Kyle Kaiser

Kyle Kaiser (born March 5, 1996) is an American racing driver from Santa Clara, California. He won the 2017 Indy Lights Championship with Juncos Racing. He is also currently enrolled in classes part-time at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California.

Kyle Kaiser
Kaiser in 2015
Nationality	American
Born	(1996-03-05) March 5, 1996 (age 28) Santa Clara, California, U.S.
Motorsports career
Debut season	2012
Current team	Juncos Racing
Racing licence	FIA Gold
Car number	32
Former teams	World Speed Motorsports
Starts	79
Wins	6
Poles	6
Championship titles
2012 2017	Formula Car Challenge Indy Lights

Racing career

Karting

From 2003 to 2009, Kaiser competed in the International Kart Federation, in the IKF Regional Race Series, 2-Cycle Sprint Grand Nationals, and the Stars of Karting. In 2008 he claimed his first national championship in the HPV-1 class. In 2009, he won the Infinion Raceway 3 hr Karting Enduro.

Skip Barber

Kaiser joined Skip Barber Racing School's 2009/10 Western Regional Championship, earning second place and Rookie of the Year. In 2011, he returned to the series, earning third place in the championship. That year, he also participated in the Skip Barber Karting Scholarship shootout, earning a partial season scholarship with the race series.^[1]

Formula Car Challenge

In 2012, Kaiser competed in the Formula Car Challenge for World Speed Motorsports, in the Pro Mazda and FormulaSPEED classes. He earned the Pro Mazda championship title by winning 8 races, and finishing on the podium in 11 out of the 14 races.^[2]

Pro Mazda

He made his professional open wheel racing debut in September 2012 in the Star Mazda Championship at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. For the 2013 season, Kaiser joined World Speed Motorsports to race full-time in the Pro Mazda Championship. He finished seventh in the championship with a best finish of fifth (three times). He returns to the series for 2014, but switched teams to past series champions Juncos Racing. He finished on the podium in the first race of the 2014 Pro Mazda Winterfest. He finished the 2014 season 6th in points, recording four podium finishes and earning his first professional victory at Sonoma Raceway in the season finale.

Indy Lights

For 2015, Kaiser moved up to Indy Lights with juncos racing . He scored two podiums and seven top 5s out of 16 races, finishing sixth in the season standings. In 2016, he claimed two wins and eight podiums in 18 races, which put him third in the final classification. He signed with Juncos Racing for a third Indy Lights season in 2017 and won the Championship to claim the $1 million scholarship to race in IndyCar.

IndyCar

Kaiser announced he would move up to the Verizon IndyCar series with Juncos Racing for four races in 2018.

Kaiser competed in select IndyCar Series events with Juncos between 2018 and 2019. He is best known for knocking two time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso out of the 2019 Indianapolis 500 by qualifying in the last possible spot on the grid, ending Alonso's joint McLaren/Carlin effort.^[3] Kaiser would not compete in either the 2020 IndyCar Series or 2021 IndyCar Series, as Juncos was trying to recoup financial losses brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and would not be able to run their traditional Indianapolis 500 specific program which Kaiser had run in the past.

When Juncos Racing was rebranded as Juncos Hollinger Racing, Kaiser was one of the drivers that Ricardo Juncos and, new team co-owner, Brad Hollinger would consider for their first full-time IndyCar entry, which was due to be entered in the final three rounds of 2021 and from 2022 onward. The team ultimately chose Scuderia Ferrari test driver Callum Ilott for the full-time entry. Juncos however did not rule out bringing Kaiser on for a second car on a part time basis, including for the Indianapolis 500.^[4]

Motorsports career results

SCCA National Championship Runoffs

Year	Track	Car	Engine	Class	Finish	Start	Status
2014	Laguna Seca	Mazda Miata	Mazda	Spec Miata	DSQ	2	Running

Pro Mazda Championship

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	Rank	Points
2013	World Speed Motorsports	AUS 8	AUS 6	STP 5	STP 10	IND 7	IOW 10	TOR 5	TOR 5	MOS 8	MOS 6	MOH 6	MOH 8	TRO 10	TRO 13	HOU 8	HOU 8	7th	209
2014	Juncos Racing	STP 2	STP 2	BAR 3	BAR 5	IMS 13	IMS 5	LOR 8	HOU 8	HOU 15	MOH 12	MOH 7	MIL 10	SON 1	SON DSQ			6th	211

Indy Lights

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	Rank	Points
2015	Juncos Racing	STP 5	STP 5	LBH 12	ALA 8	ALA 12	IMS 12	IMS 6	INDY 5	TOR 3	TOR 9	MIL 9	IOW 4	MDO 4	MDO 11	LAG 2	LAG 10			6th	237
2016	Juncos Racing	STP 3	STP 2	PHX 1	ALA 15	ALA 6	IMS 6	IMS 3	INDY 16	RDA 6	RDA 6	IOW 6	TOR 3	TOR 3	MDO 9	MDO 6	WGL 4	LAG 1	LAG 3	3rd	334
2017	Juncos Racing	STP 6	STP 4	ALA 2	ALA 2	IMS 3	IMS 1	INDY 9	RDA 3	RDA 2	IOW 5	TOR 1	TOR 1	MDO 12	MDO 12	GMP 4	WGL 7			1st	330

IndyCar Series

(key)

Year	Team	Chassis	No.	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Rank	Points	Ref
2018	Juncos Racing	Dallara DW12	32	Chevrolet	STP	PHX 21	LBH 16	ALA	IMS 19	INDY 29	DET	DET	TXS	ROA	IOW	TOR	MDO	POC	GTW	POR	SNM	30th	45	^[5]
2019					STP	COA 18	ALA	LBH	IMS	INDY 31	DET	DET	TXS	RDA	TOR	IOW	MDO	POC	GTW	POR	LAG	32nd	22	^[6]

* Season still in progress.

Indianapolis 500

Year	Chassis	Engine	Start	Finish	Team
2018	Dallara	Chevrolet	17	29	Juncos Racing
2019	Dallara	Chevrolet	33	31	Juncos Racing

Complete WeatherTech SportsCar Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	Class	Make	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Rank	Points
2019	Juncos Racing	DPi	Cadillac DPi-V.R	Cadillac 5.5 L V8	DAY 8	SEB	LBH 7	MDO 9	DET	WGL	MOS	ELK	LGA	PET	21st	69

References

1. . Archived from the original on 2013-08-09. Retrieved 2013-07-09.
2. "FCC Alumni Update - the Formula Car Challenge presented by Goodyear is a regional Mazda powered racing series with a NASA National Championship".
3. Van Tyron, Matthew. "Fernando Alonso bumped from Indy 500 by Kyle Kaiser. Twitter is shocked". IndyStar.com. Indianapolis Star. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
4. Pryson, Mike (3 September 2021). "2020 Formula 2 Runner-Up Callum Ilott to Make IndyCar Debut at Portland". Autoweek. Hearst Autos. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
5. "Kyle Kaiser – 2018 Verizon IndyCar Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved August 1, 2023.
6. "Kyle Kaiser – 2019 NTT IndyCar Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved August 1, 2023.

External links

• Official website
• Kyle Kaiser career summary at DriverDB.com

Sporting positions
Preceded by Ed Jones	Indy Lights Champion 2017	Succeeded by Patricio O'Ward