“I live to win races” - Lundgaard’s big Arrow McLaren breakthrough
- Archie O’Reilly
- 6 minutes ago
- 10 min read
Above all, there is one thing on Christian Lundgaard’s mind: “Unfinished business.”
This was where it all began. Where he so emphatically broke onto the scene in a trial outing with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) with a fourth-place qualifying result on debut. In many ways, it was the foundation of all that has followed. Of this next breakthrough day, too.
But his relationship with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS)’s road course has become conflicting since 2021. So good, so often; though a case of so close, yet so far.
A second-place finish for his first podium in his rookie year in 2022. A pole and front-row start in 2023, only to finish fourth in both races. Another front row the year later, resulting in a third-place result. Multiple strong returns but agonising in eclipsing measure.
And this has somewhat been the prevailing story more widely for Lundgaard in recent times - particularly since joining Arrow McLaren last season and, even more broadly, dating back to taking his first IndyCar win with RLL on the streets of Toronto in July 2023.
He impressed greatly to finish fifth in the championship - possibly denied as good as third by a mechanical failure in the Nashville finale - in his first season with Arrow McLaren in 2025. Almost coming into the team as a semi-disruptor to the norm, it was the first time a teammate of Pato O’Ward’s had finished any better than eighth in the standings.
And yet, Lundgaard often felt consigned to the bridesmaid role on many of his better days, standing tall above the majority but falling short so often to the omnipotence of Álex Palou.
“I’ve had the question many times: ‘When is it going to come?’” Lundgaard concedes. “We’ve come so close many times. ‘How does it feel being on the podium when the No.10 [Palou] car keeps being the guy that wins?’”
Of his six podiums last season - three seconds and three thirds - Lundgaard was beaten all but one time by the four-time Chip Ganassi Racing champion. Five of those rostrum visits came in the seven road course rounds, but the ceiling, against such a metronomic force, was almost always the series’ ‘clear second best’ in the road-racing discipline.
Even to kick off 2026, two more podium visits - third in St. Petersburg and second at Barber - came in the shadow of victories for Palou. So heading back to the IMS road course, where Palou was three-time defending winner of the spring race, for around 6, Lundgaard had a point to prove.
It so happened that the Grand Prix of Indianapolis was possibly Lundgaard’s weakest event of a largely very consistent first season with Arrow McLaren. Compared to his past record with RLL, starting 14th and finishing 16th was highly anomalous, especially when you consider the road course form that separated him from the field elsewhere in 2025.
“We worked hard to try to figure out where we really went wrong,” Lundgaard explains. “My big mistake last year was I came in with too much expectation of: ‘Okay, I’m in a car that has been so good all year round up until that point…’
“My only reference around this track was in a car that qualified in the Fast Six every single time, if not on the front row, on pole. This year, I came in just wanting to manage expectations and continue working on the package that we have.”
Lundgaard and his No.7 team made steady progress through a frenetic Friday, which featured both of the two-day weekend’s practice sessions, to kick off this year’s event. Saturday morning’s rain-postponed qualifying was then crunch time for the Dane, who had started no better than 10th in the opening five rounds of the season.
A fourth-place start was a welcome upturn in form, though a chaotic opening to the race, triggered ahead of Lundgaard as his teammate Pato O’Ward was hit by Felix Rosenqvist, scuppered much of the Arrow McLaren gameplan.
“I feel very bad for Felix because I know both Felix and Pato are very good friends,” Lundgaard admits. “I felt so bad for Pato because we had such a good plan for how we were going to attack the race between the two of us.
“We had two cars in the front and we knew the No.10 car was going to be strong. It sounds very spectacular when I say ‘a plan’. We were on two different strategies, different start tyres. It was really just how we were going to attack around the first pit sequence. And I lost positions so it turned out to be: ‘Okay, keep your head cool. What can we salvage?’
“At that point, I certainly did not expect to win the race. Not necessarily just from where I was on track, but also just the pace we had at the time.”
As things transpired, leaders Palou and Kyle Kirkwood were caught out by a caution before making their first pit stop, dropping them to the rear of the field. For the restart, Lundgaard was up to fourth, which became third after passing former teammate Graham Rahal upon the resumption and second after off-strategy Will Power eventually pitted from the lead.
“The most satisfying thing from how the race worked out was seeing the No.10 car getting caught out on the strategy,” Lundgaard exclaims. “They’ve always been on the right side of it.”
Contrary to his earlier expectations, Lundgaard found himself chasing David Malukas and in serious win contention. And as the stints went deeper, Lundgaard’s pressure on Malukas only increased and he was able to break free from any clutches of those behind, chiefly Rahal in third.
“You’ve got to give it to the No.7 car; they’ve been able to get tyre degradation really under control,” said Rahal, who Lundgaard credits for much of the development of his racecraft and IndyCar race understanding. “As the tyres wore, he got better and better compared to us. That’s a challenge nowadays with the mass of these cars. It’s a wonderful job for him.”
No doubt, ill-fated memories of the late-March trip to Barber motorsport swirled - for Lundgaard and his team. A botched final pit stop on that occasion in Alabama had lost him a 10 crucial seconds to deny the chance to fight Palou for a victory.
There has been change on the No.7 pit crew since. And when it mattered in Indianapolis on Saturday afternoon, with two pivotal stops from second place, they delivered.
“It’s trying to put everybody with the same mentality and the same culture of: ‘We’re here to win a race,’” Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan describes. “We need to lay it out there every weekend with the best people and making people accountable, [such as] when we let Christian down in Barber. We lost a race there or a chance to win a race.
“We’re not replacing people; we’re placing people at the right places at the right time. Anybody is allowed to make a mistake but we all hate losing, so everybody is on the same page. We do have to make some changes; we do have to relocate people. But everybody is part of this team. It doesn’t mean that we send anybody home.
“Unfortunately, sometimes you have to have a tough conversation and your ego is going to get hurt. It happens to me; it happens to Christian. We had some many tough ones. But the result is there. They executed.
“Somebody said to me: ‘It sometimes looks like you spin the revolving door.’ I said: ‘Yeah, I keep spinning until I’m happy to stop.’ So hopefully they got the message.”
Despite the much improved work in the pits, Lundgaard still came out behind Malukas following the final pit exchange. But on warmer tyres having attempted the undercut, he knew how decisive the first lap out of the bits for Malukas would be. And he seized the initiative.
So decisive. So aggressive. Yet so remarkably clean.
“I knew I had one chance - maybe two - on David at that time,” Lundgaard recalls. “He seemed to be pretty strong in [Turn] 14 and we weren’t. His braking performance was also a little stronger than I thought ours were. I knew I could do it around that pit sequence. We tried to undercut him [but] I struggled a lot on out-laps.
“There was another car [Romain Grosjean] in play at the time that slowed him down. I tried to set him up for [Turn] 2 and actually make the slingshot to be on the inside for Turn 4, but he was pretty slow through the kink of [Turn] 3.
“I thought: ’Okay, F it, I’m going to stay on the outside and see how it goes.’
“David has always been very respectful to race against. I had nothing to lose. I have so much unfinished business here. I wanted to win. I have enough second places in the past year-and-a-half. I was willing to do what it took.”
On Lap 68 of the 85, Lundgaard snatched the lead with a textbook overtake after a close-quarters duel from Turn 2 through to Turn 4. But as tight as it was, the racing was exceptionally respectful from both Lundgaard and Malukas, who were formerly go-karting teammates in Ricciardo Karts in Italy during their formative racing years.
“We go way, way back,” Malukas said. “It was a proper move. It’s really good racing. Christian is obviously very professional. We’re good friends and it was fantastic racing. I could be a little bit more aggressive and push him wide but it was fair racing.”
From there until the chequered flag, it was a clinic of control from Lundgaard. Almost three years on from his Toronto success - and nearly five years of trying on the road course at IMS - Victory Lane finally beckoned again.
Ousting Malukas by an eventual 4.6713 seconds, Lundgaard could finally emerge from any lingering shadows as the first-ever winner in the No.7 car - and only McLaren’s third IndyCar victor after O’Ward and the legendary Johnny Rutherford.
“I’m sure I will probably realise tomorrow what really happened today,” Lundgaard says. “It feels better knowing that it’s the first win for the No.7 car because I know the drivers that have been through that car… they’re not bad drivers.
“And to get that win for my race engineer Chris Lawrence and the whole crew honestly feels better in many ways. Because I’ve always known what I’m capable of. I don’t want to sound too optimistic or cocky in that way, but on a good day, I know I can beat anyone.
“I’m sure 95 percent of the field will say the same thing, but I know the task that I was hired to do and that’s to win races. We’ve come close many, many times. I think we’ve unlocked the door now. I’m pretty confident many more will come.
“We know that we’re very good on road courses. Last year, it was the No.10 and the No.7 car on road courses. We’ve now done two and it’s pretty much been the same thing.”
For Kanaan, who dedicated the victory to the late Alex Zanardi, the win is enough to justify continuing a new tradition of “a Brazilian kiss on the cheek” for his driver before the race. This is a particularly gratifying win for Kanaan, who was integral in bringing Lundgaard to the team after proving himself as a prodigious talent at RLL.
“I never doubted him,” Kanaan insists. “I support my drivers and my team at any time. I used to say that I got their back, but we will talk. [If] we need to get uncomfortable, we get uncomfortable. Nice to see that unlock for him. The next couple of days I told him: ’Just enjoy.’ I told him: ‘Let’s go get drunk tonight,’ which for me will take a glass.
“He’s been driving extremely well. It was just like: ‘When are we going to get a break?’ He kept asking himself that. Not a single day that I don’t believe in him or Nolan [Siegel]. I’m still doing everything we can to give them and Pato the best equipment and the best support.
“Pressure? A little bit of pressure sometimes is good. And Christian, it doesn’t faze him.”
For Lundgaard, a second year at Arrow McLaren marks a contract year. But continuing to deliver as reliably as he is, while still only 24 years old, will unquestionably leave the team desperate to renew his services for a good while into the future.
“I told Christian and Nolan: ‘If you guys keep winning, I don’t need to make a decision and nobody needs to make a decision,’” Kanaan shares. “We’re all on the same page on that.”
For those who have known Lundgaard since the outset of his IndyCar career, his regular front-running capabilities come as no great shock. And he only continues to develop into a more complete package on track, adding to his decidedly level-headed character.
“He’s done a wonderful job over there,” assessed Rahal, with whom Lundgaard was supposed to play golf at 7:00 on Monday morning. “He’s been a great racer since the moment he stepped in the cars. His consistency… you see guys come over that are fast but it takes them a long time to learn how to race. Christian has always been good at both.
“It’s not a surprise whatsoever. He’s taken the opportunity there and really truly excelled. I’m proud of him. I’m proud to see what he’s done. Obviously you don’t really like your understudy to beat you too much but he’s been exceptional this year.”
After six races, heading into the Indianapolis 500, Lundgaard is now fourth in the IndyCar standings - 55 points behind Palou’s lead. And of course, there remains a substantial way to go for anyone to usurp the three-time defending champion.
But for Lundgaard, the flood gates may just have been edged open at the perfect time with his long-awaited return to the winners’ circle.
“I live to win races. I don’t live to finish second. I don’t live to just be in the race. That’s how I was always taught growing up. I don’t just compete to compete. I compete to win. I fell short so many times. In the past two years, I don’t even know how many seconds I’ve had.
“What felt sweetest was the unfinished business I had around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. I’ve been so competitive here and I never got it done. Getting it done in the beginning of May in a car I know is good enough to win the 500 feels very good.
“I hope it doesn’t take another three years for another one.”
