Christian Lundgaard is entering his third full year in IndyCar this upcoming season, and is looking to build upon the success he found in the 2023 season by improving his results on the banking.
The Danish driver came over to IndyCar after having spent two seasons in Formula 2, and quickly showed off just how fast he could be.
In his very first event stateside, held as a single-race arrangement on the Indianapolis road course in late 2021, Lundgaard impressively qualified in the fourth position.
It took a full year before he would earn his first podium with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, also on the IMS road course, and nearly a year after that he earned his first victory on the streets of Toronto.
In between those successes Lundgaard struggled to earn consistent results, specifically for the oval rounds, often finishing lower than he felt his driving ability should be earning him.
Talking at a recent preseason press conference, the 22-year-old described how he began to doubt his performance until he looked at the bigger picture within his RLL team.
“I’ve questioned myself a lot in terms of if it’s my performance that’s lacking, or the team, or the combination of those,” said Lundgaard. “And, honestly, I think it’s a combination.
“The one thing I will say is looking at where Graham [Rahal] is on oval results, we are basically equal. So in that sense, I at least can calm myself down on that.
“But honestly, I think when we look at Indy last year, we had three out of four cars in the last chance qualifying. So I think that just indicates that the car just simply wasn’t fast enough, and that’s something that just simply needs to be improved.
“I think it’s obvious that we need to improve the oval performance just to be able to stay in the fight throughout a season. Obviously Milwaukee coming in this year, replacing one of the races that we know that we were very, very fast on.
“We definitely just need to improve the oval package for sure. Some of the road course packages needs to be better, as well. But I think the trajectory of the team’s performance is in the right direction.
“And I’m just looking forward to seeing what we have when we show up in St. Pete. I think the past two years have been very similar in terms of performance there. If we are performing better there, I think we’ll be in good shape for the championship.”
RLL looked intently at its internal processes after being embarrassed at last year’s Indianapolis 500, and seemed to show marked improvement towards the latter portion of the season.
If that momentum can carry forward to next season, and the team’s oval performances can match its road course pace, then Lundgaard’s long-held belief that he can fight for championships might well play out.
