Christian Lundgaard displayed some resilience as he went from worst to first, capturing his second IndyCar Series victory of the season in the XPEL Grand Prix at Road America on Sunday.
Lundgaard fell from his starting position of 12th into last place after a Lap 1 collision. He gradually worked his way back up in his No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, taking the lead for good on the 52nd lap of the 55-lap race at Elkhart Lake, Wisc.
It’s his third career IndyCar victory, meaning the 24-year-old Danish driver has won more this season than in his first four seasons in the series combined. The latest win moved him up to fourth in the NTT IndyCar Series Championship standings.
“I knew we had a chance,” Lundgaard said of his surge from the back of the pack. “I knew how this race panned out last year, and I knew it was all about just sticking in the race. I did that last year. I made a bunch of mistakes last year that spun ourselves around last year, and I just wanted to make up for that.
“We’ve been on the struggle bus all weekend, so to turn this around, I have to thank the team for that.”
Lundgaard led for just seven laps, fourth-most among competitors, after his car sustained damage to the left front wing and a deflated tire due to a Turn 1 collision with Scott Dixon.
He beat out second-place finisher David Malukas and his No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet by 0.6241 seconds, with the race finishing under caution after the one-lap restart to determine the winner was halted by Graham Rahal going off the track after colliding with Will Power, who finished third.
For Malukas, it was his third runner-up finish of the season. He is still seeking his first career IndyCar win, but he’s up to second in the IndyCar standings with five top-five finishes in 10 races this season.
Alex Palou, atop the standings with four wins this season, earned his sixth 2026 pole but the Spaniard finished in fifth (behind Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Kyffin Simpson) after he was penalized for speeding in the pits on Lap 29.
New Zealand’s Marcus Armstrong, seeking his first career win, held the lead for 14 laps into the final stretch. He led by nearly three seconds with five laps to go when his car abruptly lost power, allowing Lundgaard to overtake him and sending him falling all the way down to 24th place.
“It was all smooth sailing,” Armstrong said after the race. “I came out of Turn 6, and the engine just started sputtering like it was out of fuel. But clearly it wasn’t. And then it just completely died. There was no indication there was nothing wrong.”
Felix Rosenqvist of Sweden led for a race-high 18 laps, finishing in eighth place.
–Field Level Media
