{"id":910505,"date":"2026-09-30T02:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T02:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/910505\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T02:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T02:50:11","slug":"indycar-news-christian-lundgaard-still-bewildered-by-mclaren-axing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/910505\/","title":{"rendered":"IndyCar news: Christian Lundgaard still bewildered by McLaren axing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\u2018Disappointed\u2019\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChristian Lundgaard speaks with a reporter at Mid-Ohio on the same weekend he was told he would not be re-signed by McLaren.<\/p>\n

Lundgaard and former teammate Nolan Siegel were deposed by McLaren for 2027 in favour of six-time IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon and Indianapolis 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist.<\/p>\n

Those drivers come with awesome achievements in their own right, but Lundgaard has struggled to make sense of it when he was McLaren\u2019s best finisher in the 2026 championship in third.<\/p>\n

McLaren claimed Lundgaard lacked oval results and did not see him as an Indianapolis 500 contender, so it elected against re-signing him amid a quest to clinch the coveted Borg-Warner.<\/p>\n

Lundgaard was left in the lurch but didn\u2019t have to wait long to receive a call from Chip Ganassi, who swooped on the Danish driver when it became apparent veteran Dixon would depart.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still a big question mark to me and I think it is to many,\u201d said Lundgaard of McLaren\u2019s decision to let him go.<\/p>\n

\u201cI choose to look at it in a very different way. I\u2019ve done well and a better opportunity has arisen versus what it could have been.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is a conversation that Chip and I have already had. We\u2019re just looking forward now. It\u2019s not really looking back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say as soon as the conversations really started [with Ganassi] that was when I would say my excitement changed,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously I was very disappointed, very confused, and I\u2019m sure I share that opinion with many.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut as soon as the conversations started, that was when I knew there was a chance and all I had to do was keep performing on track and it would all fall into place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chip Ganassi Racing confirms Scott Dixon\u2019s replacement<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Lundgaard quickly emerged as the front-runner to join Ganassi.<\/p>\n

Other names were in the mix including Marcus Armstrong, who ultimately re-signed with Meyer Shank Racing.<\/p>\n

Ganassi said he had candidates from outside of IndyCar too but for a variety of reasons elected to fish in his own pond.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some options outside of the series, but maybe the timing didn\u2019t quite line up,\u201d said Ganassi.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have guys that are in other series that aren\u2019t done or are in a contract and they can\u2019t talk until a certain date or they\u2019re waiting to hear from their team or something.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of timing issues that come into play on these types of transactions.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristian\u2019s name kept landing back as the obvious one. Like \u2018wait a minute, we\u2019re not overlooking this guy, are we?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery name that came along, we said, \u2018okay, well, how does that compare with Lundgaard?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cDid they have to learn the tracks? Are they current with this type of drive style that you need? Or are they committed to maybe coming to the US?<\/p>\n

\u201cAll these sorts of questions you have to ask when people pop up that aren\u2019t in the normal week-to-week lexicon of drivers available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lundgaard isn\u2019t putting pressure on himself to overcome his speedway hoodoo.<\/p>\n

After all, Palou\u2019s first speedway win came in his sixth season in his 87th start when he won the 2025 Indianapolis 500.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlex had never won an oval until he won the 500 and kind of mastered it ever since. I think it\u2019s the right place to learn that,\u201d said Lundgaard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to figure it out. It\u2019s not like I\u2019m sat on the couch just waiting for it to happen. We\u2019re working hard behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ll figure it out very quickly here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Lundgaard speaks with a reporter at Mid-Ohio on the same weekend he was told he would not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":910506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,9910,85],"class_list":["post-910505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot2","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}