After crashing during Saturday’s (April 12) qualifying session for the 50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, Christian Lundgaard faced an uphill battle in the third race of the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season en route to a third-place finish on Sunday.
Instead of advancing to the Fast Six in qualifying, the Danish racer started 12th in the 27-car field. Compounding difficulties for the team, Arrow McLaren discovered that the qualifying crash damaged the tub on the No. 7 Chevrolet, requiring the team to change to a backup chassis.
"That didn't go so well."
— INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) April 12, 2025
A big hit for Christian Lundgaard in Long Beach. #INDYCAR pic.twitter.com/Fsno5bfb1d
“Fortunately and unfortunately, Dallara built some very strong parts,” Lundgaard said. “The endplate made a dent on the chassis. It was a big hit but the end plate was fine basically, the chassis wasn’t, so we had to change it. It was a call straight away. We changed the chassis. The guys were back home by 10 p.m. last night.”
With more fresh tires than on-hand than the rest of the field, Lundgaard’s team decided to try for an alternate strategy. With 21 of the 27 drivers starting on Firestone’s green sidewall Alternate compound tires, the decision was made for Lundgaard to start on the black sidewall Primary compound tires that are more durable at the cost of slower lap time.
As the rest of the alternate compound runners pitted early, Lundgaard stayed out and inherited the lead on lap 8 until pitting 20 laps later. During his longer first stint, Lundgaard ran fast enough times to leapfrog six cars and then blended out of pit road in sixth place.
After running for 11 laps on the Alternate compound tires, Lundgaard stopped on lap 40 and ran new primary compound tires the rest of the way. After Sting Ray Robb and Robert Shwartzman pitted on laps 52 and 53, respectively, Lundgaard jumped both drivers who instead ran their third stints on the Alternates.
Late in the race, Lundgaard caught up to Felix Rosenqvist‘s No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda, which was running in third place. As the pair approached turn 1 on Lap 86, Lundgaard moved to the Swede’s left and completed the pass for the final podium position behind Kyle Kirkwood, who won the race, and Alex Palou.
“I didn’t really think I was going to be able to go get Felix,” Lundgaard said. “I mean, Alex, Felix and Kyle just seemed stronger at the beginning of the stint. I think we came back to them at the end of the stint where I think we had a little more pace than they did.”
Lundgaard led 26 of the race’s 90 laps and finished just over 18 seconds behind Kirkwood.
Lundgaard’s result places him third in points, 12 behind Kirkwood and 46 behind Palou, who won the first two races of the season. IndyCar’s next race is the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park on Sunday, May 4.
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.