Christian Lundgaard: 3 IndyCar Wins, a Career-Best Third, and Scott Dixon's Old Seat
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Driver Spotlight - where we pull one driver into the garage, look under the hood at their career, and tell you what makes them tick. This week: the Dane who just had the best season of his life and got handed one of the most famous rides in the paddock.
The Short Version
Christian Lundgaard is a 25-year-old Dane who came to IndyCar out of Formula 2, won Rookie of the Year, and became the first Danish driver ever to win an IndyCar race. In 2026 he put together the year he had been building toward: two wins, seven podiums, and a career-best third in the championship with Arrow McLaren. Then Chip Ganassi Racing hired him to replace Scott Dixon in the No. 9. If you only know one thing about Lundgaard, know that he is the guy Ganassi picked to follow a six-time champion.
From a Rally Driver's House to Indianapolis
Lundgaard was born on July 23, 2001, in Hedensted, Denmark, into a family that already knew the sound of a race engine. His father, Henrik Lundgaard, won the 2000 European Rally Championship and was Danish rally champion in 1994. Christian went the circuit-racing route instead, and he was fast early. He won the CIK-FIA Karting European Championship in 2015, then took both the SMP F4 and F4 Spanish titles in 2017, his first year in single-seaters.
Europe looked like the obvious path. He was Formula Renault Eurocup runner-up in 2018, finished sixth in FIA Formula 3 with ART Grand Prix in 2019, and took two wins on his way to seventh in Formula 2 in 2020. He joined the Alpine Academy, and for a while the Formula 1 door looked like it might open. It did not. So in 2021 he flew to Indianapolis instead, made a one-off IndyCar debut in the No. 45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, and decided America was worth a full season.
That bet paid off fast. In 2022 he ran the full year in the No. 30 for Rahal, finished 14th in points, and won the NTT IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year award. He also became the first Danish driver to start the Indianapolis 500, where he came home 18th.
The Signature Moments
The first one came on July 16, 2023, on the streets of Toronto. Lundgaard put the No. 45 Rahal Honda on pole and then simply drove away, beating Alex Palou by 11.7893 seconds with Colton Herta third. That made him the first Danish driver to win an IndyCar race.
Then came a long, quiet stretch. Forty-seven races went by without another win. It finally broke on May 9, 2026, at the Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis road course, in his second year driving the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. He took the lead for good on lap 68 by slipping past David Malukas through the Turns 5 and 6 chicane and won by 4.6713 seconds.
The better story came six weeks later. At Road America on June 21, 2026, Lundgaard started 12th and ran into the back of Scott Dixon's No. 9 Honda on the first lap. Broken front wing, flat tire, a long limp back to pit lane under green, and he dropped roughly three quarters of a lap behind the field. He should have been done. Instead a caution on lap 14 put him back in the game, he inherited the lead on lap 52 when Marcus Armstrong's Meyer Shank Honda slowed, and he held off Malukas by 0.6241 seconds to win a race that finished under yellow. It was the first time in his career he had won twice in one season.
The last piece of 2026 came at Milwaukee. Lundgaard had never been on an oval podium, and his best oval finish was sixth. In the Snap-on Milwaukee Mile 250 he finished third. The one hole in his resume closed.
Chip Ganassi Racing has signed Christian Lundgaard to a multiyear contract to drive the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES beginning in 2027
- WISH-TV News (@WISHNews8) September 29, 2026
By the Numbers
Here is the career so far. Every figure below is an NTT IndyCar Series number.
The 2026 Season That Changed Everything
Numbers only tell part of it. The reason Ganassi called was the way Lundgaard put 2026 together. Eighteen starts, two wins, one pole, seven podiums, eight top-fives, 14 top-tens, and 535 points for third in the championship behind Alex Palou and Kyle Kirkwood. He also beat Pato O'Ward in the standings, which no Arrow McLaren teammate had managed in the team's modern era.
And he did it without ever parking the car. Lundgaard completed every single lap of the 2026 season, all 2,556 of them, making him only the sixth driver in series history to run 100 percent of a year. For a driver whose reputation had been speed without consistency, that stat was the whole argument.
On September 29, 2026, Chip Ganassi Racing announced a multiyear deal putting Lundgaard in the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda from 2027. He replaces Scott Dixon, who left after 24 full-time seasons and six championships to join Arrow McLaren. Lundgaard called the No. 9 iconic, and he was not wrong. He will line up alongside Palou and Kyffin Simpson. There is a small piece of symmetry in it too: the No. 9 he takes over is the same car he ran into on the first lap at Road America.
Off the Track
Lundgaard lives in Indianapolis now, a long way from Hedensted. Racing runs down the family line, and it runs sideways too. His younger brother Daniel is a helmet designer and designs Christian's helmets, so the lid he pulls on every weekend is family work.
He is one of the more plainspoken drivers in the paddock, which shows up in how he talks about his own results. After the Milwaukee oval podium he did not make it a speech about belief or pressure. He said the car was fast and that he knew race two would be fine. After the Indy road course win that ended nearly three years without a victory, he said he really did not expect it that day but had hoped for it. No theater either way.
Fun Stats
- He is the first Danish driver to win an IndyCar race and the first to start the Indianapolis 500.
- His best Indy 500 result is seventh, from eighth on the grid, in 2025.
- His 2023 Toronto win came from pole by 11.7893 seconds. His 2026 Road America win came from 12th after first-lap damage, by 0.6241 seconds.
- He went 47 races between his first and second wins, then needed only six more races to get his third.
- He has driven four different car numbers in IndyCar: 45, 30, 7, and the 9 waiting for him in 2027.
The Bottom Line
Christian Lundgaard spent five seasons being the driver who was quick enough to win and did not win often enough. In 2026 he fixed it, and the reward was the seat a six-time champion just left behind. The pressure in 2027 will be real, and that is exactly the point: Ganassi does not hand the No. 9 to a driver it expects to finish third.
Shop IndyCar Gear at Happy Hour Racing
We do not carry Lundgaard gear yet, so no sense pretending otherwise. What we do have is a stocked rack of Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar apparel, which is the right call anyway if you are heading to the Speedway next May to watch him run the No. 9 for the first time.
- Checkered Flag Sports 109th Indianapolis 500 Back Home Again Tee
- Checkered Flag Sports Indianapolis 500 Snake Pit Tee
- 109th Indianapolis 500 Car Flag Tee
- Checkered Flag Sports Indianapolis 500 Logo Long Sleeve Tee
- Browse the full IndyCar collection
If you want first look at what lands next, the newest arrivals page is the place to watch.
