It was a day to remember for Christian Lundgaard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Friday as the Dane secured his first pole position in the series since making the jump from Formula 2.
Photo credit: Penske Entertainment | Chris Owens
Lundgaard joined Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing full time last year after a one-off appearance in 2021, when he qualified a sensational P4 at this weekend’s venue. It’s also the third time in four attempts that he’s started inside the top 6 since his first appearance here.
Lundgaard also finished P2 on the road course last August, bagging his first and only podium to date in the series.
The pole secured by the 21-year-old is the first for the team since Takuma Sato in 2020. Talking post-qualifying, Lundgaard reflected on the fact he’s so rapid around this track.
“I mean, I can finally call this home, I think,” he joked. “But no, it feels amazing.
“Waking up this morning, I knew we were going to have a chance to get into the Fast Six because we’ve done that pretty much every time we’ve been here, at least with me, and I hoped it was going to happen, and now I can sit here and it’s a reality, which is pretty cool.”
As already stated, Lundgaard’s record on the IMS road course is extremely impressive. He believes it’s a circuit that suits European drivers more due to the nature of the circuit. The top 4 drivers in qualifying yesterday all come from Europe.
“I wish I could tell you [why this place suits me], man. I want to know myself,” he stated.
“This place just is amazing. What whatever way you drive around, if it’s one or the other, it’s amazing. I think the atmosphere around this place just brings us drivers alive.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that this track fits the European drivers. I’m sitting next to a Swede. So we’re up here. Jack is in here, Pato is in here. It is a very sort of European style track, so I think it just fits us pretty well.”
RLL came out of the blocks quickly in practice yesterday. Lundgaard was P2 in both free practice sessions ahead of qualifying, with teammate Jack Harvey P5 in the two of them.
In qualifying they both improved by one place to seal pole and P4 respectively. Graham Rahal was much better compared to practice and will start in 8th.
Photo credit: Penske Entertainment | Aaron Skillman
Lundgaard very much focused on the team effort on Friday and in general post-qualifying.
“Honestly, right now it feels awesome getting my first NTT P1 award, but with that said, Jack is P4 and Graham is P8. That is the best qualifying we’ve had in those two years that we’ve been teammates,” he said.
“I think it shows the progress that we’re on. It’s taken a little longer than we would have liked, but now we’ve got to finish it off tomorrow, but I’m just super happy for the team.
“My podium here last year, it was a big relief for me and the team. I knew my ability to be able to finish on the podium. I know what I’m capable of.
“But to deliver it to the team is what meant the most to me, and this, too. Everyone works so hard. We built a new facility. It hasn’t paid off until now, so we’re going to keep digging deep.”
To say RLL have had a difficult start to the season would be an understatement. Before the fourth round at Barber, none of their three cars had qualified inside the top 10. In fact in Texas, they qualified P24, P27 and P28 (last) on a brutal weekend for them.
At Barber two weeks ago, Lundgaard qualified and finished P6. It finally kick-started their season after a promising end to 2022 ended up counting for nothing in the opening rounds. Rahal had finished P5 at Portland and Lundgaard in the same position at Laguna Seca to conclude the campaign.
Lundgaard admits it ‘annoyed’ him how the 2023 season had started.
“The podium here last year was a step, and we had a very good end to the season last year, but we weren’t able to continue that going into the beginning of this season, and it annoyed me a lot because obviously I’m asking the questions, what have we done different,” he continued.
“There wasn’t really anything that was dramatically different that should drastically change it as much as it was from the end of the season to the beginning of the season, so now sitting here I’m only proud of this team.
“Everything we’ve achieved up until now, I would say we set the benchmark in Barber a couple of weeks ago where we were pretty much consistently sixth throughout the whole week, to now start off with a pole.”
RLL have clearly found a window that suits the car around the Indianapolis road track to fight right at the front. In comparison, we’ve seen the regular 2023 pacesetters Andretti cars struggle massively on Friday.
Although Kyle Kirkwood did an incredible job to make the Fast Six, his highly regarded teammates Colton Herta and Romain Grosjean could only manage P14 and P18 as their cars just didn’t have the performance they had shown at St. Pete, Long Beach and Barber.
The unpredictability of IndyCar is what makes the series so engrossing. For Lundgaard, however, he knows they have to work extremely hard to find this speed at other places to consistently challenge the likes of CGR, Team Penske, Arrow McLaren and Andretti.
“I mean, I hope so [that this a turning point],” he said.
“This is what I want to do now. Now we’re starting the race from pole, but we also need to win the race. We need to take it step by step and see what we can do tomorrow and back it up for the proper month of May.
“We just have a fast car here, which is obviously great because now we translated that into our first NTT P1 award. We’ve got to dig deeper for everywhere else.
“As I mentioned before, I don’t just want to be fast here, I want to be fast across all 17 races. We’ve got to keep working and trying to figure that out.”
Photo credit: Penske Entertainment | Chris Owens
