It was Christian Lundgaard<\/a> who made the decisive race-winning pass on lap 68 of 85. With one lap of heat in his tyres, Lundgaard was able to run outside David Malukas<\/a> (who had just exited the pits) through Turns 3 and 4 to hold the inside line into the fast Turn 5-6 chicane. Malukas was the one who flinched and backed off, and Lundgaard went on to win by 4.67 seconds, with Graham Rahal<\/a> taking third at a track where he historically runs very well.<\/p>\n Lundgaard broke a 47-race winless streak dating to July 2023 and became only the third driver along with Johnny Rutherford and Pato O\u2019Ward to win a race for the McLaren IndyCar team. O\u2019Ward qualified on the outside of the front row for the Indy GP but was swept into a multi-car fracas triggered by a spinning Felix Rosenqvist<\/a>. Six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon<\/a> was also an innocent victim, but he managed to work back to sixth by the chequered flag, while O\u2019Ward was down in 18th.<\/p>\n The victory was important in several ways to Lundgaard as he continues to strengthen his role in a team that has long been viewed as the domain of O\u2019Ward. Lundgaard ranks fourth in the standings, 55 points behind Palou but 34 points ahead of O\u2019Ward, who is tied for sixth with Dixon.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all, it\u2019s a lot of unfinished business for me around here, being competitive here pretty much every year except last year,\u201d Lundgaard said. \u201cI really wanted to get some redemption for that. It just feels awesome, and I hope that it doesn\u2019t take another three years for another one, right?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure 95% of the field will say the same thing, but I know the task that I was hired to do, and that\u2019s to win races. To finally get it, obviously it took a year and a half [since joining McLaren]. We\u2019ve come close many, many times. I think we\u2019ve unlocked the door now. I\u2019m pretty confident many more will come.\u201d<\/p>\n He credited Malukas for racing him cleanly while downplaying what looked like a pretty spectacular pass to the crowd of about 50,000.<\/p>\n O’Ward and Dixon were innocent victims in the Turn 1 pile-up<\/p>\n Photo by: Penske Entertainment<\/p>\n \u201cI knew I had one chance, maybe two,\u201d Lundgaard said. \u201cI had so much unfinished business here. For me, I wanted to win. I have enough second places in the past year and a half. I wanted a win. I was kind of willing to do what it took. I also knew that it was going to be respectful.\u201d<\/p>\n Once the early wreck had been cleared, Palou and Kirkwood (from ninth on the grid) gapped the field until Rossi\u2019s Chevrolet suffered an apparent hybrid system failure and his car came to a stop near the start-finish line. For nearly two laps he sat there under a local caution while cars flashed past at upwards of 150mph. After muttering a sarcastic \u201cThanks, Honda\u201d over the radio, a furious Rossi finally scrambled out of the car and jumped over the pitwall, at which point the full course caution that ruined the leaders race finally flew. He blasted the spec hybrid system \u201ca product we didn\u2019t ask for that doesn\u2019t improve the racing\u201d and the officials, who were concerned enough about the safety of the drivers the day before to postpone the wet qualifying session.<\/p>\n IndyCar\u2019s technical operations and officiating were already in the spotlight heading into the Indy GP weekend because it was revealed that an IndyCar software glitch had accidentally opened up use of Push-to-Pass for the final restart in the recent Long Beach race. Twelve drivers (the most egregious being Palou and Rosenqvist) had used it at a time when it was supposed to be inoperative.<\/p>\n The series of events sparked a heated debate during a pre-race press conference between Kirkwood, O\u2019Ward, and Palou, who appeared to strongly defend his use of the button three times for more than 15 seconds during the Long Beach restart<\/p>\n![\"O'Ward](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/scott-dixon-chip-ganassi-racin.jpg\")
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