Why Christian Lundgaard decided to leave RLL: 'The 500 was the deal breaker'
DES MOINES, Iowa – Christian Lundgaard’s decision-making process that led him to jump to Arrow McLaren on a new multi-year deal wasn’t so much about the prospects of his new team vs. his old one, but about whether he had faith in Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s on-track progress.
Qualifying 28th for this year’s Indianapolis 500 was the last straw, after starting 31st (2022) and 30th (2023) and RLL officials speaking endlessly in this year's lead-up about the team's improvements it had made in the last 12 months.
“When it ultimately came down to it, the 500 was the deal breaker for me, because of our ‘Indy Recovery Plan’ and where our performance was at,” Lundgaard told IndyStar Thursday in his first interview since the news 10 days prior. “We were better, and Honda was a little down on performance – more than we anticipated and even they anticipated – so we really didn’t get to see our performance gain.
“But I think just kinda being in that position of being on the cutline of the Last Chance Qualifier three years in a row is something I don’t really want to be part of because I feel like I want to gain the experience of fighting for the race, rather than trying to survive.”
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Just four years ago, RLL won its second 500 with Takuma Sato while also placing Graham Rahal 3rd, and, a year later in 2021, the latter was running comfortably at the front past the halfway point when his left rear wheel wasn’t properly attached during a pitstop. He crashed two corners later. RLL has made headlines for all the wrong reasons since.
And that downturn in results has spanned Lundgaard’s entire career at the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Over that same span, Arrow McLaren put two cars in the top-4 in 2022 and 2024 and had three cars battling near the front with under 25 laps to go.
Performance outside the 500 between the two teams has been a bit more comparable in recent years. Lundgaard had the most recent on-track win between his old home and his new one until last Sunday with his maiden victory almost exactly a year ago at Toronto. On the back of two poles and four top-5s, Lundgaard finished 8th in the championship during his second-full-time season in 2023, beaten by three Penske and Ganassi cars, as well as his future teammate Pato O’Ward, who remains the only Arrow McLaren driver to have won since 2018.
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Alexander Rossi, the driver Lundgaard will replace, finished 15 points behind the 22-year-old Danish driver in 9th, followed by Andretti Global’s top finishers and Arrow McLaren’s third car. It’s why Bobby Rahal has long claimed than any career move by Lundgaard other than to an open Penske or Ganassi seat would be “a lateral move,” a phrase he coined in reflecting on the disappointment of losing his race-winning driver to IndyStar last week.
This year, though, has been different. Outside a front-row start and podium finish on the IMS road course to kickoff May, Lundgaard has just two other top-10 finishes halfway through the 2024 campaign and sits 11th in the championship, 44 points behind a resurgent Rossi, who has seven top-10s through nine starts this year, including a podium to match Lundgaard.
According to Rahal, Lundgaard and his management team didn’t hold any formal discussions about the young driver’s future at RLL this year, wishing to “take a wait-and-see approach” after brief talks last year. In February, Rahal urged that Lundgaard had a “family” and a “home” for him at RLL. “For a young guy like that, if you feel like you’re with a group that, No. 1, wants to win and shows it can win and it can progress from days of disappointment by putting its head down and having days of success and competitiveness, that’s a good environment to be in,” Rahal said ahead of this season.
“I think we have that environment with Christian, so why would you mess with that?”
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Ultimately, when the Arrow McLaren brain trust of Tony Kanaan, Gavin Ward and Zak Brown decided with Rossi and his father/agent Pieter that the sides couldn’t come to terms – largely due to contractual length (one year with an option vs. two years) – Lundgaard was their first call. Having not spoken to Arrow McLaren at all about his future by mid-June, Lundgaard’s negotiations with the team in late-June went swiftly.
“With the decision-making, it’s been a long process of thinking not necessarily ‘where,’ but more, ‘What am I going to do?’” Lundgaard told IndyStar. “It was a long offseason because I had questions in my head, and for me, RLL is the team that gave me the opportunity (in IndyCar), and that’s something that will never leave me and something I’ll always be grateful for.
“We’ve done a lot of work, and we’ve got an oval this weekend, and I know we’re a lot faster than we’ve been in the past. The progress this team has made from 2022 when I showed up to where we are now on road courses and street circuits has been massive, so I know the team has the potential on ovals. That was never the question in my mind. At the same time, what’s the timeline for my career? And I chose what I believe is best for me.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Christian Lundgaard leaving RLL for Arrow McLaren hinged on Indy 500
