Christian Lundgaard exclusive: Falling in love with IndyCar & driving for McLaren
- Archie O’Reilly
- Nov 18, 2025
- 17 min read
The historic English city of Oxford is a haven for motorsport talent.
Only 30-odd miles from Silverstone Circuit and a centrepoint to the United Kingdom’s alley of race team bases, it is a frequent home for drivers. Those more established may favour the nearby idyllic Cotswolds, while the younger variety climbing the ladder to Formula One often live together in the more urban areas.
In some ways, it is motorsport’s answer to a university experience for the eclectic mix of dream-chasing up-and-comers from across the globe. Though decidedly more disciplined.
In 2021, among those calling Oxford home was the quartet of Alpine F1 academy drivers, their Enstone base a half-hour commute into the countryside. At only 19 years old, fifth-year member Christian Lundgaard was the longest-tenured junior within the team’s ranks.
The Dane flat-shared with Frenchman Victor Martins; below the pair, Brazilian Caio Collet and Australian Oscar Piastri resided. It was an interesting dynamic, with all four at different junctures in their junior careers and racing for different teams while under the Alpine banner.
By the end of that year, Piastri was on the precipice of F1 after winning the FIA Formula 2 title in his rookie campaign, backing up his title win in FIA Formula 3 the year prior. Both rookies in F3, Martins and Collet were earlier on their own path.
For Lundgaard, 20 years old by the end of the season, the situation was a little different. He was a two-time race winner as a rookie in F2 in 2020 and finished seventh in the standings, but he had slumped to an eventual 12th place in his second season.
With Piastri the academy’s golden boy, reality quickly struck that there was no merit in sticking around forever on the F1 trail if that end goal appeared hazy.
Since then, with four years having passed, the four drivers have all gone their separate ways. But within that near-half-decade, things have started to come full-circle for Lundgaard.
“It’s crazy,” he remarks, “because we’re all kind of coming together.”
Lundgaard is speaking to DIVEBOMB from his Indianapolis home. It is the beginning of the final month of autumn but already snowing outside. With perfect timing, Lundgaard’s heating has broken - much to the dismay of a Finnish mechanic staying the night.
But as Lundgaard jokes, he is Danish. He can brave the wintry weather.
Some 4,000 miles across the Atlantic, the Midwest has been Lundgaard’s home for four years now - since he made the decision to race in IndyCar. Incidentally, it is now also the best part of two years since Collet made the same move stateside to race in Indy NXT, with Martins limbering up to follow suit after testing twice within the last month.
The move was set in motion for Lundgaard in July of 2021, when the collective of Alpine Academy director Mia Sharizman and Rick Gorne - from Lundgaard’s own team - raised the prospect of a test with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) at the end of the month.
Lundgaard obliged without hesitation and the test, at Alabama’s quirky Barber Motorsports Park, was a marked success.
“I did the test, which came together real fast,” Lundgaard recalls. “And on that very same day, they asked if I wanted to race at Indy [on the road course in August].”
He tended to follow the Indianapolis 500 to an increasing degree in his burgeoning racing days, but IndyCar had not been something Lundgaard had particularly grown up with in his consciousness. As of four years ago, there had never been a full-time driver from Denmark - the closest being Josef Newgarden with his Danish family ties.
As a child, Lundgaard’s introduction to racing was very much a family affair, his father Hendrik competing in the World Rally Championship and becoming a champion in the European Rally Championship in 2000.
In Christian’s view, his brother Daniel, three years his senior and Danish Formula 4 champion in 2017, was just as quick when the pair competed against one another in their youth. There is almost a sense of guilt from Christian, who feels he ‘made it’ in the sport at the expense of his brother, which led to some fraught times growing up.
“He was one of the more underrated drivers that didn’t really make it,” he explains. “Unfortunately, in our situation, I won the European Championship in go-karts the year that he moved out of karts. I got opportunities that he never got because of that.
“It just worked out in my favour. And it is obviously tough. I love spending time with my brother. But back then, we didn’t communicate at all. We hated each other because we were both racing and we both wanted to be the best.”
The pair have since reconciled and any animosity has diminished. For this Christmas period, Lundgaard is flying back home to Denmark at the start of December and the brothers are embarking on a training camp together in Spain.
“I feel like I’m living his dream now so it is tough,” Lundgaard adds. “[But] I feel like we’ve got to a point now where we appreciate each other and what each other does.”
It was in the late summer of 2021 when the process was set firmly in motion for Lundgaard to become IndyCar’s first full-time Dane. He did not have to give a second thought to the offer of a debut, trial race, handed to him immediately after the Barber test.
Within a month, he was racing on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
“Obviously I said yes,” Lundgaard remembers. “I said: ‘Well, what do I have to lose at this point? I get to drive a new car. If it doesn’t work out, then we figure out another solution.’”
Lundgaard produced an exceptional maiden qualifying performance, placing his No.45 Honda fourth on the grid and only 0.0286 seconds off a debut pole position. As RLL explored options for a full-time driver for 2022, it was an excellent first impression.
“My first thought was: ‘This is easy,’” Lundgaard admits. “I showed up, never been to the track before, qualified for the closest top four in history at the time and I was like: ‘Okay, this is going to be easy, right?’ Turns out that wasn’t the case - I got outsmarted - but that’s okay.”
Race day was something more of an ordeal. Lundgaard dropped to finish a still-creditable 12th place for his debut race and exhibited strong pace, though the team was burdened with a bout of food poisoning which limited their race-day performance somewhat.
Encouraged by the weekend as a whole though, Lundgaard was left with a decision to make.
“It was a very, very short and very quick process. It was like: ‘Okay, we have basically two options. Are we still going to try to take the European path? Or are we going to try something new and do something more long-term?’”
An agreement was ultimately reached for Lundgaard to join RLL on a full-time basis while competing in F2 in the Russian city of Sochi that September.
“We took the decision to come over here and I wouldn’t quite say I’ve ever regretted that decision,” Lundgaard reflects. “Because I got that taste of that one [IndyCar] race in 2021, it reminded me of what I fell in love with in the sport and in go-karts. Everybody has a chance and it’s raw racing.
“The [recent] Brazil race in F1 was the most interesting and exciting F1 race I’ve seen in a decade because so much was going on, had no clue who was on what strategy and why people were pitting at times. And I think that is what IndyCar has at every single race. There is this form of unpredictability that no one really can foresee what’s going to happen.”
For Lundgaard, this took him back to his much-adored roots.
“That reminded me of go-karts, of what I fell in love with in the sport and enjoyed driving. I’m just happy because I get to enjoy what I fell in love with, versus having to manage tyres and just drive slow for no reason.
“We used to think that the Americans were nuts driving 230 miles an hour. Now, I’m doing it myself and I’m like: ‘This is the coolest thing in the world.’”
In many ways, Lundgaard is Exhibit A in a trend that has emerged of established race-winning drivers moving from F1’s premier junior series to race on the IndyCar ladder.
Within the same time period, Callum Ilott, Marcus Armstrong and Robert Shwartzman have become full-time fixtures in the field, adding to sporadic appearances for Jüri Vips and Théo Pourchaire. In a variation of the pattern, Dennis Hauger moved from F2 to Indy NXT this year, where he won the title and has since stepped up to IndyCar for 2026 with Dale Coyne Racing.
“A lot of it comes down to the financials of racing in F3 and F2 nowadays - and even getting into F1,” Lundgaard explains. “I can name a number of drivers that have done multiple years in F2, or even in F3, that run out of options. Where are they going to go now?
“IndyCar is a great option after that because it is still a step up and I feel like you kind of relearn all the fundamentals of racing. And it is at such a high level. From a European driver’s perspective, it is an awesome step to go to because you learn so much of racing.
“Growing up, all I wanted to do was race and win F1. When I grew up 10-15 years ago, got interested in motorsports, where F1 is now is not the same. IndyCar reminds me so much more of what I fell in love with, versus Formula One. So for me, it’s a no-brainer.”
Lundgaard spent three seasons with RLL, where he claimed the Rookie of the Year title in 2022, achieving a maiden podium with a runner-up finish on the Indy road course.
Within two seasons, he had a first top-10 championship result to his name - an eighth-place finish fuelled by a maiden victory in Toronto in a 2023 campaign which also featured two pole positions. He went on to once again comprehensively lead the RLL team in 2024, claiming a third podium and, in a slight regression, finishing 11th in points.
The allure created by these displays - often punching above his weight - led to front-running teams showing interest in Lundgaard. With over two months still to run in the 2024 season, he was confirmed to be joining Pato O’Ward and Nolan Siegel at Arrow McLaren for 2025.
Stepping across to an outfit capable of fighting at the head of the field on a consistent basis, Lundgaard impressed from the outset. He ended the season a career-best fifth in the standings, claiming six podiums across the course of the year.
“It’s a new package with a new group of people and a new car, new team, new engine manufacturers,” Lundgaard asserts. “So I feel like we did a good job. We had a good year. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.
“Obviously it would have been nice to get a few better results in terms of the championship standings and potentially a win or whatnot. But at the end of the day, I feel like we had such a good year from the get-go.”
While off-strategy, Lundgaard led 23 laps in the season-opening event on the streets of St. Petersburg, where he eventually finished eighth. That was followed up by three successive podiums at the Thermal Club, Long Beach and Barber, which matched Felix Rosenqvist’s three-year tally for the team and usurped that of Alexander Rossi from across two years.
Within those four rounds, Lundgaard had also doubled his own podiums total from his three years with RLL. It was a remarkably quick adaptation to a different environment.
“Both organisations are very professional. It’s a good group of people either place,” Lundgaard compares. “There is a different professionalism of Arrow McLaren. We have the connection to the F1 team. We have, I’d say, much more people in the engineering department that obviously makes the car faster.
“Overall, I think it’s just an upgrade. They’re both good organisations; I think we’re just a lot further ahead in terms of technology behind the scenes. “
The link to the McLaren F1 team has added to the full-circleness of Lundgaard’s past four years, meaning he is now distant teammates with Piastri again, as he contends for a maiden F1 title for the consecutive Constructors’ Championship winners.
With McLaren’s IndyCar outfit, Lundgaard and company are able, to an extent, to tap into the expertise of the F1 team.
“It is a fine line because there is very limited things that we can do with the F1 team,” Lundgaard explains. “We can go into a bracket that hurts the F1 team in terms of the Cost Cap, which we obviously have no interest in doing.
“We have a few people that are based in the UK at the factory that are basically just designated to the IndyCar team. Of course, we have data floating around that obviously helps us and vice versa. It is using the people and helping each other as much as we can.”
The McLaren link has allowed Lundgaard to return to the familiarity of the F1 paddock. He was at the Circuit of the Americas taking guests on Pirelli Hot Laps last month and has already been with McLaren Automotive to Las Vegas, where he returns for the Grand Prix this week (and hopes to meet Colton Herta for a game of golf - his second love after racing).
But despite this dabble back into his former world, Lundgaard insists the F1 boat has sailed and he is not actively pursuing a test or reserve role akin to IndyCar teammate O’Ward.
“It all depends on what your ambitions are,” Lundgaard says. “When I moved to the States, for me it was: ‘Okay, this is what I’m focused on.’ Obviously when you race in F4, F3, F2, the only thing you’re trying to do is climb that ladder into F1. I jumped away from that, so now that’s where my full focus is, on IndyCar.
“Sure, I go to the F1 races and be involved with the team and obviously talk to the drivers. We’re in a great position now with McLaren having won the Constructors two years in a row. Of course, that’s a lot more fun than what I was used to in the past. And being involved with all these guys and understanding how the engineers work, I’m learning from that.
“I’m not going to sit here and say that I don’t want to drive the car, but it’s not something that I’m going to get on my knees and beg for. I’ve already done that. I’ve driven the F1 cars with Alpine so I have the experience.
“Yes, if Zak [Brown, McLaren Racing CEO] calls me one day and asks me if I want to drive the championship-winning car, of course I won’t say no.”
And given the trajectory on which he leaves the 2025 IndyCar season, why would he divert his attention anywhere else?
Adding to his three early podiums with three more before the final two rounds, Lundgaard usurped the combined five-year podium tally of his predecessors (five between Rosenqvist and Rossi) in only 15 races in 2025, scoring five rostrums in the seven road course rounds alone.
“Ultimately, my only goal for the year was to be as competitive as possible every single event,” Lundgaard says. “I approached the season with: ‘I don’t want to take my time getting up to speed with the team. I want to be competitive from the get-go.
“‘But I’m not going to be just judgmental depending on whatever the result is on paper. If we had a fantastic weekend, had pace, might have had an unfortunate yellow or whatnot that changed the outcome of the race, I’m not going to be disappointed.’
“And I think for probably 90-to-95 percent of the season, we were in that bracket. So I don’t have much to be disappointed with.”
Of Lundgaard’s six podiums, three were runner-up finishes - twice to champion Álex Palou, at Barber and Laguna Seca, then to Will Power at Portland International Raceway. But he does not reflect on the year in a defeatist manner, despite the multiple near-misses.
In fact, Portland was such a flawless event that Lundgaard views it as a victorious weekend, having won the pole, been demoted to seventh with an engine penalty and recovered to second, where he held off a fast-charging Palou while in a sizeable fuel-save.
“I left Portland feeling like I won it,” Lundgaard explains. “And regardless of what the paper says, whatever number that’s on the trophy, I left with that mental feeling of having won that race because we did everything right.
“It got taken away from us; we had to recover in the race. And we did to second, fighting for the win. We kept Álex behind. The one part that I’m very proud of throughout that season is having Álex come basically 20 seconds behind you to catch up to you and he was able to show his pace and we still kept him behind. That’s the most dominant driver of the season.”
Beyond his individual displays, Lundgaard has played a significant role in propelling Arrow McLaren to their best collective year to date.
O’Ward’s runner-up finish in the championship is his career-best result, while Lundgaard ending the season fifth marks a first double top five for the team. And it could well have been a double championship podium if not for a mechanical issue for Lundgaard in the finale.
Under the guise of Tony Kanaan as team principal and with more stability on the driving front and internally, the team made notable strides forward on a consistency-of-performance front. But some of that is also borne out of the chemistry between the team’s three drivers.
The trio have spent time together at F1 races during the off-season, and as Lundgaard speaks, he has called O’Ward that morning and the day prior too.
“We have a wonderful relationship between the three of us,” Lundgaard affirms. “I enjoy those times that we spend with the F1 team, where we go to the US-based races and the three of us just get to hang out.
“We basically have 45 minutes of work a day and the rest of it we just hang out. We don’t have to talk to engineers and be selfish against each other, as we would normally be on a race weekend because we’re trying to compete against each other.”
There is already competition of a healthy persuasion between the team’s two leading drivers, O’Ward and Lundgaard. Before 2025, in his five years with a team still in its relative infancy, O’Ward had never had a teammate offer a challenge better than eighth in the championship.
“I will always look at it as a positive,” Lundgaard says of the competition. “I said before even joining the team: ‘I’m not here to take Pato’s place. I’m here to help him help me so we can help each other to move forward and help the team.’
“I was not stepping into a position where: ‘Hey, I’m going to come take your ship from you. I’m here to help you steer this one forward.’ I think we’ve succeeded with that a lot more than I anticipated.”
This year was the first time Arrow McLaren have regularly had two reliable front-running cars almost every weekend, resulting in a tally of 12 podiums - six apiece, though with two wins for O’Ward - which is their best yet within a single season.
This has given the team more options in races, which they have not always had in the past, while if one driver has an errant weekend, there is often the other there to pick up the pieces.
“It’s a really good chemistry,” Lundgaard describes. “We’ve been able to help a lot each other throughout the year. From the team’s perspective, that’s what they’ve been looking for. I know Zak’s been happy with that.
“We want to be even better in ’26 - and I think we can be. We’re looking at having two cars in the top three in the championship and having three cars to fight in May [in the Indy 500].”
Lundgaard is not resting on his laurels and only sees the displays of 2025 as a foundation for seasons to come. He still trailed O’Ward by 84 points and finished 280 points behind unprecedentedly dominant champion Palou.
Many of those points were lost in a scrappy mid-season portion, including an uncharacteristic run to 16th on the Indy road course, his worst result of the season at Road America, with a spin when in contention confining him to 24th, and 21st at Iowa Speedway.
“There were definitely races in the middle of the year that we lost a lot of points that we shouldn’t have,” Lundgaard assesses. “Road America for one, we were so competitive, we had damage on the car from Lap 1 so it’s tough. Ultimately, it’s about getting results when they come and limit the damage in weekends that aren’t as good.
“We take the No.10 car out of the equation, that would help everybody. We’ve seen Álex dominate and I think that’s only helped now that you understand you need to raise the bar every year. Not that you didn’t understand that prior, but the standard that the No.10 car set is we just need to work harder, we need to be smarter.”
There were very few weekends where Lundgaard had the pace and did not execute - Road America and World Wide Technology Raceway the examples he earmarks. Ultimately, his 11 top-10 results still mark a career-best tally.
In some ways, as the closest competition to the Spaniard on road courses, Lundgaard’s reliability was mildly Palou-like at points. But the entire field does remain somewhat stumped in their quest to close the gap to the four-time champion.
“I wish I knew [how to close the gap]. Everybody wishes they knew,” Lundgaard concedes. “The one thing that they’re just very good at is executing. The fact that he won Thermal, the fact that he wins the 500, he was able to execute and turn these races into race wins. I feel like we had a bunch of those as well, but for second and third.
“Like Laguna, we should not have finished on the podium - the car was not good enough to be in that position. We started the weekend basically like 17th in practice, I’ve never been more frustrated and we end up second in that race. How? I have no idea.
“So those races are the ones that we need to have much more of. And whenever we have pace, we need to get the results.”
The biggest question mark that has lingered over Lundgaard in his early IndyCar career has been his oval ability. With an RLL team in a pit of strife during his time with the team, he only finished inside the top 10 twice in three years on an oval. His own education was understandably somewhat neglected in favour of the team diagnosing their own struggles.
With that in mind, as he switched to Arrow McLaren, there was still an element of mystique around ovals for a driver not raised in the discipline.
“I feel like everything that’s been in my toolbox basically needed to be relearned - all your references - because the cars behave so differently,” Lundgaard weighs up. “It’s purely how the car handles in terms of aerodynamics, et cetera.
“I don’t know if it’s because the car is just so much faster that it feels like it feels different, but everything had to be relearned. And I think the team’s done a great job educating me. I feel like I’ve missed that in the past three years. I feel like I’ve just been left on my own: ‘Just go figure it out,’ versus: ‘This is what you really need to do.’”
As an Indy 500 winner, Kanaan stepped up - sometimes with a tough-love approach - to assist Lundgaard’s development this year.
“Tony has been a great asset, helping me out whenever I’ve had a question. Or even if I haven’t had a question, he’s pulled me aside and said: ‘You need to go figure this out.’
“It might be harsher in the moment - people that know Tony know that he’s not afraid of speaking. It’s been very nice, even though at times it’s been a bit of a burden in the moment.”
Sure enough, while seventh in the Indy 500 and sixth in the second Iowa race and at Milwaukee were strong runs, it felt meaningful that Lundgaard’s year ended with a third-place qualifying result at Nashville Superspeedway. It was a great pity that a technical problem sidelined in the early stages of the 225 laps.
Come next year is particularly looking forward to the Indy 500 not being the first oval event - as it was in something of a baptism of fire this year - given the introduction of Phoenix Raceway as Round 2. There is added meaning to race day at the Speedway next May, with his mother’s birthday falling that Sunday.
As he now heads into 2026, there is a sense from humbly self-believing Lundgaard that he is developing into an extremely well-rounded force as an IndyCar driver.
“If I just look at the momentum and the things that me and the entire No.7 crew were doing different the second half of the year versus the beginning of the year on ovals,” he analyses, “we have a much better understanding of what I need, what I want, how to handle things, how to work around issues, versus going down a path that’s unknown.
“And I think at the end of the year, that was what 2025 was for, even though it wasn’t - because that’s not what my personal goal was. I feel like we learned so much throughout the year and we put it to good use at the end of the year.
“I feel a lot more complete and everybody on the No.7 crew feels the same way.”
From the crossroads in 2021, with every year there is an increasing sense that Lundgaard chose the path that could shape the entirety of the rest of his career. And a talent that was brewing with such great promise at RLL felt as though it was unleashed in 2025.
Already taking the fight to his prodigious teammate and even standing up to the all-conquering Palou at points, there have grown surefire glimmers of a future champion. But after one year in papaya, is Lundgaard ready for that step?
“I feel like I will always be. I’m not here to finish second.”
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