Inside Lundgaard & Ganassi’s “dream” multi-year IndyCar signing
“A lot of long nights,” Christian Lundgaard uttered. “A lot of long race weekends.”
Essentially jobless and facing the sidelines, it was a fraught period that few saw coming for one of IndyCar’s finest prodigies. Lundgaard himself only found out his improbable fate definitively mere hours before news of an unlikely twist in the driver market broke within the media following the early-July Mid-Ohio round of IndyCar’s 2026 season.
“I sort of had an idea midway through the season that that was a possibility,” he hinted of a hard-to-digest mid-term inkling. “I tried to just keep my head down.”
The news that he would be axed from Arrow McLaren’s IndyCar lineup at season’s end came fresh off Lundgaard - already a two-time winner in the first 10 rounds of the year - finishing second in the team’s first-ever 1-2 finish. It was a result that appeared emblematic of the team reaching their long-sought goal of having two win-contending chargers.
At first glance - and as it largely remains for Lundgaard - it was a mystifying change of course. Sure, with the stated goal of going all-in to win the Indianapolis 500, the additions of two past winners, Felix Rosenqvist and six-time series champion Scott Dixon, made sense. But at the expense of a proven race-winning prodigy? It was curious.
“Obviously I was very disappointed, very confused,” Lundgaard rallied in a media call on Tuesday afternoon. “And I’m sure I share that opinion with many.”
He went on to finish his second campaign with Arrow McLaren third in the championship, becoming the first driver to beat Pato O’Ward in the standings across his seven years in papaya. It reinforced what had been a solid first season with the team in 2025, in which Lundgaard became the first non-O’Ward Arrow McLaren driver to finish top five in points.
With three podiums in the first four races last year, he instantly usurped the two-year podium tally of two for predecessor Alexander Rossi and matched the total amassed by Rosenqvist across his previous three-year stint with the team. He finished that season with six podiums, which was raised to seven in 2026, alongside his first two wins for Arrow McLaren.
For a driver with that output - his average finishing position in 2026 only 0.6 lower than four-peating champion Álex Palou - to be confined to free agency was staggering. But given Lundgaard’s calibre, while stress-inducing, opportunity beckoned from any despair.
Naturally, given his clear front-running capabilities, a regression to a team unable to enable that would have been harsh. But the fact Lundgaard was being dropped to, in part, facilitate the addition of Dixon immediately provoked intrigue about the long-tenured No.9 seat vacated by the New Zealander after a quarter-of-a-century with Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR).
From the outset, it was an opening Lundgaard was never going to pass up exploring, with CGR having ended the season by surpassing Team Penske with their outright record 18th series championship, as Palou secured his fifth crown in five years.
“As soon as the conversations really started, that was when my excitement changed,” Lundgaard said of the early stages of a link-up with CGR. “That was when I knew there was a chance. All I had to do was keep performing on track and it would all fall into place.”
Lundgaard was not the only option for CGR. Team owner Chip Ganassi searched far and wide, which while not named will have unquestionably encompassed IndyCar-based talents such as Rinus VeeKay, plus a host of drivers from external to the IndyCar landscape.
“We looked at everybody,” Ganassi affirmed. “You look at everybody that’s available. There were some options outside of the series but maybe the timing didn’t quite line up. When you have guys that are in other series that aren’t done or are in a contract and they can’t talk until a certain date - they’re waiting to hear from their team or something - there are a lot of timing issues that come into play on these type of transactions.”
But as time went on, there almost grew a realisation that, with a proven IndyCar talent on the table, Ganassi may have started to overcomplicate the process. Lundgaard was always aware that he had competition but nobody could firmly displace him in the hierarchy.
“Christian’s name kept landing back as the obvious one. Like: ‘Wait a minute, we’re not overlooking this guy, are we?’” Ganassi admitted. “Every name that came along, we said: ‘Okay, well, how does that compare with Lundgaard?’
“Whether it’s somebody who hasn’t been in the series, did they have to learn the tracks and are they current with this type of driving style that you need? Are they committed to maybe coming to the US? All these questions you have to ask when people pop up that aren’t in the normal week-to-week lexicon of drivers available.”
In his early conversations with Lundgaard, Ganassi’s focus was never on performance; he would not have been holding any such talks had Lundgaard not been adequate on that front. Instead, at the forefront was how he would fit within the team culture at CGR.
Reports had implied tension between Lundgaard and O’Ward at Arrow McLaren, with Lundgaard publicly suggesting the team’s philosophy was built around the Mexican, who forthrightly dismissed those claims. Neither have entertained suggestions of a rift and Ganassi was evidently not led to be concerned by Lundgaard as a fit for his programme.
“Not only with Christian, with any driver these days - drivers that make it to this level of racing - I don’t get into talking about the performance or what setup they like or what springs they like or things like that,” Ganassi explained. “I don’t get into the technical side of things. I want to know what they’re made of, what their values are.
“Christian will tell you, I grilled him pretty extensively in terms of what we expect and what we want, what’s important and what’s not important. We have a great culture that [managing director] Mike Hull and his team have built and we try to push that down on other people.”
Finally, on Tuesday, what Ganassi admitted to be “one of the not so well-kept secrets around the paddock” was confirmed, as Lundgaard was announced as the heir to Dixon’s throne in the iconic No.9 PNC Bank Honda. On a confidence-striking multi-year deal, no less.
“Joining CGR and Chip and the 18 championships, it’s really just a dream come true in many ways,” Lundgaard reacted. “It’s one of those opportunities you never expected to rise and I’m just super excited to join Chip Ganassi and PNC Bank.”
For an ultra-reliable, almost Palou-like driver, the move to CGR marks a fall upwards after the split with Arrow McLaren. With the consistency of 14 top-10 results in a notoriously streaky team this year, Lundgaard’s hopes of contending for a championship, albeit coming face-to-face with Palou, should be bolstered by the switch to IndyCar’s most stable outfit.
“Looking at the [new] 2028 car, this is the team that I think will figure it out first and be the leading team,” he also pointed out. “There’s a lot of good teams on the grid but I have a true belief that CGR will figure it out first. That was also a big part of [the move].”
Essentially, heading into a new era of IndyCar racing at the conclusion of next season, Arrow McLaren have let a driver with the apparent pedigree of a future champion depart to the gold-standard team that every organisation on the IndyCar grid is chasing.
“It’s still a big question mark to me - and I think it is to many,” Lundgaard said with a continued bafflement at the situation. “I choose to look at it in a very different way; I’ve done well and a better opportunity arose versus what it could have been. This is a conversation that Chip and I have already had: we’re just looking forward now. It’s not really look back.
“I’ve learned so many things in the past five years - on track, off track - [and] matured a lot from when I joined IndyCar as a 20-year-old, to now having the experience that I have. It’s really just what I’ve done to achieve this, in many ways.”
At the end of the process, the decision did end up being relatively simple. Impressed by Lundgaard’s buy-in to the culture, coupled with his level of experience and performance - including across three years at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) - Ganassi was sold.
“When is the last time a guy that finished third in the points was available? That about says it all to me,” the boss outlined, which Lundgaard echoed. “I like his approach to driving. I think he’s very clinical. He seems to be a student of the craft. I’m optimistic.
“He has five years of experience in the series. He’s been to the Indianapolis 500 now a handful of times. These are all things that are no small thing when you’re coming into a new environment that make you attractive to a new team. He keeps the car on the track so that develops into points - and we like those guys that can amass points.”
Ganassi seldom harbours the same trepidation around Lundgaard’s oval ability that contributed to his Arrow McLaren departure. But his average finishing position of 10.8 on ovals (10th among the full-time field) in 2026 still compares unfavourably to his second-best road-and-street average of 5.3 - more natural track types for Lundgaard.
The final oval weekend of the season, though, which saw Lundgaard collect a first oval podium and race in accomplished fashion at the head of the field in both races at the Milwaukee Mile, is substantial cause for encouragement.
“I didn’t see any of those oval questions at Milwaukee,” Ganassi asserted. “He seemed to do okay there. That’s an oval and he beat all three of our guys. So I’m not overly concerned.”
Lundgaard’s oval education has been tough, considering the persistent package shortcomings endured by RLL throughout his time at the team. When he joined Arrow McLaren, he had to almost relearn the craft - but even then, it was harder to lean on O’Ward as an experienced teammate given his extreme, on-the-edge driving style.
CGR should provide Lundgaard with ample resources to improve again, including Palou, who did not win on an oval until his Indy 500 success in his sixth year in the series in 2025, as the great Spaniard grappled a little with perfecting the discipline himself.
“It’s the right place to learn,” Lundgaard suggested. “But I thought we carried a lot of momentum [in] the second half of ’26. In many ways, we could have, would have, should have won Race 2 in Milwaukee. The talk out there, it’s not really anything that I look at or care so much about. We want to figure it out; it’s not like I’m sat on the couch waiting for it to happen. We’re working hard behind the scenes. I think we’ll figure it out very quickly.”
Lundgaard’s belief in his own ability never wavered amid his Arrow McLaren exit. He joins CGR with a humble confidence, in that he backs himself but is equally keen to learn from the experience and pedigree in the CGR ranks - on the driving side and beyond.
“I know what I’m capable of and I know why I’ve been hired and the reasons why,” he laid bare. “I’m quite confident in the abilities that I have on the track that I don’t think I need to make the biggest adjustment. It’s go out there, learn from the team. Hopefully I can bring something, as well, for all of us to get better.”
Ganassi confirmed that “early ideas” are in place for the make-up of Lundgaard’s No.9 squad but that is not yet formalised. Regardless of who takes to his stand, though, he will be able to tap into the vast depth of the CGR camp, with a particular keenness to learn from was-rival Palou, who has previously been open about Dixon’s impact on him.
“The first thought that I had when this came on the table and became an opportunity was I am learning from the best driver who learned from the best driver in Scott Dixon,” Lundgaard said. “Álex has learned from Scott Dixon and if I can learn the Scott Dixon things from Álex Palou with a twist of Álex Palou, it’s the right combination.
“I’m not so worried about the performance on track. I think it’s more learning behind the scenes, getting integrated with the team, getting to know everybody, getting the whole team to glue - put myself as a piece in that and get the best out of it and have many good years.”
The magnitude of the task at hand is not lost on Lundgaard. “It’s definitely big shoes to fill,” he acknowledged. And Palou’s success in the same team is a cause for optimism but equally sets the bar high for Lundgaard to achieve the ultimate success of claiming a first championship for the No.9 car since Dixon’s sixth title in 2020.
Ganassi is not looking for Lundgaard to be a Dixon regenerate, as such, but in opting to sign the 25-year-old, he also doesn’t feel he is going excessively away from the Dixon mould.
“Scott was an integral part of developing that car and developing the team,” Ganassi reflected. “I don’t know why you’d want to go too far off of that; maybe a degree or two but we’re not talking 180 degrees off. I certainly wouldn’t want to do anything too different.”
So how will Lundgaard stack up? “Time will tell,” he offered. But Ganassi has signed a driver who has been one of an exclusive bunch to take the challenge to Palou in races in recent years. For Lundgaard himself, this is a high-level lifeline, with which - even if deserved amid his bizarre circumstance - comes with a pressure of expectation he will have to embrace.
“It’s very easy to change the narrative as a driver to: ‘Okay, this car has proven to win the championship; it should be easy, go out and do it.’ I know better,” he emphasised. “It’s not as easy as it sounds or as it seems. Álex has done a tremendous job in the past six years - and I want to mirror that in many ways but I want to do it better.
“That’s why I’ve been brought onboard with CGR and PNC: it’s to do the best and to bring that No.9 car back to life. It’s going to feel very strange to me to be in that car and I’m sure it’s going to look very different from the outside as well. But it’s a task that I’m super excited to take on and join the team and see what we can do.
“We’re in the business of trying to win but also create some great memories and stories.”
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