

KYLE KIRKWOOD: Yeah, similar comments, right? We got three guys that can get things done. Proven track record; multiple wins under our belts. We have different views on things, but at the same time we kind of all reconvene in a way.

So it's kind of nice having different outlooks, different driving styles, but at the same time we're all really quick, and we can all trust each other that we can reference each other, which is not always the case. Sometimes you have really fast drivers, but you can't reference them. That's not the case with us. We have a good camaraderie amongst us, driving style and friendship.