Photo credit: Penske Entertainment/Chris Owens
Christian Lundgaard took his second pole position of the season at the Honda Indy Toronto in a session that was turned on its side by rain that came at the very end of the first group in round one.
“I don’t think anyone really knew if it was going to rain or not because it said it was going to rain for P2 as well. At least I thought we were going to be around the edge of getting into the Fast Six, but I think our strategy throughout the whole of qualifying actually we just nailed it.”
The rain was constant for the second group in Q1, and the track was still plenty damp for the top 12 group to have to run on wet tires.
“I think when we were there in Q2, I knew I was basically 11th, and I don’t really think that we were going to have any more. Then we put the second set of wets on, and we did that one lap, and we made it through.”
The track continued to dry in the Fast Six round, and Lundgaard and Rahal Letterman Lanigan played just the right card to take the hand and get pole.
“My race engineer in the middle of Fast Six, we did that one lap on the wets. He told me everybody has already pitted for slicks. So we came in, and we had actually agreed to do the used set of greens, but we ended up going to the new, which I think was the right decision.”
It was the right decision from the team, and the right execution from the driver: “My previous lap before that when I was told this is your last lap, I was already finding grip. Basically the only thing I did was just go more from the wet kind of line into the dry line, and there was just grip there.”
Lundgaard seemed to be, at best, cautiously optimistic about his prospects for the race. “I do think we will be fast tomorrow. I just don’t think we’ll be the fastest car. I don’t think we’ve shown that pace throughout the weekend. I hope the improvements that we did make from practice 2 into qualifying and the changes that we made will pay off tomorrow.”
There is, however, a chance of more rain—a situation that Lundgaard, who clearly can handle the conditions, has been prepared for since well before this weekend.
“When we grew up in mini-karts, in Denmark we don’t have wet tires, and as we all know, we develop our skills when we are at a very young age. I was driving around on the slicks in the wet, and I’ve just always been fast in the wets.”
