Christian Lundgaard Hangs On for 1st Career Pole at Indianapolis Road Course

IndyCar’s resident Great Dane, Christian Lundgaard, scored the first pole of his career in style, holding off Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist during Friday (May 12) qualifying at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing began the month of May in style. In addition to Lundgaard’s pole, the team also saw Jack Harvey qualify a strong fourth and Graham Rahal ended up a solid eighth on the grid.

Alex Palou qualified in third, to complete the first two rows of the starting lineup. Rain seemed like it could come at any moment in qualifying, but it never did throughout any of the sessions.

Firestone Fast Six

No incidents peppered the final session. In fact, the only incident in all of qualifying was a single-car spin in the first group at the start of qualifying. A big wiggle in turn eight on the final hot lap doomed Rosenqvist’s chances to get by Lundgaard on the grid.

Pato O’Ward and Kyle Kirkwood took up row three, qualifying in fifth and sixth respectively.

Round 2

There was a lot of action in the closing moments, as the track really started to pick up grip. Enough to where four of the top six felt unsafe enough to take another fast lap at the end of the session.

Palou was able to lead the way in this round with Lundgaard in second.

Eliminated from Round 2 were:

7. Marcus Ericsson

8. Graham Rahal

9. Scott Dixon

10. Alexander Rossi

11. Marcus Armstrong

12. Will Power

Round 1 Group 1

Lundgaard paced the group, beating teammate Rahal by almost a tenth of a second. Rosenqvist was third on the board.

Lundgaard was also the fastest of the first lap “banker” laps.

The Meyer Shank teammates of Simon Pagenaud and Benjamin Pedersen went out early in the second run, but were able to stay out of everybody’s way during the fast laps until the final seconds of the session.