Christian Lundgaard delivered a solid performance to cross the line P3 at the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio, securing his fourth podium of the season.
The driver of the No. 7 Arrow McLaren suggested that experienced heads would prevail in the race and was correct – as Scott Dixon grabbed victory ahead of Alex Palou.
Lundgaard finished just behind the top two, but five seconds ahead of Colton Herta in P4. The result sees Lundgaard move ahead of Felix Rosenqvist into P5 in the NTT IndyCar Series Championship.
Speaking to the media, Lundgaard expressed surprise as Palou’s costly error and felt his own race could have been better.
Lundgaard shocked at Palou’s mistake but happy with his result
A mistake from Palou is as rare as can be, and Lundgaard was one of many shocked to see the Chip Ganassi driver make a mistake. However, in light of Palou and Dixon’s pace, the McLaren driver accepts his final position.
“We saw Mr. Perfect 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.”
Despite conceding the pace difference, Lundgaard finished only two seconds behind the leaders.
A different strategy could have landed Lundgaard a victory
The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio saw drivers split between a two-stop and three-stop strategy. Lundgaard and Arrow McLaren opted for a three-stop, with Lundgaard contemplating what might have happened if the team chose the two-stop strategy.
“This morning I woke up kind of thinking it was going to be a two-stop race. I think obviously Dixon kind of proved that.
“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, and we decided to kind of follow him. 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.”
Lundgaard happy to find a result to back up recent road course performances
The Danish driver had a disappointing drive last time out at Road America, finishing out of contention in P24. Despite the disappointment, he knows that his car is capable of plenty of results like today.
“I think 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.”
With this in mind, Lundgaard is glad to finally get a deserved result on the board: “So clearly I think the pace has been there and the results were going to be there. We’ve made some silly mistakes. So I think this weekend it’s just nice to have it on paper and stack up those points.”
Looking ahead to Iowa
Lundgaard will be hoping to carry some momentum into next weekend’s Sukup IndyCar Race Weekend at Iowa. In doing so, he will be wanting to improve on his career-best P10 at the Iowa Speedway.
“I think going into Iowa next weekend, it’s going to be all about qualifying. I think both of us [referring to Palou] 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.”
