Christian Lundgaard Stats: 3 Wins and a Career-Best IndyCar Season

Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Driver Spotlight, where we pull one driver into the garage, dig through the career, and tell you why they are worth watching. This week: the number 7.

The Short Version

The Christian Lundgaard stats line reads better right now than at any point in his career. The 25-year-old Dane has 86 IndyCar starts, 3 wins, 4 poles and 21 top-five finishes, and he goes into Sunday's season finale sitting second in the championship. He also does not have a ride at Arrow McLaren next year. Career-best season, no seat with his current team. That is the strangest story in the paddock heading to Laguna Seca.

Christian Lundgaard Stats at a Glance

Here is the whole career in one place, plus how the 2026 season stacks up against every year that came before it. Every number is an NTT IndyCar Series figure through the Milwaukee doubleheader on August 30, 2026.

From Hedensted to Indianapolis

Lundgaard was born on July 23, 2001, in Hedensted, Denmark. Racing was already the family business. His father, Henrik Lundgaard, won the 2000 European Rally Championship, so the kid grew up around loud cars and long weekends away from home.

He went the European single-seater route first. He joined the Renault Sport Academy in 2017 and won two Formula 4 titles that same year. He finished sixth in FIA Formula 3 in 2019 with ART Grand Prix, then moved up to Formula 2 with the same team, taking two wins in a shortened 2020 campaign. He also worked as a simulator driver for Alpine in 2021.

The Formula 1 door never opened. The IndyCar one did. He made his debut on August 7, 2021, at the Indianapolis road course with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, qualified fourth and finished 12th in his very first try.

The First Dane to Win an IndyCar Race

Lundgaard went full time in 2022 and took Rookie of the Year honors, finishing 14th in points. The breakthrough came the next season. He won his first career pole in May 2023 at the Indianapolis road course, then went to Toronto on July 16 and did the whole thing properly: pole, 54 of 85 laps led, and an 11.7893-second win over Alex Palou. It was his 28th career start, it came a week before his 22nd birthday, and it made him the first Danish driver ever to win in the series.

He backed it up with an eighth-place points finish, ahead of every Andretti car. Then 2024 flattened out. One podium, 11th in points, and a move to Arrow McLaren for 2025.

2026: Two Wins and the Best Year of His Career

Year one in papaya went fine. Six podiums, a career-best fifth in points, and a seventh-place run in the Indianapolis 500 from eighth on the grid. Year two went better.

He opened 2026 with a third at St. Petersburg and a second at Barber. On May 9 he won the Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis road course, starting fourth and taking the lead for good on lap 68 with a pass on David Malukas through the Turn 5 and 6 chicane. He won by 4.6713 seconds. It was his first victory since Toronto, almost three years earlier.

Road America on June 21 was the one people will remember. Lundgaard started 12th, picked up front wing damage and a puncture on the opening lap, and dropped to last in a 25-car field. He worked all the way back, inherited the lead on lap 52 of 55 when race leader Marcus Armstrong slowed with a mechanical problem, and held off Malukas by 0.6 seconds.

Two weeks later at Mid-Ohio he put the No. 7 on pole with a 1:04.839, beating teammate Pato O'Ward by 0.0253 seconds, then finished second in the race. That is the fourth pole of his career and the only one so far in 2026.

Second in Points and Out of a Ride

Here is where the season gets odd. On July 6, with Lundgaard already a two-time winner and deep in the championship fight, Arrow McLaren announced its 2027 lineup: Scott Dixon, Pato O'Ward and Felix Rosenqvist, plus Ryan Hunter-Reay for the Indianapolis 500. Lundgaard and Nolan Siegel were not in it.

NEWS: Arrow McLaren confirms Nolan Siegel and Christian Lundgaard will not return to the team in 2027. pic.twitter.com/UxPbOZj9pl

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) July 6, 2026

The team also lifted the exclusive negotiating window it held over him, which cleared him to sign somewhere else. Paddock reporting since has him lined up for the Chip Ganassi Racing No. 9 Honda that Dixon is vacating, but as of this week nothing has been announced. Treat it as expected, not done.

The Oval Question

The reason usually given for the split is ovals. Lundgaard is one of the strongest road and street course drivers in the series, and for four and a half seasons the ovals did not come. His best oval result was sixth, set twice in 2025 at Iowa and Milwaukee. For a team building around Indianapolis 500 wins, that mattered.

Then, on August 30 at the Milwaukee Mile, he finally got one. Third place in the Snap-on Milwaukee Mile 250, the first oval podium of his career, on the same weekend that pushed him up to second in the standings. The timing was almost funny. The oval breakthrough arrived about eight weeks after the team decided he could not do it.

What to Watch at Laguna Seca

The title is gone. Alex Palou wrapped up his fifth championship in six years at Milwaukee, his fourth straight, which makes him the first driver to four-peat since Sebastien Bourdais did it from 2004 to 2007.

What is left is the fight for second, and it is tight. Lundgaard sits on 507 points. Kyle Kirkwood is two back on 505. Pato O'Ward is four back on 503. All three go to the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Sunday, September 6, with the green flag at 2:30 p.m. ET. Laguna Seca is a road course, which is exactly where Lundgaard is at his best.

The Bottom Line

Christian Lundgaard is having the best season of his life at the exact moment his team decided to move on without him. Three wins, four poles, a first oval podium and a shot at runner-up in the championship. Whatever car he is in next year, the 2026 numbers say the series is getting a driver who is only now hitting his stride.

Watching the finale on Sunday? Here is IndyCar gear that is in stock right now.

• Checkered Flag Sports 109th Indianapolis 500 Car Logo Tee
• 109th Indianapolis 500 In Motion Blue Tee
• IndyCar Checkered Flag Sublimated T-Shirt
• Indianapolis 500 Race Logo Long Sleeve Tee
• Colton Herta No. 26 Gainbridge 1:18 Diecast

See the rest in the IndyCar collection. New IndyCar driver spotlights drop every Thursday.