IndyCar: Lundgaard Wins his first career Pole for GMR Grand Prix

In what was a very competitive qualifying session, Christian Lundgaard put his No 45 HyVee Honda for Rahal Letterman Lanigan in the top starting position with a time of 1m09.3321s for the GMR Grand Prix Friday afternoon.

It was Lundgaard’s first career IndyCar pole for a Danish driver who gave up on making it in the harsh world of F1 in Europe and came to America to fulfill his racing dream.

Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist jumped to the second starting spot with a time of 1m09.3348s.

This is the fourth tightest Firestone Fast Six since this qualifying format has been going on now.

Chip Ganassi’s Alex Palou will start third in his No 10 The American Legion Honda tomorrow.

Jack Harvey,  Lundgaard’s teammate,  drove his No 30 Kustom Entertainment Honda to the fourth spot.

Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward kept his No 5 Velo Chevrolet in the fifth spot.

Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood will start 6th in his No 27 Auto Nation Honda.

Absent from the Firestone Fast Six were any Team Penske entries.  Will Power in the No 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet will start 12th with teammate Josef Newgarden behind him in 13th.

Lundgaard led all three RLL drivers in the top eight, as Jack Harvey will start fourth (1:09.4220) in the No. 30 Kustom Entertainment Honda and Graham Rahal eighth (1:09.4711) in the No. 15 Fifth Third Bank Honda.

It was a sudden and significant rebound for the team, as Lundgaard entered this race 12th, Rahal 16th and Harvey 23rd in the championship standings. The team’s best finish this season is sixth, by Lundgaard last month at Barber and by Rahal in March at the season opener at St. Petersburg.

“Now we have a shot at it (victory),” Lundgaard said. “We’re leading the field to green, so that’s where we want to be. So, we’ve just got to stay there for the rest of the race.

“Every time we come here to IMS, at least this way (road course), we’ve been quick. So, coming into this year, I was confident. The last time I drove on this track (last July), I finished second. I was second in both practice sessions this morning, so I wanted to up it one, and I did.”

Christian Lundgaard

The Danish pole sitter was asked why this track fits his style of racing.  Lundgaard replied, “I want to know myself. This place just is amazing. With whatever way you drive around here, if it’s one or the other, it’s amazing. I think the atmosphere around this place just brings us drivers alive.”

“I don’t think it’s a secret that this track fits the European drivers. I’m sitting next to a Swede. So we’re up here. Jack  (Harvey) is in here, Pato (O’Ward) is in here. It is a very sort of European style track, so I think it just fits us pretty well.”

“Well, I would have hoped I would have gotten a pole sooner. Whenever it comes, I hope it was the right time to do it. The one thing I was annoyed about having my podium here last year was I didn’t want to have it here because I did my debut here and I didn’t want people to think this was just the track that I was fast at, and we showed up in Nashville and was P1 in the first session the weekend after.”

“Now we’re starting the race from pole, but we also need to win the race. We need to take it step by step and see what we can do tomorrow and back it up for the proper month of May.”

Felix Rosenqvist

Felix Rosenqvist was asked if there was discussion with his team on how to improve his racing  recently.  The Swede  replied,   “Well, I think our year has basically been two DNFs on the first two races,  which set us back a lot.  We were pretty much last in the standings after those two races, and since then we’ve been in the mix pretty much everywhere.  We haven’t really had a proper weekend in terms of everything coming together, which is normal, but we’ve been top 10 pretty much every session, qualifying race.”

“I think this weekend things just kind of worked out a bit better so far at least, and that’s just INDYCAR.  You just need to put yourself in that position as many times as you can in the season, and hopefully we can get on a bit of a roll from here, and I think it will come to us.”
“This is a track where, as Christian said, I think a lot of European drivers have excelled, and I’ve had two poles here previously and almost three now, so maybe try starting on P2 instead and see how that goes.”

Qualifying Results

Pursuant to rule 8.3.5.4 , Car 55 has lost their fastest lap to that point.

Lucille Dust reporting live from IMS