What is it about Christian Lundgaard when he drives on a street or road course?
During the month of May on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Lundgaard was able to grab his 1st career NTT P1 Award for the GMR Grand Prix, then again today Lundgaard was able to secure his 2nd career NTT P1 Award to roll off P1 for tomorrow’s 85 lap Honda Indy Toronto race in the streets of Toronto.
The Danish driver in his No. 45 Honda made it through both rounds of qualifying to advance to the Firestone Fast 6, as the checkered flag was dropping on a quick drying track put down a quick lap of 1:04.1567 seconds to secure P1 outpacing Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin in his No. 3 Chevrolet by .0322 seconds placing him P2 for tomorrow’s race.
“I have a history, at least in go-karts, of being fast in the rain,” Lundgaard said. “I’ve only driven in the rain only once in this car, which was Indy GP last year, and we weren’t competitive.
“The Hy-Vee Vivid Clear Rx car today was there. I can’t thank this team enough. I know this is wet, and it’s tricky, but looking at where we were on street circuits earlier this year and last year, we’ve made huge progress.”
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After taking a gamble on tires on a rain soaked track during his qualifying run, Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward in his No. 5 Chevrolet secured P3 with a lap of 1:04.5500 seconds, placing him just ahead of CGR’s Marcus Ericsson, who held the P1 position just before Lundgaard’s last lap with a time of 1:04.9091 seconds.
O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren teammate Felix Rosenqvist in his No. 6 Chevrolet will roll off from P5 and just behind him will be Team Penske driver Will Power in his No. 12 Chevrolet, who made just his 1st Firestone Fast 6 of the 2023 season.
When asked about the wet conditions on the track during the post qualifying press conference, McLaughlin said, “Yeah, it was tough. I was sideways at one point on the side of the track, so you just have to really gather your thoughts, and you’ve got to just methodically sort of feel the track and the way that it dries off.
We’ve had a really fast car all weekend, so I knew if it dried off, it was going to be okay. But even in the wet conditions with what we got, it was really good. So I would have loved to have seen if we didn’t wait so long between Q1 and Q2 to have a crack at real wet, but yeah, really provided of everyone on the Gallagher Chevy.”
As the 1st group of drivers were finishing up their qualifying laps, a massive rain shower went through Toronto changing the qualifying strategy for a handful of drivers and turning their qualifying runs upside down for names like Scott Dixon that have been towards the top of the timing charts through the season will have their work cut out for them as they will start in the middle of the pack. The current series points leader Alex Palou, who is aiming for his 4th straight win and 5th in the 2023 season, will start P15.
Tom Blomqvist, who is making his NTT IndyCar debut for Meyer Shank Racing subbing in for the injured Simon Pagenaud, qualified at an impressive P20.
Up Next: Warmup, Sunday 10:15 AM/ET on Peacock
