Christian Lundgaard turned pole place right into a hard-fought second place within the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio on Sunday, finishing Arrow McLaren’s first IndyCar 1-2 end after a mid-race mistake opened the door for team-mate Pato O’Ward.
The 24-year-old Dane led 41 of the 90 laps across the 2.258-mile, 13-turn Mid-Ohio Sports activities Automobile Course, however misplaced the lead on lap 42 after combating the rear of his #7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.
The decisive second got here on Lap 42. Battling an more and more unfastened racecar, Lundgaard made an error in Flip 2. The misstep allowed O’Ward to shut the hole quickly, and by Flip 5, O’Ward had seized a lead he wouldn’t relinquish. Regardless of the excessive stakes, Lundgaard selected to maintain the intra-team battle clear.
“On the finish of the day it was a mistake of my very own,” Lundgaard mentioned. “I used to be struggling a lot on entries with the rear. It occurred 3 times earlier than that lap. Then clearly I needed to be the great sport. I might simply simply have run him off the monitor in (Flip) 4 if I needed to. Did not. We fought. We touched. I feel that is all the time good racing.”
The unrelenting, all-green race pushed drivers to their bodily limits below intense summer time warmth. Lundgaard defined that the group anticipated the automotive’s stability shifting towards understeer, however an overreaction of their setup changes left the Chevrolet extremely unfastened and unpredictable.
“Very, very tough, however on the finish of the day, it would not matter how tough the automotive is to drive,” Lundgaard mentioned. “I nonetheless suppose we type of maximized immediately, which is all the time good.”
Whereas the win slipped away, the second-place end result marked Lundgaard’s best-ever end on the Lexington, Ohio-based circuit. The efficiency continues to additional strengthen his 2026 marketing campaign, representing his second runner-up end of the season, and fifth podium of the 12 months.
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