INDIANAPOLIS – Christian Lundgaard was done with close calls.
It has been almost three years since Lundgaard’s first career IndyCar win on the streets of Toronto, and his first 22 races with Arrow McLaren were littered with podium finishes — eight to be exact — yet no win.
So with Alex Palou, who had won the Sonsio Grand Prix three years in a row, surprisingly multiple spots behind the leader, Lundgaard went for it.
Lundgaard trailed only Team Penske’s David Malukas, who was in search of his first career win. On Lap 68 of 85, Lundgaard’s No. 7 Chevrolet got around the outside of Malukas’ No. 12 Chevrolet in Turn 4 of the IMS road course, and the Danish driver didn’t relinquish the lead after taking it.
“At the end of the day, I had — again — nothing to lose,” Lundgaard said. “I finish second, okay, that’s fine, but I have so much unfinished business here. For me, I wanted to win. I have enough second places in the past year and a half. I wanted a win. I was kind of willing to do what it took.”
“Looking back, I thought, man, I could have been a lot more aggressive, but in the end, there’s an art to knowing when you’ve lost the spot,” said Malukas, who finished second. “I ended up just giving out and, look, the thing is, I could have pushed him a little bit wider and then not complete the pass.
“But we could have had contact, something could have happened, we could have lost a lot of pace. … The thing is, if he’s not going to get me that lap, he’s going to get me the next one or the other one after that. He had push-to-pass. We were running out. It was just a matter of attrition. I thought, he’s got it.”
Lundgaard, who made his IndyCar debut at the IMS road course with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in 2021, won the battle of attrition after four top-five finishes on the course in his career before Saturday. With the win, Lundgaard becomes the first driver besides Pato O’Ward to win a race for Arrow McLaren since McLaren Racing purchased a stake in the team ahead of the 2020 season. Lundgaard joins O’Ward (nine career McLaren wins) and Johnny Rutherford (18 career McLaren wins) as the only drivers in IndyCar history to win under McLaren.
Lundgaard’s career has been full of solid results that weren’t quite victories, often as a casualty of Palou’s greatness. Races like Saturday’s are why the 24-year-old came to Arrow McLaren, which is trying to solidify itself as a premier IndyCar team.
“I live to win races,” Lundgaard said. “I don’t live to finish second. I don’t live to just be in the race. I think that’s how I was always taught growing up. I don’t just compete to compete. I compete to win.”
Lundgaard and teammate Nolan Siegel, who had a season-best 10th-place finish Saturday, are in the final year of their contracts with Arrow McLaren. Team principal Tony Kanaan is waiting until after the Indianapolis 500 to discuss an extension with Lundgaard, who said winning races is “why I got hired in the first place.”
“Exactly, I hired you to win races,” Kanaan said. “I don’t think I put him to the judgment. They know my expectations, but I think we have the same expectations. … A little bit of pressure sometimes is good, and Christian, it doesn’t faze him.”
“I like pressure, clearly,” added Lundgaard.
Lundgaard is now up to fourth in the IndyCar standings through one-third of the season. He had a career-best fifth-place finish in his first year with Arrow McLaren in 2025 despite not winning a race. A surprise to many, Lundgaard is now having the best season on the team, as O’Ward — who finished second to Palou in 2025 — dropped to seventh in the season standings after his race was derailed due to a Lap 1 crash caused by Felix Rosenqvist.
Despite never driving in an IndyCar support series, Lundgaard has emerged as a mainstay among a talented crop of drivers in their 20s. Until Saturday, he didn’t have the wins to back it up. Now Lundgaard does, and he’s hoping to make appearances in victory lane more frequently.
“I don’t want to sound too optimistic or cocky in that way, but on a good day, I know I can beat anyone,” Lundgaard said. “I’m sure 95% 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. To finally get it, obviously, it took a year and a half. I think we’ve come close many, many times. I think we’ve unlocked the door now. I’m pretty confident many more will come.”
Lundgaard and the rest of the paddock will now pivot to trying to capture the Indianapolis 500, a race where he finished a career-best seventh last year. Saturday’s victory surely put the IndyCar world on notice of what Lundgaard can accomplish in two weeks and the rest of the season.
Zion Brown is IndyStar’s motorsports reporter. Follow him at @z10nbr0wn. Get IndyStar’s motor sports coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Motor Sports newsletter. Subscribe to theYouTube channel IndyStar TV: IndyCar for a behind-the-scenes look at IndyCar and expert analysis.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Christian Lundgaard on daring Turn 4 pass to win Sonsio Grand Prix: ‘I have enough second places’
Reporting by Zion Brown, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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