Lundgaard quickly making his presence felt at Arrow McLaren

Lando Norris was the established leader when Oscar Piastri arrived at McLaren Racing in 2023. That notion has changed with three wins, four podiums, and two poles from five Formula 1 races for Piastri this season. The Australian has used his results to recalibrate the concept of who’s in charge, and on this side of the Atlantic, a similar results-driven phenomenon has been taking place with Arrow McLaren IndyCar newcomer Christian Lundgaard.

Arriving from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing during the offseason, Lundgaard was signed to fortify Arrow McLaren’s competitive form. Team leader Pato O’Ward, who joined the program in 2020, has been the outfit’s only race winner over the last five years while leading the Chevrolet-powered squad to its best championship results every season.

It tried to upgrade its standing in 2022 with Alex Palou, but that went sideways — and led to an ongoing lawsuit — which resulted in hiring Alexander Rossi for a two-year stint starting in 2023. With Rossi moving on to Ed Carpenter Racing, another attempt was made to make Arrow McLaren more than a single-car threat. O’Ward was challenged by former teammates on select occasions, but his raw pace and front-running results were never matched on a consistent basis — until Lundgaard stepped into the No. 7 Chevy.

Through three races, the statistics paint a clear picture of how the 23-year-old from Denmark has been a revelation for the team while serving as the most consistent performer among Arrow McLaren’s trio. All three of Lundgaard’s qualifying runs have been inside the Firestone Fast 12 for an average starting positions of 6.3.

Across the 15 total sessions run from opening practice at St. Petersburg through the race at Long Beach, O’Ward has maintained his edge, leading seven sessions to Lundgaard’s five (teammate Nolan Siegel led the other three), but on the days where big points are awarded, Lundgaard leads O’Ward 2-1 with Arrow McLaren’s top race results.

Entering Barber Motorsports Park this weekend, he’s sitting third in the championship, three spots ahead of O’Ward in sixth, and Lundgaard’s also become the first driver to score two podiums in his first three races with a new team since Sebastien Bourdais did it with Dale Coyne Racing in 2017.

Lundgaard is second in the laps-led category with 49 to O’Ward’s 51, and has maintained the highest average running position of 4.1 — championship leader Palou is at 4.5 — spanning all laps from St. Pete through Long Beach. Heady stuff for a driver at a new team with so few miles of experience with new race engineer Chris Lawrence.

Granted, it’s too small of a sample size to make any grand projections about Lundgaard displacing O’Ward as Arrow McLaren’s top driver, but after watching O’Ward’s previous teammates come up short in this capacity, Lundgaard is clearly giving his team what they’ve been missing with a strong 1-2 punch while giving O’Ward the first serious challenge to his intrasquad dominance.

Lundgaard has plenty of self-belief and is delivering the results to back it up. Jake Galstad/Lumen

Although the team couldn’t land Palou, McLaren CEO Zak Brown and Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan have found someone whose front-running output bears a familiar feel to the three-time IndyCar champion.

“Over the years, I obviously followed his career — been watching him for quite a while,” Kanaan told RACER. “I had to have a backup plan if Rossi wouldn’t stay. You always have your instinct as a driver — you’re watching to see who might be the guy, and the conditions and the teams that he was in, because I was like that too, right?

“Michael Andretti picked me, and it wasn’t like I was winning everything at the time, and I come in and I put it on the pole my first race. So looking at Christian, I know what he can do, but there’s still always that question right mark because at the end of the day, he’s still looking for results, to get more wins. At the time that I had to make the decision, it was pretty simple. When Rossi decided not to stay, we started talking and sealed the deal.”

Lundgaard’s early advantage over O’Ward will be challenged this weekend at the Children’s of Alabama Grand Prix where the Mexican has a victory on his CV from 2022. The real pressure on Lundgaard will build once the Indianapolis 500 arrives, where Arrow McLaren’s internal pecking order should tilt in O’Ward’s favor, but Kanaan doesn’t expect Lundgaard’s ego to take a hit if it happens.

“With Christian, he’s more reserved, but he’s got a lot of confidence in himself — like, a lot,” Kanaan said. “Christian comes across like, ‘I’m the s**t,’ but not in a bad way. He’s been a huge addition to the team, getting along with Pato really well — obviously raising Pato’s game, which to me, is very important. If you look at my career, I never had easy teammates, to be honest.

“He respects Pato a lot. He came into, quote, ‘Pato’s team,’ no different than when I went to Ganassi and it was Dixon’s team, and doing his thing, so it’s very impressive and we just need to keep building.”

So far, O’Ward has taken Lundgaard’s strong showing in stride, which has been an encouraging sign for Kanaan.

“Honestly, Pato matured quite a bit over the past few years, and we’re trying to set some straight goals for Pato,” he said. “Like, ‘You’re not going to Formula 1 right now, so let’s stop talking about it. Let’s focus our goals in IndyCar.’ I renewed his deal. He thought for some reason he wasn’t getting paid enough; I’m not Dan , but we will rework things the best way we can. Let’s put our eyes on being the best we can be here in IndyCar, right?

“And with Pato already being here a long time and Christian coming in, this will be a constant work in progress. It doesn’t need a lot of management, but obviously, we need to keep them working together. Because, right now, Christian is leading the team as far as the championship, right? But that doesn’t mean we have driver number one and driver number two. Whoever’s in front, for whatever reason, is going to get the advantage or the help of the teammate. I’ve done that my entire career, with Dario and I, and Christian did it at Thermal for Pato.

“He was in front of Palou and did as much as he could to protect Pato in front of him. So can you tell right away that Christian respects Pato and is being a good teammate. If I’m going to lose, I want to lose to my teammate. And I really appreciate his take on it. Pato saw what he did in Thermal and was like, ‘Wow. OK, here we go.’”