Christian Lundgaard finished second in Sunday’s IndyCar race from Barber Motorsports Park, but he was not happy with the result.
The fifth-year driver started in tenth and quickly worked his way through the field. By time the final pit sequence began, he was within attacking distance of race leader Alex Palou.
After staying out to complete an overcut for the lead, Lundgaard’s ambitions were undone by a slow pit stop.
His Arrow McLaren crew had trouble getting the right rear wheel back on the car, which resulted in an excruciating 17.8 second pit stop.
Frustration was hardly a strong enough word to describe Lundgaard’s emotions, but he used the term many times when speaking after the race.
“I think we had a race-winning car today. Obviously it’s frustrating, the past few races, we’ve produced such great race cars on Sunday. We’ve been lacking on Saturday. It’s just frustrating.
“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.
“I don’t necessarily know what the gaps were [to Palou]. I was just told on the radio we would have cleared him. From what I’ve been told, we would have cleared him.
“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 has not won a race since his maiden IndyCar victory in Toronto in 2023, even though he has secured nine podiums since then.
He leaves the weekend third in points, directly behind Palou in the standings.
Discussion about this post