Chrsitian Lundgaard heads into the inaugural IndyCar race at Arlington 7th in points, 24 adrift of current 2026 championship leader Josef Newgraden.
The big talking point of last Saturday’s race at Phoenix was the contact between Christian Rasmussen and Will Power as they battled for the lead on lap 207. The Dane had worked his way up from P18 and looked to be the fastest guy by a distance until he sustained damage.
A fine balance between brilliance and disaster
At a McLaren fan festival ahead of the 2026 IndyCar race in Arlington attended by media oultets, Pit Debrief asked Christian Lundgaard about his fellow Dane’s gung-ho approach, particularly on ovals.
The field has become accustomed to it over the last year or so. While it paid off with a magnificent first win at Milwaukee in 2025, Saturday showed the risks of being so brave and aggressive.
Nonetheless, the driver of car #7 is sure more good days are ahead of his friend.
“You know, it has pros and cons, right?
“We all have different driving styles. We have different ways of approaching things and I think we’ve seen that Christian’s aggressive.
“He’s aware of it and I think everybody else is aware of it and it helps him in certain ways but it can also be his weakness, right? You know, sometimes when you’re being that aggressive, you lose out sometimes and I think that was that situation.
“Obviously, I’m sure he’ll learn from it.
“I’m good friends with him. We’ve known each other basically from when we were kids. Grew up racing together so I knew all of this stuff going in, right?
“I’m just happy to see him do well and get good results. Obviously, last weekend didn’t end how he hoped, but there’ll be plenty more opportunities for him.”
Christian Lundgaard says 2026 IndyCar Arlington race one of survival
Arlington marks the second street race of 2026. At St. Pete to kickstart the season, the 24-year-old stormed through from P12 on the grid to finish on the podium.
A set-up error in qualifying left him way out of position as his drive on the Sunday showed. Going into this weekend, the Danish star told Pit Debrief he believes strategy and not ending up in incidents will be the key to a big result.
“Hopefully [maintain] the speed [from St. Pete], Sunday was good.
“We made a mistake in qualifying and we tried to chase some lap time and we went the wrong way and we lost some lap time for qualifying. So obviously it made our life harder for the race.
“We kind of knew where we’d gone wrong and kind of just to eliminate that going into this weekend is, we don’t want to make that mistake again. It was the first race of the year, we were not necessarily desperate but we wanted a good result.
“We’ve always been strong in qualifying and I think this weekend I don’t necessarily think it matters where you start. It’s survival until the end and who gets it right on strategy.”
As for new track challenges, Lundgaard feels it is mostly on the team side. Getting the ride height correct on a bumpy new street course will be vital for lap time.
Drivers will have two practice sessions to get dialled in before qualifying.
“You know, it’s really just the usual work.
“There’s a little bit extra, just trying to prepare, but I think it’s more gaining information for the team. Gearing, downforce level, ride heights, etc.
“From a driver’s perspective, we’ll do the track walk. We’ll kind of figure out where it goes left, where it goes right and I guess we’ll figure it out pretty quickly once we go out in practice 1.”
