How Lundgaard is embarking on a journey to IndyCar title contention

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Across a combined five years as Pato O’Ward’s teammate at Arrow McLaren, Felix Rosenqvist and Alexander Rossi shared a cumulative five podiums.

But in a year where the team has achieved a best single-season tally of 12 rostrum visits, new-for-2025 addition Christian Lundgaard has already usurped the performance of his predecessors with six podiums inside a mere 15 races.

He joined the papaya squad with high hopes after three impressive years at a Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) outfit not without its issues - spearheading the team in his early twenties. But the manner in which he has joined forces with O’Ward to drive Arrow McLaren to its best-ever collective campaign in IndyCar has been equally impressive.

“I would honestly say that there wasn’t really any expectation,” Lundgaard said in a media call on Tuesday. “For me, it was just show up, be competitive at every single event and get the most out of what we have.

“It’s been a great demonstration of what the performance of the car really has been. Legitimately, the car has been better this year than it has in some of the previous years. It is a little unfair to compare [with Rosenqvist and Rossi]. 

“We know the No.5 car and Pato has been really strong the past couple years. The only thing I really wanted to do coming in this year is give him a challenge in a sense - go out and show what I can do. If I finish fourth in all the races, I wouldn’t necessarily care. 

“I’ll be happy that I was competitive and knocking on the door.”

And Lundgaard was competitive from the outset. After a solid eighth-place finish to start in St. Petersburg, he went on to log three successive podiums inside the first four rounds. In many ways, he outshone O’Ward in a team that the Mexican has made his own.

This is Lundgaard’s first season in a regular front-running team and first with Chevy power too. But his adaptation appeared seamless and he immediately thrived under the pressure that the McLaren brand brings.

Credit: Paul Hurley

“I can sit here and I can pinpoint all the differences [with RLL] but I don’t think that’s fair to either of the teams,” Lundgaard suggested. “I’ve learned a lot. I’m a much more complete, experienced but also mature driver - person as well. Everything is just coming together.”

There was something of a lull mid-season after his fast start - 16th on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, 14th at Gateway and 24th at Road America within a five-race stretch. He returned to the podium at Mid-Ohio but followed that with 21st in Iowa Race 1 and 13th in Toronto either side of his best career oval finish in sixth in Iowa Race 2.

“The only thing we want to do is to speed up processes so the results come faster,” Lundgaard added. “We succeeded at that in the beginning of the season. We had a little bit of a tough middle part of the season. 

“We’ve left some stuff on the table, especially in the middle part of the season: Road America [with a spin from a good position], Indy road course, Gateway [after an incident in the pits]. If I look at it realistically, we’ve probably thrown between 20 and 35 points away. 

“But everybody has had those weekends where either they’ve been taken out [out of] their own control or made a mistake or whatever. That’s just how it goes.”

Lundgaard has picked up his season-starting form again in recent rounds, with successive runner-up finishes at Laguna Seca and in Portland. He now stands at three second-place results for the season - three results agonisingly close to victory.

After Portland, having taken his first pole position for the team in qualifying, there was the knowledge that he could quite easily have won the race if not for a six-place engine penalty. Even then, driving from seventh to second for the second race in succession and out-duelling dominant champion Álex Palou was a big cause for encouragement.

Credit: Joe Skibinski

“I’m always happy to be disappointed with a second,” Lundgaard admitted. “That’s the mentality you need to have. Everybody on the No.7 car left Portland with a feeling of we won that race, we won that weekend - even though we finished second on Sunday. 

“We were the fastest car all weekend long. If we had the track position from the get-go without the engine penalty, I’m not really in doubt we would have had a better result. 

“Having three second-place finishes and three third-place finishes, it feels like something is missing, for sure. As I said from the get-go this season, my goal is to win races. But my goal also for this year is to be competitive. We have been. 

“When I look back at the end of the year, I’m pretty sure everything that my heart’s telling me is it’s been a successful season.”

The extent to which Lundgaard has run O’Ward close over the course of the season outlines the success of the year above anything. No teammate of O’Ward’s has finished better than eighth across his first five years with the year, and while Lundgaard will almost certainly not become the first to beat him, he currently sits fourth in points.

O’Ward does have the edge on Lundgaard by 77 points and with his two victories this season - in the opening Iowa race and Toronto - but the team’s 12 podiums have been evenly distributed at six apiece between the pair.

While Nolan Siegel does sit 21st in points in his first full IndyCar season in the team’s third entry, it has still been comfortably Arrow McLaren’s best season yet. They have developed a necessary problem-solving ability - both during weekends and year-to-year at races they may have previously struggled - and found crucial stability within the team.

“Coming into a new team, getting to learn new people, to work with new people, you’re not always guaranteed that those people are going to work together very well,” Lundgaard said. “How well we work together has gone a little under the radar. 

Credit: Chris Owens

“I know some of the results show it but with how well we’ve performed outside of the track and how well we’ve worked, I think it’s been my biggest highlight in all honesty. I’m proud of the work we’ve done behind the scenes.”

Part of this upturn can be attributed to the dynamic between the team’s two lead drivers. There is a strong bond between O’Ward and Lundgaard but the pair also provide one another with healthy competition, which is propelling both on to reach their best level.

Unlike in previous years, if O’Ward has a rare off-weekend - which he has had less of this year - the team can count on Lundgaard to be there instead. In the best case scenario, they have two drivers consistently fighting at the front in a manner they have not had previously.

“It can be a good and a bad thing,” Lundgaard acknowledged of the competition factor within the team. “I would say between me and Pato, we’re good friends. We’re trying to help each other as much as possible. I think we’ve helped each other much, much, much more than there’s been any kind of battle between us. 

“I feel like if I’ve had a strong weekend from the get-go, he’s been able to pick up the pieces throughout the weekend. [And] vice versa, if he’s been strong I’ve been able to pick up. I think that just pushes us much more as drivers but also for the team.

“I think that’s helped the team tremendously this year. Even if he’s been strong and I’ve had a tough weekend, he’s picked up the pieces and vice versa. That’s why there’s two cars in the top five. Ultimately that’s what we want to improve for next year.”

Arrow McLaren have never had two drivers finish inside the top five in the championship in any one season. But with O’Ward on the brink of clinching runner-up - at 64 points clear of the great Scott Dixon with two rounds remaining - and Lundgaard marginally behind third, a double podium in the championship is well within the realms of possibility.

Credit: Paul Hurley

Lundgaard’s previous best championship finish was eighth in 2023 - a magnificent effort given some of RLL’s inconsistency and struggles of his teammates. With a 56-point buffer back to Will Power in sixth as it stands, at worst a first top five is likely barring disaster in 2025.

The prospect of third? A very welcome bonus. But no catastrophe if not achieved.

“I definitely would be happy [with fourth], of course,” Lundgaard confirmed. “If you would have told me a year ago that we would have been fourth with two races to go, looking at finishing in the top five, I’d be happy but I also would not not believe you. 

“I would very much believe that because I believe in my abilities. I’ve always known I’ve had the speed. With the right people, we can always get it to work during the race weekends. 

“I’m not going to sit and dwell the entire off-season if we miss out on third, if we had two good last races but if [Dixon] was better. I want to catch him, but if he goes out and wins the last two races, we’re fourth or fifth or sixth - we’re in the hunt - I’ll still see it as a successful season.”

An issue for Lundgaard is that the final two rounds are on ovals - at the Milwaukee Mile and Nashville Superspeedway. And there is no shying away from the fact that, to varying degrees, drivers around him currently have greater pedigree on ovals.

It has been hard to gauge how good Lundgaard is on ovals across his near-four years in IndyCar given the well-documented struggles RLL have had across that type of track. Even in these closing rounds of his fourth full season in IndyCar, there is an element of Lundgaard still learning the ropes with the most competitive package he has ever had at his disposal.

It has been a mixed first year for him with Arrow McLaren on the ovals, with highlights of a very creditable seventh in the Indianapolis 500 and claiming the sixth-place finish - owing to a well-timed caution - in the second race at Iowa.

Credit: Joe Skibinski

On the flip side, 21st in the opening Iowa race - second-last of the 22 drivers on the lead two laps - was a challenging outing; qualifying results of 21st and 22nd for the Iowa weekend were similarly eye-opening for the wrong reasons. Gateway may well have been his most competitive oval weekend before overshooting his pit box and finishing 14th.

All the while, O’Ward has not finished outside the top five in the four oval races and has recorded finishes on each step of the podium.

“I definitely felt like I was somewhat at a disadvantage to both Nolan and Pato [during the Indy 500],” Lundgaard admitted, “because I feel like I had to relearn everything.

“I would honestly say St. Louis [Gateway] was probably the best overall race weekend we had on the oval. Despite what happened in the pit lane, I think that result was much worse than what we deserved. 

“Iowa, we just struggled on the No.7 car. We weren’t really necessarily comfortable all weekend. We know Pato is extremely strong at Iowa specifically; he was an outlier there between the three of us.”

On a regular basis, Lundgaard found himself on the back foot with RLL. Now with a quicker, more favourably-balanced car, going back to these same tracks can feel as good as visiting them for the first time.

“There’s a foundation this year that’s being built for next year because I feel like I’m relearning it all,” Lundgaard disclosed. “Iowa is one of the tracks where I’ve had the worst experiences in the past; I’m not going to call it trauma but there might be something deep in there that is withholding yourself from doing what the car’s capable of doing. 

“It is difficult to make a difference because you’re chasing your own tail as opposed to moving forward. That’s a situation that I’ve been in. I’ve had a lot of conversations with Tony [Kanaan, team principal] about this: ‘How do we speed up this process of having to relearn it all and unlearn some of the bad habits?’”

Credit: James Black

The final two tracks, no matter any lingering Iowa trauma, were those which Lundgaard felt were his and RLL’s worst last season. There is a balance to strike between pushing hard for third in points but continuing his oval re-education to be more complete for 2026.

And there is a certain way Lundgaard feels he should go about striking that balance.

“There’s a fine line because you want to learn as much as possible,” he explains. “I think you learn the most by attacking and being aggressive. You’re not really going to learn much by laying back and running completely off-strategy to everybody else.

“We know the car was fast in Milwaukee last year. I’m going into it knowing what I’ve learned this year is already more beneficial than what I’ve learned in the past three years.”

There is no doubting Lundgaard’s road and street course craft is already among the best in the series. Plenty of times he has ousted O’Ward on these tracks this season - and taken the fight to Palou in the midst of one of the greatest-ever seasons.

If Lundgaard can successfully continue to refine his oval craft, there is a sense that he can firmly compete with the best for titles. And do so sooner rather than later.

“We’ve still been the second best on road courses. We’ve had races on street courses where we’ve struggled and still got good results,” he said. “If we can complete the circle of ovals for next year and have much better consistent results there, we are in a title hunt. 

“That’s what the No.10 car’s done this year. Álex had never won an oval before, then he wins the 500, then he wins Iowa. For him, this season has been very complete. Scott Dixon is just always there. Obviously I’ve seen everything firsthand from Pato’s performance. 

“There’s very, very little between us. For next year, I’m pretty sure they’re not going to be ahead… they’re probably going to be behind.”