Linus Lundqvist hanging future IndyCar hopes on result of debut weekend in Nashville
NASHVILLE – Linus Lundqvist knows the struggle of sleepless nights. He’s had them more than a time or two in recent months, as he’s weathered the torment of traveling to just about every IndyCar race weekend, helmet in-tow, and waiting, hoping, praying for any kind of opportunity to prove the skills that earned him a runaway Indy Lights championship a year ago.
For five months, those calls never came.
Now one has, and he might still struggle to rein in his emotions.
“Every time people say that – ‘Linus Lundqvist, IndyCar driver’ – it just brings a smile to my face,” said the 24-year-old who will fill-in for the injured Simon Pagenaud for his IndyCar debut in the Music City Grand Prix with Meyer Shank Racing. “It’s been something I’ve been waiting for and working towards for a very long time. That it’s actually here right now is a little unbelievable."
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And all that exuberance from IndyCar’s newest Swedish driver came midday Friday, as storms raged outside and he wondered in the back of his head how much he’d have to deal with damp streets for his debut IndyCar race weekend on unquestionably the most unpredictable track on the schedule.
In relatively dry conditions hours later in his first of three practices this weekend, Lundqvist finished 11th-fastest in the 27-car session (1:17.3524) – just under 1 second back of the practice leader, Will Power, and 0.05 seconds better than the next-fastest rookie in the field (Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong). Others IndyCar’s newest rookie edged on pace Friday included title-contender Josef Newgarden, Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood, veteran Graham Rahal and Lundqvist’s own teammate Helio Castroneves.
Even before that, though, Lundqvist said he had no qualms making his debut on the course that has, for better or worse in its first two years, earned the nickname ‘Crashville.’
“Hey, if your phone starts ringing, with someone asking if you want to do an IndyCar race, I’m not going to say no to that – no matter where it would be,” he said.
Not only does Lundqvist list Nashville among his favorite IndyCar tracks – it’s where he picked up his fifth and final win a year ago during his title run – but in a way, the team’s need for the fourth race weekend running to fly by the seat of their collective pants and onboard a new (or new-ish) driver as the substitute in the No. 60 Honda while its owner continues to weather concussion-like symptoms from his violent July 1 Mid-Ohio crash has Lundqvist believing there may not have been a better team, or time, to learn the ropes.
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“I think they’ve been able to map out a little bit what to focus on and what’s good (for a new driver),” he said. “Now, I think I’m coming at it from a slightly different angle, in that I’ve never done pitstops, tire management, fuel saving, so all that will be completely new to me.
“I think the focus will be on slightly different things for me, and I do know it’s going to be the toughest weekend of my life. They’re asking me to come in midseason without much running at all and asking me to perform. It’s going to be a big ask, but it’s the opportunity you dream of.”
And it’s an opportunity, Lundqvist pointed out, that may not so much require raw pace as much as an awareness of his surroundings and a deft pair of hands at keeping his car out of the wall and off his competitors. The first two years of the Music City Grand Prix have combined for 69 of the 160 laps run under caution, stemming from 17 total caution periods. One-third of the field (nine of 27 cars) failed to finish the race in its inaugural showing in 2021 – a race won by a driver in Marcus Ericsson whose car went airborne, was penalized and made three more pitstops than the rest of the front-runners, yet still come out on-top.
A year ago, Scott Dixon pitted three-times more than either of the other two podium finishers (six vs. two) and came from outside the top-20 following his first stint and rode a set of tires nearly the final 50 laps of the race to edge Scott McLaughlin in the closest IndyCar street race finish in series history. And in that race, only 11 cars managed to finish on the lead-lap while only 15 of the 26 were running at all at the finish.
“It’s really about survival,” Lundqvist said when asked what a good result would be in his first IndyCar race. “Just finishing the race can almost guarantee you a top-10, so we’ll see. I just think you do a good job, and if that’s 15th or 10th or 22nd, I think we have to look at what we did and be happy about it.
“But I do think this weekend could change a lot of things (for my future). Nobody expects us to go in and perform and put together a perfect weekend, but if we can do a solid job and show glimpses of pace over a stint or two, I think we’ve done ourselves a tremendous favor for next year.”
For the most part, that’s what Lundqvist’s hopes for an IndyCar future rest on: his talent and results alone. Already not a driver bursting at the seams with budget, Lundqvist was passed over for an IndyCar ride of any kind this past offseason in part because of the relatively paltry scholarship he earned ($500,000) when compared to his predecessors. During the years when IndyCar ownership still owned the top-level feeder series, but allowed Andersen Promotions to promote the series, both sides chipped into the scholarship pool to boost it past $1 million. It typically also guaranteed the winner a shot at the Indianapolis 500, along with another race or two that coming season.
But when, after the 2021 season, Penske Entertainment Corp. took full control of the series but failed to make up the difference in the lost scholarship money coming from Andersen Promotions, Lundqvist was surprised to be handed a check at the end-of-season banquet with only six figures instead of seven. At just $500,000 with no race guarantees, he almost might as well not have had anything at all. In his place, Sting Ray Robb (2nd-place in Lights in 2022) and Benjamin Pedersen (5th-place) bought rides to make their full-time IndyCar debuts this year, while Lundqvist was left on the sidelines.
This weekend, he’s finally able to put some of that money use, in some ways likely as an incentive for MSR to lean on Lundqvist as a stand-in instead of someone else on the sidelines. How far it can go, he said, depends on what teams – whether MSR or others in the future – ask for in turn for a one-off weekend. One paddock source told IndyStar this week those funds would likely be completely spent – and potentially not even entirely pay for – two non-500 race weekends.
Lundqvist told reporters Friday he is allowed to roll whatever scholarship funds he has left at the end of this season into next year, but if $500,000 wasn’t hardly enough to move any needles last offseason, a couple-hundred-grand will do even less. Without a windfall of sponsorship backing, the driver will likely need to earn on merit one of the handful of fully-funded rides that exist on the free agent market at the moment, in hopes of parlaying this weekend’s audition into something more.
“When I came into this season knowing I wasn’t going to have a full-time ride, I knew it could be a career-killer, but I was determined to make sure it wasn’t,” he said. “Ask me again after Sunday, because testing is nice, as is winning the championship last year, but (that only goes so far) until you can do a race or two.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: Linus Lundqvist says future could ride on Nashville debut
