Christian Lundgaard stars in wet Toronto qualifying for second IndyCar pole of 2023
TORONTO – In the moments after securing his front-row start two weeks ago at Mid-Ohio, Graham Rahal cautioned whether he and his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing teammates could keep up that level of Saturday performance, headed to a type of circuit that has been utterly cruel to RLL all year.
Christian Lundgaard must not have gotten that memo.
The 21-year-old Danish driver did his veteran teammate one spot better than two weeks ago, snagging his second pole of his sophomore IndyCar season while besting a group of car control masters in the closing six minutes of qualifying for Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto as the streets rapidly dried and put those drivers and teams to the test.
In a way, luck may have been on Lundgaard’s side, as the No. 45 Honda driver got the chance to turn the second-to-last lap in the Firestone Fast Six by virtue of just barely crossing the timing line before the checkered flag flew on the session. At that point, he was 3rd-fastest, behind Scott McLaughlin and Pato O’Ward, who will start 2nd and 3rd, respectively, on Sunday.
As cars finished their final flying laps, Will Power – who on Saturday made his first Fast Six of the season – jumped from 6th to 1st, just seconds before Felix Rosenqvist, who crashed in the morning’s practice and required a backup car, went from 5th to 1st.
Marcus Ericsson then went to the top, followed by McLaughlin, leaving just Lundgaard and O’Ward on-track. The Dane’s lap then put him to pole, with the Mexican driver, still searching for his first pole of the year.
Lundgaard and Rahal both managed top-10 finishes to start the year on the streets of St. Pete – with the former even advancing to the Fast 12 while Rahal started 20th. In reality, they largely survived carnage that took out nearly half the field. Across the team’s six street courses results from Long Beach and Detroit since then, the team had logged no top-10s, with five of them falling between 12th and 17th.
Qualifying had been even worse, with three of the team’s six starts in those races falling 24th or worse – and no better than 15th.
“We were talking about this just before I got in the car. I have a history in go-karts of being fast in the rain, but I’ve only driven in the wet once in this car in the GMR Grand Prix last year, and we weren’t competitive,” Lundgaard said after hopping out of the car. “Today, the car was just ‘there.’ I can’t thank this team enough.
“I know it gets tricky in the wet but looking at where we were on street circuits earlier this year and even some last year, we’ve made huge progress. I don’t know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, but we’re at the front and just need to execute.”
After strong practice pace, Andretti Autosport misses Fast Six
Rain began to factor heavily into the afternoon qualifying session right as Group 1 closed out its Round 1 session, strengthening mightily just as those 13 cars pulled into pitlane for Group 2 to begin. Following a torrential downpour that left puddles across the 11-turn, 1.786-mile circuit that features several repaved sections and patches along with bumpy manhole covers and the occasional slick concrete slab, race control paused for several minutes to assess the track’s conditions.
Once they got rolling with Group 2, Romain Grosjean, who finished second-fastest in Friday’s opening practice and who dearly could use a strong race result as he hopes to hold onto his No. 28 Honda ride for next year, was the class of the field and made his first Fast 12 appearance since his second-row start in Detroit.
Teammate Colton Herta, who was fastest in Saturday morning’s practice and who entered as this race’s defending polesitter and with back-to-back poles this summer, sat on the outside while looking in at the checkered flag – then bumped his way into the top-6, only to fall back out as Ericsson did the same.
Before on-track action started Friday, though, Herta said he’d gladly surrender a dominating Saturday for solid execution on Sunday, after a flukey double-hit of the pitlane speed limiter at Mid-Ohio (leading to a drive-thru penalty) and a bungled pitstop call at Road America from his timing stand lost him what were two near-certain podiums, along with a likely win.
“Saturdays have been great to us lately, and Sundays haven’t, and we need to change that and just have a clean weekend,” Herta told IndyStar on Friday. “It’s been pretty annoying not to be in that position twice after having the pole.
“We’ve just been having the weirdest (expletive) happen lately, and it’s annoying. We know we have the pace and the pitstop capability, with a clean (race), to amount to a podium at least – and maybe a win.”
He’ll start 14th Sunday.
For a moment late in that group’s 10-minute session, it looked as if Meyer Shank Racing rookie Tom Blomqvist, making his IndyCar debut this weekend for the still-injured Simon Pagenaud in the No. 60 Honda, might pull off a miracle and sneak into Round 2 as well, jumping for a moment in the final minute from 12th in his group to 5th, but 30 seconds later, he’d already fallen to 8th and eventually finished 10th to seal his 20th-place starting spot.
Also among those narrowly missing out under treacherous conditions was Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi, who saw both his teammates make the Fast Six, but will start 26th Sunday after an electrical failure in his No. 7 Chevy left him stopped off-course early-on.
Championship leader Palou faces uphill battle Sunday
In the driest session of the afternoon, runaway championship leader Alex Palou faced his first significant setback in practice or qualifying since Rinus VeeKay speared him on pitlane midway through May’s Indianapolis 500. The driver who had started on the front two rows in each of his last seven starts this year with a worst start in 2023 of 7th and who was 4th-fastest in Saturday morning’s practice, teetered on either side of the Group 1, Round 1 cutline all past the halfway point, sitting 5th with five minutes to go and 6th with three to go.
With a minute left, just as rain started to fall, Palou found himself 8th, trundling around on a track surface that not only wasn’t going to get quicker on the Firestone alternate tires, but that was going to be increasingly difficult to stay within the racing line.
He’d go on to finish 8th in his group and will start 15th Sunday while nursing a 110-point championship lead on Chip Ganassi Racing teammate and defending Toronto winner Scott Dixon (who starts 7th Sunday), 116 ahead of Josef Newgarden (11th), 122 clear of Ericsson (4th) and 127 in front of O’Ward (3rd).
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The championship leader, though, declined to blame his inability to make a late leap into the advancing group on the conditions.
“I just think we didn’t put together everything we had,” said the driver who started 22nd here a year ago but made his way up to 6th by the end of the race. “We had more pace than that, but we couldn’t really improve on the alternates. It’s a shame we’re going to have to start from the back, but we know we have a fast car, and we can make it from there.
“Every race in IndyCar, as soon as you start further back than 10th, it’s going to be a busy race. We’re going to have that tomorrow, and it’s the first one of the year – and hopefully the last one. We’ll have to work for it for sure.”
Honda Indy Toronto qualifying results
1. Christian Lundgaard
2. Scott McLaughlin
3. Pato O’Ward
4. Marcus Ericsson
5. Felix Rosenqvist
6. Will Power
7. Scott Dixon
8. Kyle Kirkwood
9. Romain Grosjean
10. Marcus Armstrong
11. Josef Newgarden
12. Rinus VeeKay
13. Helio Castroneves
14. Colton Herta
15. Alex Palou
16. Callum Ilott
17. David Malukas
18. Agustin Canapino
19. Jack Harvey
20. Tom Blomqvist
21. Ryan Hunter-Reay
22. Devlin DeFrancesco
23. Sting Ray Robb
24. Santino Ferrucci
25. Benjamin Pedersen
26. Alexander Rossi
27. Graham Rahal
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: Christian Lundgaard weathers wet Toronto qualifying for pole
