Firing Christian Lundgaard Is Shortsighted & Bewildering

Zak Brown, you should have dinner with Nico Harrison sometime.

Are the recently announced driver moves that kicked Christian Lundgaard out of his Arrow McLaren ride as bad as NBA superstar Luka Doncic being traded away? Probably not. 

Are they comparable insofar as appearing shortsighted and incomprehensible? I’d say yes, making this NTT IndyCar Series Silly Season one seeping with revenge. 

On Monday (July 6), after the McLaren team earned its first 1-2 finish at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, it was official that Lundgaard was out of a ride. Coming in are six-time champion Scott Dixon and McLaren alum, recent Indy 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist. One driver riding off into the sunset of his career, another a steady, but not weekly, threat to win.

Leaving Lundgaard gone from a ride that he brought into winning form. A man who is third in the IndyCar championship, with more wins than his two other teammates this year, and the only person consistently beating Alex Palou on road courses. 

What is surprising about this is that he is a clear winner. Not someone on the downward slide of their career — ahem — or who has never finished in the top five of the standings.

No. Lundgaard is a proven championship contender right now. 

It’s impossible to quit shaking my head over this. If this were a text chain instead of a story, I’d be typing SMH nonstop and blowing up the send button. At the same time, this is McLaren’s DNA and history. Gone from their lineup since Pato O’Ward joined the team in 2020 are: Oliver Askew, Rosenqvist (welcome back), Alexander Rossi, David Malukas, Theo Pourchaire, and now Nolan Siegel. Also, after McLaren bought into the former Sam Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team in 2019, incumbents James Hinchcliffe and Marcus Ericsson were sent packing.

Only Rosenqvist drove for a full three seasons, and his final one was a fluke after the effort to hire Palou away from Ganassi went belly up.

This is just how McLaren operates. They churn through talent hoping to find, well, I don’t know what. It seemed winning was the important factor, after the second and third cars had been winless since they were painted papaya orange. They got winning out of Lundgaard, but that wasn’t enough.

Instead, it supposedly is only about Indy.

The argument for his dismissal is that Lundgaard can’t win on ovals. And winning the greatest race in the world, the Indianapolis 500, requires a driver to be good on ovals.

Therefore, since he apparently has no shot at winning at Indy, with a best of seventh there last year, and after two tries, the team needs to go for someone else who can.

Wow, what a message that sends to the series and the legitimacy of the championship, replacing someone third in the title chase to pursue those who can win one race. I guess the thought is that Palou isn’t going to stop winning championships any time soon, but Indy is up for grabs. Otherwise, what’s the point in competing the rest of the year if it is only about one race? Great message to the fanbase.

This is where the Harrison comparison comes in. The former general manager of the Dallas Mavericks traded away a superstar player, Doncic, to the Los Angeles Lakers. This was coming off a recent NBA Finals run. Multiple reasons were given, but it was mostly about Doncic’s inability to play defense, and that was hindering them from winning the title. 

Well, that decision was quickly lambasted by those in the media and around the league. It was shortsighted because Doncic was a winner, and whatever his flaws, it was pertinent for the team to work on getting him better or building quality around him to match his skill.

Back to McLaren, that’s what they should do with Lundgaard. He is a quality talent, still in the prime of his career, and winning ovals is teachable; it just takes time for some. Will Power didn’t win on an oval until his third year with Team Penske (sixth year in American open-wheel racing), and in his first five tries at Indy, his best result was eighth. Now, 10 of his 45 victories are on ovals.

In Dario Franchitti’s five years at Team Green from 1998 to 2002 in CART, when the schedule was an equal mix of track disciplines, he didn’t win an oval until his last year before moving to the Indy Racing League. 

Drivers who haven’t won on ovals can still do so in the future. Some take time, and it seems misguided to cut Lundgaard loose while he is still learning them. In his first three years, he earned three top 10s on ovals. In less than two years with McLaren, he has four. While not exceptional progress, it is there. 

While he continues to figure out the ovals, he has mastered the road and street course. In 28 races with McLaren, he placed on the podium 11 times. How many times have the second and third cars done that for McLaren or Schmidt since 2013? Just 14 times, over 12 years. In his short time, Lundgaard has almost matched more than a decade’s worth of prior results. 

Had McLaren just added Dixon, then with Ryan Hunter-Reay as sporting director, and Tony Kanaan as Team Principal, then Lundgaard would have the right people around him to improve.

That’s not what McLaren did, though. They seem to have invested in revamping their whole roster around O’Ward, and focusing on winning just the Indy 500 over prioritizing the championship along with the Month of May. That addition is what is maddening about the whole affair because Rosenqvist drove for the team previously, and he never won for them. In fact, he earned just four podiums over three years. He proved what he can do in the seat McLaren gave him, and it wasn’t better than Lundgaard.

But he has a Borg-Warner Trophy to his name. As does Dixon. 

So Lundgaard is discarded.

A fire of regret might be smoldering in McLaren’s future. There is a host of opportunities for Lundgaard, with the big fish being the Dixon-vacated No. 9 seat at Chip Ganassi Racing, or Rosenqvist’s Indy 500-winning ride at Meyer Shank Racing. 

Boom! #IndyCar #Honda200 pic.twitter.com/HCyC8MxThW

— Matt Archuleta (@indy44) July 4, 2026

If Ganassi hires Lundgaard and partners him with Palou, then the two might win every road and street course between now and the end of the decade. Ganassi has consistently put oval-winning cars on the track, so Lundgaard would have the expertise around him to compete.

As for this year, Lundgaard will have ample motivation to raise his game, try to grab his first podium on an oval over the last three chances in 2026, and prove that he can do it. Then take that skill to his next owner and win a title. Perhaps an Indy 500.

Who knows, maybe in a few years when McLaren is looking for another driver to replace, they’ll give Lundgaard a call again.