Lundgaard powers to commanding maiden IndyCar win in Toronto

Welcome to the pantheon of first-time NTT IndyCar Series winners, Christian Lundgaard.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing scored its first win since 2020 and its young new star delivered on the promise he’s shown since making a one-off debut in 2021 with a flawless and dominant run to victory lane. The Dane was in a class of his own, charging to a 11.7s win over Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou and 15.0s over Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta as Honda-powered drivers swept the podium at the packed Honda Indy Toronto event.

The achievement was the culmination of RLL’s incredible turnaround efforts after the team got off to a slow and largely uncompetitive start to the season.

“I said it before the race that we had a car that was fast enough win, and we did it by 10 seconds,” Lundgaard said. “This team, they do deserve this. If you look at where we were at the end of last season, we were nowhere near this.”

Behind Lundgaard, it was a messy day for some and a strange one for others.

The luckiest driver in the field was undoubtedly Palou, who started 15th, charged forward, used smart race strategy applied by his team to improve more positions, but also had to save gallons of fuel to make it to the finish while taking a different line around the 1.8-mile street circuit. Why was Palou forced to alter his line? It was a necessity to avoid the major curbs and bumps due to a broken front wing caused while trying to miss the spinning car of Helio Castroneves that resulted in a meeting with the wall that broke his front wing’s attachment to the nose.

Dragging the right-front down the long straights as downforce increased, the problem progressively worsened and with only a few of the 85 laps left to go, it looked as if it might break off the No. 10 Honda’s nose altogether, but it held on — as did the last few drops of fuel — to complete a 13-position improvement and increase his championship lead.

“I don’t know how we made it with this wing,” Palou said. “The car was still handling OK, but we just had to save a ton of fuel and a ton of tires, but we made it.”

For Herta, who secured his first podium of the year, barely holding on to his position was an achievement as his engine sputtered and fell silent after crossing the finish line. Like Palou, he started deep in the pack — 14th — and went for a wild ride to third.

“Luckily we were able to save enough and we made the strategy work,” said a relieved Herta. “Some guys didn’t make it work.”

Another big mover was RLL’s Graham Rahal whose craftiness netted an improvement from 27th to ninth. A few corners away from starting the final lap, Team Penske’s Will Power and Ganassi’s Marcus Ericsson were chasing Herta hard for his position, but both disappeared from his mirrors as they had to do the most gut-wrenching thing a driver can do: pit on the last lap for a splash of fuel and surrender quality finishes.

Ericsson would emerge from the pits to take 11th and Power was a frustrated 14th.

Toronto was a race to forget for Team Penske as all three of its entries suffered from mistakes made by its drivers or on its timing stands. Josef Newgarden lost numerous positions after running long in his pit box, but recovered to take fifth. Power said he should have saved more fuel. Front-row starter Scott McLaughlin could have shadowed Lundgaard and likely finish behind him if it weren’t for a colossal strategy error that left the Penske machine out when the RLL driver and others in his vicinity stopped. Forced onto a strategy that held no hope of getting to the finish line, he pitted halfway through the final stint, gave up the lead, and resumed in 14th. Dixon and Power were also forced to make the same late stop, but they weren’t in contention for the win.

To their credit, and with help from the last-lap dramas for Power and Ericsson, Dixon climbed to fourth and McLaughlin made it to sixth at the checkered flag.

The greatest beneficiary was Palou, who started behind Dixon and Newgarden, yet finished ahead of them and increased his championship lead on his teammate from 110 points to 117, and pushed his pre-Toronto 116-point margin over the Penske driver out to 126 with seven races to go. Thanks to his fuel issue, Ericsson’s gap to Palou grew from 122 to 142 points, but he held onto fourth in the standings. Lundgaard’s big result propelled him from 10th in the championship to seventh as Power’s misfortune moved him rearwards to eighth.

Only 15 of the 27 cars finished on the lead lap, with seven drivers parked and done well before all the laps were completed. Andretti’s Romain Grosjean crashed again on his own, and Dale Coyne Racing’s David Malukas also met the wall in a late solo incident. Castroneves was hit from behind by Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood on the restart after his teammate’s crash, and was forced to retire. Kirkwood was duly penalized.

And to start the race off with carnage, Lundgaard’s teammate Jack Harvey induced a multi-car crash that left a number of drivers fuming, including Meyer Shank Racing rookie Tom Blomqvist whose IndyCar race debut only lasted a few seconds.

“This is the last thing I wanted to happen,” Blomqvist said. “Someone hit someone… You’re at the mercy of people on the other side and I was pushed into the wall. I’m pretty furious, devastated, and gutted. To not even get one lap is frustrating.”

AS IT HAPPENED

Polesitter Christian Lundgaard got a great jump into Turn 1 and Scott Dixon climbed to P5 but behind them, a caution was required when a big pileup exiting Turn 1 saw Jack Harvey, Tom Blomqvist, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Santino Ferrucci, Benjamin Pedersen, Alexander Rossi and Graham Rahal get tangled in a track-blocking mess triggered by Harvey.

Going three-wide on corner exit, Harvey veered left into Hunter-Reay, knocking him into Blomqvist on the outside, who was sent into the wall. Hunter-Reay, Blomqvist, and the rest of the drivers were collateral damage as a result of Harvey’s move, and only Rahal — last on the grid and last to arrive on the scene — was able to select reverse and drive away using the escape road that runs behind Turns 1 and 2.

With considerable damage to the cars of Harvey, Hunter-Reay, Blomqvist and Pedersen, the four drivers were done on the spot. Ferrucci and Rossi were able to continue, but suffered body work damage, as did Rahal, who hit the back of Ferrucci’s car and stopped for a new front wing assembly. The other two would follow suit under the extended caution and resume at the back of the field.

By the flag, even this sight was hard for second place Alex Palou to see. Richard Dole/Lumen

Having burned nine laps to clear the crash, Lundgaard led the restart and behind him Kyle Kirkwood took sixth from Felix Rosenqvist. Alex Palou, starting P15, was up to P12 but lost it to Colton Herta the next lap after an unsuccessful attempt to demote Romain Grosjean from P11.

Herta took P11 from Grosjean with ease the next time around. Lundgaard started lap 13 with 2.5s over Scott McLaughlin, and behind them, Pato O’Ward was 3.5s down in P3 and Marcus Ericsson was 4.5s back in P4.

Marcus Armstrong was next on Herta’s hit list and by lap 14, he was up from a P14 start to P10. Lundgaard, on alternate tires, put another second on McLaughlin, on primaries, to push the lead out to 3.5s. Grosjean and Palou moved Armstrong back to P13, who pitted at the end of the lap to take the alternate tires off his car. Rosenqvist was in the next lap — lap 18 — for the same alternate-to-primary change. Kirkwood and Josef Newgarden arrived on lap 19 for the same swap.

Only Lundgaard and O’Ward continued lapping on alternates, but Lundgaard pitted at the end of the lap for primaries, but lost time with a long change to the left-front tire. O’Ward was in on lap 21 as the leaders, barring McLaughlin, completed their first stops. Team Penske’s call to have the Kiwi go long and try an overcut to leap past Lundgaard wasn’t looking good as the gap from P1 to the polesitter in P9 was 16.1s after 25 laps. With a pit stop taking at least 24-25s, his advantage over McLaughlin doubled.

The strategy was starting to play to McLaughlin’s favor by lap 30 thanks to Rinus VeeKay, who fought Lundgaard at every turn, and despite being faster, the RLL driver was 17.7s back. Palou finally got by Grosjean on the same lap and checked out to chase Herta in P5. The top 7, from McLaughlin to Grosjean, were still going on their first set of tires and had yet to pit.

Palou cleared Herta by lap 33; Grosjean pitted moments later. The gap from McLaughlin to Lundgaard was 17.5s. Herta followed, taking alternates as well, on lap 34. McLaughlin was in on lap 35 to take alternates. What can he do on faster tires with Lundgaard 6s up the road?

Dixon, Palou, and Will Power pitted on lap 38 and Power overtook Dixon on pit lane.

Lap 41 and Lundgaard’s lead over McLaughlin was 6.3s, 8.1s to O’Ward, and 15.5s to Kirkwood.

The second caution of the day was required on lap 42 when Grosjean fired into the wall at Turn 10, telling his crew that the steering wheel slipped out of his hands. He was running 12th at the time of his crash.

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A mess of cars stopped on lap 45 to get off of alternate tires, led by Kirkwood, Palou, Herta, and Rosenqvist, with the group hoping for plenty of caution laps to make it to the finish, and the return to green happened at the end of the lap with Lundgaard leading McLaughlin, but another caution was required when Helio Castroneves spun entering Turn 11, tried to flick the car around, and stalled.

Kirkwood was shown to have hit Castroneves, who was unable to restart his car and climbed out. While avoiding Castroneves, Palou made decent contact with the wall with his right-front wheel and wing; the wing was hanging low and questionable to last the rest of the race.

Most of the leaders, barring McLaughlin, pitted under caution on lap 49 with Lundgaard, O’Ward, Ericsson, and Power diving in for fuel and primary tires.

The lap 52 restart featured McLaughlin leading into Turn 1 and a penalty issued for Kirkwood who was ordered to pit and stop. His race was effectively over. Lundgaard passed Herta for P5 on lap 53 and the running order going into lap 54 was McLaughlin, Dixon, VeeKay, Palou, Lundgaard, and Herta.

The top three were on the faster alternate tires and needing to save fuel while those in pursuit were less affected by that need and had the more durable primary tires on their cars. VeeKay pitted from third on lap 60 and lost a ton of time waiting for the car to be lifted.

McLaughlin surrendered the lead on lap 61, taking primaries and a full tank of fuel. Palou also gave up P3 to Lundgaard and Herta was closing. Dixon was in on lap 63 for fuel only, and resumed ahead of McLaughlin in P14. Power took P4 from O’Ward with a daring move into Turn 5.

Lundgaard was leading once again with 2.4s over Palou on lap 64.

David Malukas clipped the wall with 15 laps to go and retired as Lundgaard’s lead was out to 7.0s over Palou after 74 laps. Herta was 8.3s back and had Power in his draft. Ericsson was 11.3s back in P5, Newgarden was 12.7s down in P6, and Marcus Armstrong was 14.0s arrears in P7. Dixon was up to P10 and McLaughlin was in P13.

Lap 79 and Dixon was up to P8 and McLaughlin took P11 from Rahal. Herta took a strong look at Palou under braking for Turn 3 as his front wings were wobbling more than ever as the right side dragged hard at top speed. Lap 82 and Dixon was up to P7 and McLaughlin was in P10.

Power and Ericsson pitted at the start of the last lap for fuel as Dixon got by Newgarden for P4. Lundgaard, Palou, and Herta are your podium for the Honda Indy Toronto.

RESULTS

Story originally appeared on Racer