Kyle Kirkwood claims Alex Palou has nearly won the 2025 title after doing the IndyCar points math

Kyle Kirkwood, who is the only IndyCar driver to have beaten Alex Palou this season, has revealed that the 2025 championship might already be out of contention after only seven races. Palou has won five of them, including his first victory at the Indy 500 in May.

As it stands, the reigning champion is 90 points clear of Pato O'Ward in P2 and 102 points clear of Kyle Kirkwood in P3. The gap would've been considerably higher if David Malukas hadn't taken Palou out of the Detroit GP by bumping him into the barriers after a restart.

Fortunately for Andretti Global and Kirkwood, they took their second win of the season. However, the 26-year-old recently described on fellow driver Conor Daly's podcast, Speed Street, why Alex Palou is "impossible to beat."

"He's not gonna have a bad stretch, unfortunately," Kirkwood said. "The way I look at it is, we gotta beat him by 12 points every weekend, which means I gotta win every single race from here on out because he is likely to finish second or third. The guy is impossible to beat."

The No. 27 Andretti driver also spoke about Palou and Chip Ganassi Racing's performance at Detroit before his crash on lap 72, adding:

"And you know what, Ganassi did not have a good weekend this past weekend, and he still was like fighting for the win in stages of the race. The guy is just on fire. None of his teammates were close in qualifying, and he still sticks it in the Fast 6. It's hard to compete with that guy."

Andretti had the fastest car on the bumpy streets of Detroit, with Colton Herta setting a new qualifying record with a lap time of 1:00.4779s. Kirkwood was going even quicker on his final lap, before contact with the wall in Turn 3 made him lose precious tenths.

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Kyle Kirkwood "stoked" to be part of rare All-American podium at IndyCar Detroit GP

Colton Herta, Kyle Kirkwood, and Santino Ferrucci on the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix podium - Source: Getty

Alex Palou's DNF at the Detroit GP and the unpredictable caution periods made for the exciting re-appearance of an IndyCar podium consisting of only American drivers. Florida native Kyle Kirkwood won the race with Connecticut-born Santino Ferrucci in P2 and Californian Colton Herta in P3.

The last time this happened was in race two of the Mid-Ohio double-header in 2020, where Herta led a 1-2-3 for Andretti, with then-teammates Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay behind him.

After the Detroit GP, Kirkwood heartily spoke about being part of a new American podium sweep, saying:

"Yeah. I mean, we have one of the most diverse series in the world, I think, and it's good to have the U.S. back on top. I'm not going to lie; that's pretty cool, actually. I'm stoked with that."

The next IndyCar race weekend is the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 in St. Louis from June 13 to 15. Josef Newgarden won the race in 2024, while Palou finished in fourth and Kyle Kirkwood in P22.