After impressing the team on his debut last weekend in Nashville, Linus Lundqvist will remain in Meyer Shank Racing’s No. 60 Honda on Friday and Saturday at the 85-lap Brickyard Grand Prix as the substitute for the injured Simon Pagenaud. It will mark the sixth straight race where Pagenaud has not been cleared to drive by IndyCar’s medical staff.
Lundqvist qualified 11th on the unforgiving street course and ran as high as third in the 80-lap contest, but he made a mistake late in the event and struck the wall. Despite the error that left the No. 60 in 25th, the young Swede energized the MSR outfit — which also saw teammate Helio Castroneves earn a solid 11th in the No. 06 Honda — and made it easy for team owners Mike Shank and Jim Meyer to keep Lundqvist in the car for his second consecutive event.
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“Linus did an awesome job for us in Nashville,” Shank told RACER. “He had the fastest lap of the race, which is really cool, and he passed more people than I could ever imagine. He did a really did a good job and showed a lot of respect for Simon, which we appreciated.”
Lundqvist was humbled by MSR’s decision to keep him in the car.
“First I want to say a massive thank you to Mike and Jim for their trust to put me back in the car again,” he said. “The Nashville weekend was great in so many ways. Obviously, a lot of impressions and a lot of new stuff for me going on that weekend and I was pretty disappointed with the way that it ended. It was my mistake and I enjoyed it up until that point. I think it also left me and the team wanting more, which I am grateful for another opportunity at Indy.
“I know it is going to be tough again, but now I have a whole race weekend under my belt. Hopefully we can string some good results together and find some good speed, but I feel like it is going to be a super weekend.”