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Kyle Kirkwood snatched the lead of the Freedom 250 in Washington, D.C., from championship leader Alex Palou on the very first lap and then controlled 128 of the 147 laps on his way to his second victory of the season.

Andretti Global has now completed a clean sweep of the new street circuits, with Kirkwood having won in Texas and Marcus Ericsson taking victory last weekend in Markham, Ontario. Kirkwood continues to stand out as the main threat on street courses, with six of his seven IndyCar wins now coming on street circuits, including the inaugural Arlington Grand Prix in March. He had also looked on course for at least a podium finish last week in Markham before a crash ended both his race and Andretti’s hopes of a podium sweep. This time, however, Kirkwood avoided any such trouble and led every lap while running the primary three-stop strategy.

“You can't even put it into words,” Kirkwood said after winning the one-off event. “This is incredible. I'm almost in tears here. This is a big moment for us. Big moment for America here, the 250, right? Big moment for Andretti, big moment for Sam's Club and Honda. These guys, they're the ones that gave me the equipment and this car right here to be out there, to go out there and perform. But man, that was a hard race. 147 laps. I'm out of breath right now trying to get words to you if I'm being honest.”

The race featured plenty of cautions and setbacks for several major contenders, including David Malukas, who came into the event third in the standings but crashed out early and also collected Sting Ray Robb.

After the caution caused by Malukas, Alex Palou made his first error of the race, setting off a string of incidents that delayed any chance of him wrapping up the championship early until at least the double-header at the Milwaukee Mile.

Palou struck a tyre in Mick Schumacher’s pit box while exiting his own and was handed a drive-through penalty that had to be served under green-flag conditions. Following that error, Palou switched to a four-stop strategy, and at the next pit stop his crew then struggled to fit the left-front tyre.

“We could have done a lot differently,” Palou told Fox Sports. “I mean, it hurts, man. It hurts. It was one of those races that I really wanted to do very well. I wanted to get that win, so it hurts a lot that we just had this bad kind of day, but it's okay. Things happen. “I'm at least kind of ‘happy’ that everything happened on the same day instead of spreading out through different races,” Palou added. “But yeah, we had some issues in pit lane, one my fault, one out of my control, something on the track, then I kind of bumped the wall a little bit and 20 laps later the rear tow link broke, that's why we spun. So yeah, not a good day, but it's all right. Things happen.”

Palou spun in the final 20 laps when his tow link failed, wiping out Kirkwood’s ten-second advantage over the rest of the field. He still managed to return to the race three laps down and finish ahead of Santino Ferrucci, who was four laps down, limiting the damage by salvaging a few points.

On the restart, Scott McLaughlin crashed from second place as he pushed hard to get past Kirkwood, aware that the Andretti driver had the pace to break away quickly once again. Indy 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist was also caught up in McLaughlin’s accident.

Christian Lundgaard did close in on Kirkwood at one stage while the race leader was conserving tyres, but in the end he crossed the line 3.096 seconds behind in second place.

Will Power stretched his run of podium finishes to three races, although he had to fight his way there by extending his fuel stints. When he came in to pit on lap 82, two laps later than the rest of the leading group, he was trying to maximise his advantage and rejoin in third ahead of Lundgaard, but was delayed behind Romain Grosjean, who was trying to avoid going a lap down.

Palou’s championship lead is now down to 91, just short of the equivalent of two wins with three races remaining. That means if Kirkwood is to work his way back into genuine title contention, he will need to win next weekend on the Wisconsin oval, while Palou would also need to suffer a similarly unlucky run as he did here.