IndyCar

Lundgaard ends Rahal drought and Palou’s IndyCar win streak

by Jack Benyon
6 min read

Christian Lundgaard won his first IndyCar race with an assured drive from pole in Toronto for Rahal Letterman Lanigan, as runaway championship leader Alex Palou pushed his gap to 117 points with a wonderful 15th to second drive despite a broken front wing.

Lundgaard executed a beautiful race start before a pile-up at the back of the pack – which took out a number of cars including Meyer Shank Racing’s debutant Tom Blomqvist – and then another on the restart paused proceedings, before gapping closest rival Scott McLaughlin by four seconds prior to his first pitstop.

The caution meant Lundgaard and the drivers who started on softs got to do 10 laps at a slower pace on those tyres, stretching the stint longer than would be possible under green-flag laps.

McLaughlin was on the hard tyres and stayed out 16 laps longer than Lundgaard in a bid to get an overcut pass done, but even after coming out in traffic, Lundgaard was faster on his new hard tyres and worked his way through that traffic to reclaim a 6.5-second lead when McLaughlin finally stopped.

It didn’t take long for the race to change direction though as on lap 43 of 85 Romain Grosjean speared into the outside wall exiting Turn 10 which put him out of the race. “The wheel jumped out of my hand, again,” he shouted, in a crash likely heaping more pressure on him after a tough recent run.

His Andretti Autosport team-mate Kyle Kirkwood led a small group of opportunistic pitters who were then rewarded with another caution for Kirkwood hitting a slow-moving Helio Castroneves ahead of the restart, which brought most of the rest of the drivers in to pit.

McLaughlin however stayed out – with almost the whole field now having pit behind – in a confusing strategy choice by Penske, leading Scott Dixon and Rinus VeeKay.

Palou – hit hard in the Kirkwood/Castroneves shunt – had steadily moved forward from 15th with a long first stint and passed Colton Herta then the soon to be penalised Kirkwood on the restart to be the first car capable of making the finish without more fuel after stopping under the Grosjean caution.

But an askew front wing compromised his pace after that contact and Lundgaard zeroed in and passed him just as McLaughlin and his rivals pitted to hand Lundgaard the lead.

Lundgaard made a bet with his friend Victor at the start of the season to grow a moustache until he won, and with Victor watching Lundgaard qualify for the first time on Saturday where he scored pole, it was a good luck charm for the Dane and former Alpine Formula 1 junior.

His win was by over 11 seconds by the end, as he took RLL’s first victory in IndyCar since Takuma Sato’s 2020 Indianapolis 500 win.

Palou held on for second despite pressure from Herta and his wing damage to take his average finish on the season to 3.44 and his championship lead over Dixon to 117 points.

After poles in the previous two races that turned into little, Herta finally scored his first podium of the season ahead of a tight-knit group that fought to the end, and featured drama aplenty.

Will Power had pressured Herta along with Marcus Ericsson until the penultimate lap, but both Power and Ericsson ran out of fuel and had to pit promoting a host of rivals. Ericsson fell to 11th and Power 14th.

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Dixon – who followed McLaughlin by staying out when most rivals pitted – recovered from outside of the top 15 to take fourth with Power and Ericsson’s plight, completing an epic comeback from what seemed like a poor strategy call.

Dixon’s late pass on Josef Newgarden also ensured Dixon keeps second in the championship, with Newgarden fifth ahead of Penske team-mate McLaughlin recovering like Dixon, but not quite as well, in sixth.

Ganassi’s rookie Marcus Armstrong scored his best IndyCar result so far in seventh, ahead of Pato O’Ward, Graham Rahal and Felix Rosenqvist completing the top 10.

Rahal was caught up in that lap one shunt and was last, before reversing down the track to take the escape road and get past the blocked section in an inspired tactical move. He made it two cars in the top 10 for RLL.

Race Results

Pos Name Team Car Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Christian Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 85 54 1h41m55.8s 1m01.218s 2 54
2 Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 85 0 +11.789s 1m02.069s 2 40
3 Colton Herta Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 85 0 +15.06s 1m02.069s 2 35
4 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 85 2 +15.76s 1m01.86s 2 33
5 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 85 0 +19.242s 1m01.741s 2 30
6 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 85 28 +19.48s 1m01.583s 2 29
7 Marcus Armstrong Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 85 0 +22.801s 1m01.828s 2 26
8 Patricio O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 85 0 +23.998s 1m01.548s 2 24
9 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 85 0 +26.689s 1m02.245s 4 22
10 Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 85 0 +28.603s 1m01.544s 3 20
11 Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 85 1 +33.563s 1m01.988s 3 20
12 Agustín Canapino Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 85 0 +35.262s 1m02.445s 2 18
13 Rinus VeeKay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 85 0 +35.638s 1m02.22s 2 17
14 Will Power Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 85 0 +36.347s 1m01.903s 3 16
15 Kyle Kirkwood Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 85 0 +37.161s 1m01.407s 4 15
16 Alexander Rossi Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 84 0 +1 lap 1m02.461s 3 14
17 Santino Ferrucci AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 82 0 +3 laps 1m03.462s 6 13
18 Callum Ilott Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 81 0 +4 laps 1m02.418s 4 12
19 Sting Ray Robb Dale Coyne Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 81 0 +4 laps 1m03.591s 4 11
David Malukas Dale Coyne Racing/HMD Motorsports Dallara DW12-Honda 69 0 DNF 1m02.376s 3 10
Hélio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 45 0 DNF 1m02.355s 1 9
Romain Grosjean Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 41 0 DNF 1m02.047s 1 8
Devlin DeFrancesco Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 10 0 DNF 1m07.062s 0 7
Jack Harvey Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 0 0 DNF 0s 0 6
Tom Blomqvist Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 0 0 DNF 0s 0 5
Ryan Hunter-Reay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 0 0 DNF 0s 0 5
Benjamin Pedersen AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 0 0 DNF 0s 0 5
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