An outstanding Sunday drive by Denmark’s Christian Lundgaard at Barber should have led to a second career win in IndyCar. However, he was left to rue what might have been instead.
From 10th on the grid following a disappointing qualifying for Arrow McLaren once more, his race pace was mega again.
Having cleared Newgarden, Grosjean, Ericsson, Ferrucci and Armstrong by lap 12, he was running in P5. Lundgaard then overcut Kirkwood and Malukas through the first pit cycle and was up to 3rd.
In the second stint he started to close on Graham Rahal, overcutting the RLL driver in the process as he ran four laps longer.
The hunt for Alex Palou started. When the Spaniard made his final stop at the end of lap 65, a gap that was once 10s fifty tours earlier had been reduced to 3s. With the Spaniard getting caught up in traffic, it looked like car #7 would come out on top.
Heartbreakingly for Christian Lundgaard, an almost 18s stop thanks to a problem fitting the right rear tyre cost him a probable lead. In fact, he fell behind Graham Rahal because of it.
Christian Lundgaard believes he had a race-winning car in IndyCar Barber round
Speaking in the post-race press conference, the Dane could not hide his frustration.
“Yeah, I mean, everything you just said sounds great except the P2 part. I think we had a race-winning car today.
“Obviously it’s frustrating, the past many few races, we’ve produced such great race cars on Sunday. We’ve been lacking on Saturday. It’s just frustrating.
“Obviously you win races on Sunday, so that’s when you need to have a good car.
“I think we need to put ourselves in better positions. I think even with the pace and how the race panned out today, we had the car to win the race, we had the pace, we had the track position at the time.
“I’m not really sure what happened in the pit stop. I’m not sure I can really comment too much on it. Again, it’s unfortunate.
“Obviously came out behind Graham there on the last stint and just wanted to really get that second place for the team, as well. It wasn’t just for me. This is where we were.
“At least with a bobble on pit road, let’s get the same result, not worse. We had the pace. Got by Graham. That was nice.”
Lundgaard informed he would have taken the lead from current champion Palou
Before he reached the press conference, the 24-year-old was told by his Arrow McLaren team he would have overcut Alex Palou with a normal stop. Alongside Lundgaard’s own mega pace, the CGR driver was involved in some titanic fights with backmarkers Mick Schumacher and Dennis Hauger. It cost him a couple of seconds.
Ultimately, it did not matter thanks to the slow stop for Christian Lundgaard.
“Absolutely [felt like the race win was on]. Well, yes and no I guess.
“I don’t necessarily know what the gaps were. I was just told on the way here we would have cleared him. Then obviously you have to have the track position on the first couple of laps.
“It’s unknown. From what I’ve been told, we would have cleared him.”
Chtistian Lundgaard channeling his frustration in a good way to get Graham Rahal for P2 in IndyCar Barber race
As he fell behind the RLL driver following that slow stop, he composed himself and started to pile the pressure on in the closing laps. With more push-to-pass up his sleeve, Lundgaard made the pass down to turn 5 with three laps left.
When asked about how he was able to get P2 back, he was left to rue what could have been against Alex Palou. Following a crushing 2025 by the Spaniard and Chip Ganassi Racing, Kyle Kirkwood at Arlington and Christian Lundgaard at Barber have shown the IndyCar champion can be or could have been beaten when his rivals have very fast race packages.
“I was very frustrated. It’s fair to be frustrated.
“It’s a tough position to be in because it’s like one of those unlucky yellows that hurt your entire race progress, right? We had done so good up until then.
“Again, we finished P2, we shouldn’t be that frustrated. But when you are up against a car that’s been the most competitive and best car in INDYCAR for the past many years, to have a chance to beat him fair and square, that hurts.
“It’s the position that we’ve tried to be in the past three years. I think we got there today.
“Really just to miss out on it for something like that is unfortunate. I think there’s a lot of learnings to take from it.”
Lundgaard reflects on McLaren’s latest IndyCar qualifying struggles
Although the former RLL race winner has finished on the podium twice across the first four rounds, McLaren have struggled to get their two very competitive drivers in cars #5 and #7 right at the sharp end in qualifying in 2026.
P12, P17, P18, P10 are the four grid positions for Christian Lundgaard in 2026. While the race pace on street and road courses has been right amongst the best, qualifying sessions on Friday or Saturday have been a disaster so far.
Sitting P3 in points after the IndyCar Barber round, it is an area McLaren must improve on to give Lundgaard a shot at the championship.
“There’s so many things [behind the qualifying struggles]. Just not getting it right really for many different reasons.
“It’s just frustrating. We put in so much work. I think the team’s done a phenomenal job in the off-season obviously producing such great race cars.
“To not get there in qualifying when it really counts […]. I think this weekend was a big surprise for us. Obviously we were competitive here last year. Just not really getting it in qualifying is frustrating.
“Obviously we had four qualifying sessions that obviously haven’t been on an oval so far where we’re not transferring in the Firestone Fast Six when I think we should have.
“You look at the [race] results, we’re right there. Finished third in St. Pete, finished seventh in Arlington even though we got spun on the first lap.
“We have the race pace. We just need to start further up.”
