Christian Lundgaard is impressing day by day in IndyCar, scoring his fourth podium of the 2025 season in Mid-Ohio. The Danish driver, who has joined Arrow McLaren at the beginning of the year, started the road course race from P2, brilliantly defending his podium finish but having to concede to Dixon and his two-stop strategy.
Not a perfect race but a strong result
Ahead of him ended championship leader Alex Palou as well, who made a rare mistake which allowed the six-time IndyCar champion to extend his race winning streak to over 20 years.
Nevertheless, Lundgaard was pretty satisfied with his day, as he commented after the end of the IndyCar Mid-Ohio race.
Ultimately CGR had a little edge in race trim.
“Yes, we saw Mr. Perfect [Palou] here make a mistake. You don’t see that very often. I think the day was pretty good. Alex seemed to have a little bit more pace than we did. This morning I woke up kind of thinking it was going to be a two-stop race. Obviously Dixon kind of proved that.”
What could have been
The former Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver admitted that he believes more could have been in the card for him considering the strong pace displayed over the span of the weekend. However, ultimately he and his team had decided to opt for a more aggressive approach on three stops which, while it cemented his podium chances, didn’t leave room for potentially taking a win.
“This morning, I think we showed that we were able to get the number that we needed with the pace, but again, you need the rest of the race to fall your way for that to work out, and we were unsure what Alex was going to do. We decided to kind of follow him, and I think if we would have stayed with our gut, we could have potentially come away with a better result. But at the end of the day, we’re on the podium.
“I nearly went off the same lap, same corner as he did. I don’t know what I was looking at, trying to see the 10 car. But yeah, still on the podium, so that’s good,” he added, highlighting the positives of the day.
Finally a good feeling
Lundgaard is also glad that his strong driving performance actually had a positive outcome as well, as he feels like converting speed into points hasn’t been a guarantee for McLaren as of lately.
A spin at Road America when battling Colton Herta cost him a potential victory, and a P2 at the very least.
The Dane also explained he almost went off where Palou did with six laps to go.
“You look at Indy Road Course, we were one of the fastest cars. We missed the pit out commit line, had a drive through, the results gone. Road America, we were on the same strategy as Felix but ahead of him and he finished second.
“So clearly, I think, the pace has been there and the results were going to be there. We’ve made some silly mistakes. So this weekend it’s just nice to have it on paper and stack up those points.”
Up Next: Iowa
The Dane is also looking forward to the next round already, set to be held in Iowa. Lundgaard highlighted which aspects to build on from the past IndyCar Mid-Ohio race weekend in order to replicate the positive result.
“But I think going into Iowa next weekend, it’s going to be all about qualifying, and I think the two of us here can kind of agree on that, and I think both of us will agree on that. It’s about having a good qualifying car and just being fast enough in the race and obviously score as many points as possible during those two races in Iowa.”
