Yahoo Autos Lundqvist seals IndyCar Rookie of the Year crown
Linus Lundqvist has won the NTT IndyCar Series’ Rookie of the Year award.
The 25-year-old Swede, who captured the Indy Lights championship in 2022, showed his prodigious talent in a handful of outings with Meyer Shank Racing in 2023, was hired by Chip Ganassi Racing for 2024, and has produced one of the more impressive rookie campaigns in recent years.
From his third-place finish at Barber Motorsports Park to the pole position at Road America to his second podium — a third at World Wide Technology Raceway — to his sixth last weekend at Milwaukee 1 and leading 19 laps, Lundqvist has been fast and competitive among the inevitable rookie mistakes.
Battling teammate Kyffin Simpson all season, Lundqvist became the third Ganassi driver to win Rookie of the Year honors in the last five seasons, adding to what Felix Rosenqvist achieved in 2019 and Marcus Armstrong produced in 2023.
“We had two candidates for that and both did a really good job for us,” CGR managing director Mike Hull told RACER. “Linus and Kyffin, with the with the drive and determination that they each have, if that would be counted in the voting, they’d both win the award.
“Linus fits the mold for a modern IndyCar race driver because IndyCar racing is no longer about one driver on a team. It’s about the team effort. It’s about how race drivers as teammates support each other, and Linus has the skill set to go with it, the mindset to go with it, and the sponge-like quality that you need to learn from experienced teammates like Scott Dixon and Alex Palou and Marcus Armstrong, who went through the same things that Linus is going through this year.
“He’s surrounded by quality people, a terrific group of people overall, and he takes full advantage of that. Rookies will have their ups and downs and probably more downs than ups in the first year of IndyCar racing, but it’s how they come out the other side that counts, and he’s ready to take on the next the next level of IndyCar racing.”
