Denmark’s Christian Rasmussen had a memorable day at Gateway in St. Louis on Sunday as he finished P3 to secure his first podium in the IndyCar series.
After struggling in practice, which led to a miserable P25 in qualifying, the ECR driver pulled off a remarkable comeback in the 260-lap event.
Rasmussen had to contend with a fire at this first fuel stop. While the car, driver and crew were ultimately fine, the team did not get the full amount of fuel in. It put him off strategy, although his charge to 5th from just inside the top 20 after that restart was impressive despite having less fuel.
The 2023 Indy NXT champion had to pit for emergency service under the caution for the enormous accident involving Josef Newgarden and Louis Foster as he would have ran out of fuel. That put him back down to P18 once again as he was served a penalty after he was set to restart in the top 5. He was last of the runners on the lead lap.
What followed from there was truly remarkable. He carved his way through the field, passing big names like Herta, Rossi, Palou and McLaughlin to run in P5 before the final round of stops.
Rasmussen would overcut Conor Daly, and he passed Scott Dixon on track to take a well deserved P3 in the final stages. Gateway already held special memories for the Dane as he won here in Indy NXT as well. A first IndyCar podium tops that, however.
Christian Rasmussen on his day at the Gateway IndyCar race in St. Louis
Asked if he ever thought a podium was possible, the 24-year-old understandably did not think it was a possibility.
He explained how using the high line was key to him making a whopping 62 passes on the evening, according to IndyCar.
“No, not really. Not really [expecting a podium].
“Just [what a] way to turn this weekend around. I think we really, really struggled in practice 1 as well as qualifying, but knew what we needed out of the car, and obviously hit some good changes for the race.
“Yeah, as soon as I kind of found out how well my car worked on the high side, it was just game on. I was able to pass cars — we even got hosed one time with having to take emergency service because we were out of fuel, so I had to restart at the tail end, and that was kind of right at the point where I had kind of driven through most of the field and was up front but had to go to the back, drove through again, and man, we were just coming.
“It was awesome. I haven’t done one of these in a while, so it’s good.”
Christian Rasmussen not surprised first IndyCar podium came on on oval
Having won on ovals in Indy NXT, the Dane explained that getting his first podium in IndyCar on an oval was not a massive surprise to him. It backs up his strong run to 6th at the Indy 500 last month.
“It’s definitely important, but I think it’s been coming. I’ve been good around ovals most of my career, or really all my career since I’ve started doing ovals. It just comes very natural to me.
“For a first podium, I’m not surprised it’s on an oval.”
Having to work his way through the field twice and the confidence Rasmussen had behind the wheel
Although that emergency service penalty set him back 14 spots, Rasmussen refused to let him get to him. Instead, he went on a remarkable charge.
“I wouldn’t say I got frustrated with myself. I definitely got a little frustrated with just having to do it all over again.
“But on the flipside of that, I knew that I could do it. I knew that I had been moving forward and I was the car probably in the field that was moving the most forward.
“I just kept my head down and kept passing cars. There was no other way around it.”
On how things felt behind the car, Rasmussen felt extremely comfortably using the high line as it was mentioned to him how many more overtakes he made compared to the rest of the field.
“Yeah, I had a good feeling.
“Obviously I was around a lot of other cars and I could see how they were moving around. There was a couple cars that were making passes, but I don’t think there was anyone that was passing as much as I did. Not as I could see on the track. And obviously that [number] supports it.
“But yeah, my car worked better on the high side than it did on the low side, so I was just going to use it. Then just full commitment and definitely passed a lot of cars tonight, so that was pretty cool.”
