Tag: Linus Lundqvist

Lundqvist working all angles to stay in IndyCar

Linus Lundqvist is doing everything he can to continue his brief career as an NTT IndyCar Series driver. With Chip Ganassi Racing’s confirmation of Kyffin Simpson in the No. 8 Honda Lundqvist drove to two third-place finishes and a pole position on …

Linus Lundqvist is doing everything he can to continue his brief career as an NTT IndyCar Series driver.

With Chip Ganassi Racing’s confirmation of Kyffin Simpson in the No. 8 Honda Lundqvist drove to two third-place finishes and a pole position on his way to winning Rookie of the Year honors, the young Swede has been in contact with all of the teams who have seats to fill.

It’s a shrinking number that’s down to five, with two apiece from Dale Coyne Racing and Juncos Hollinger Racing and one at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, and in most cases, the 2022 Indy Lights champion would need to bring a budget to secure the drive.

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Signed to a multi-year deal with Ganassi heading into 2024, RACER understands the team has given the 25-year-old its permission to seek new opportunities in the IndyCar paddock and elsewhere to take the next step in the sport.

“Positive talks are definitely happening, which is nice, but as usual within any business, all ends need to meet, and that includes financial ends,” Lundqvist told RACER. “So that’s usually what the talks have been about so far. I do still think that there are some opportunities for me to continue in IndyCar, which is good. We’re just gonna have to wait and see if we can make it happen.”

With a couple of Rolex 24 At Daytonas on his CV, Lundqvist is also keen to explore what’s available in IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

“IMSA is something that every driver looks very fondly upon and it’s obviously something that I’m eyeing as well,” he said. “The main goal is still to stay in IndyCar but the IMSA side, the sports car stuff, is definitely something that I am interested in, especially if the IndyCar side doesn’t happen. I’m keeping a very much open door to sports cars, even outside of America.”

Lundqvist seals IndyCar Rookie of the Year crown

Linus Lundqvist has won the NTT IndyCar Series’ Rookie of the Year award. The 25-year-old Swede, who captured the Indy Lights championship in 2022, showed his prodigious talent in a handful of outings with Meyer Shank Racing in 2023, was hired by …

Linus Lundqvist has won the NTT IndyCar Series’ Rookie of the Year award.

The 25-year-old Swede, who captured the Indy Lights championship in 2022, showed his prodigious talent in a handful of outings with Meyer Shank Racing in 2023, was hired by Chip Ganassi Racing for 2024, and has produced one of the more impressive rookie campaigns in recent years.

From his third-place finish at Barber Motorsports Park to the pole position at Road America to his second podium — a third at World Wide Technology Raceway — to his sixth last weekend at Milwaukee 1 and leading 19 laps, Lundqvist has been fast and competitive among the inevitable rookie mistakes.

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Battling teammate Kyffin Simpson all season, Lundqvist became the third Ganassi driver to win Rookie of the Year honors in the last five seasons, adding to what Felix Rosenqvist achieved in 2019 and Marcus Armstrong produced in 2023.

“We had two candidates for that and both did a really good job for us,” CGR managing director Mike Hull told RACER. “Linus and Kyffin, with the with the drive and determination that they each have, if that would be counted in the voting, they’d both win the award.

“Linus fits the mold for a modern IndyCar race driver because IndyCar racing is no longer about one driver on a team. It’s about the team effort. It’s about how race drivers as teammates support each other, and Linus has the skill set to go with it, the mindset to go with it, and the sponge-like quality that you need to learn from experienced teammates like Scott Dixon and Alex Palou and Marcus Armstrong, who went through the same things that Linus is going through this year.

“He’s surrounded by quality people, a terrific group of people overall, and he takes full advantage of that. Rookies will have their ups and downs and probably more downs than ups in the first year of IndyCar racing, but it’s how they come out the other side that counts, and he’s ready to take on the next the next level of IndyCar racing.”

Rookie of the Year-elect Lundqvist making strong case for 2025 seat

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Linus Lundqvist is cruising to the Rookie of the Year title and making a strong case for potential employers in the NTT IndyCar Series field after producing his second top six performance in a span of three races. The 2022 Indy …

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Linus Lundqvist is cruising to the Rookie of the Year title and making a strong case for potential employers in the NTT IndyCar Series field after producing his second top six performance in a span of three races.

The 2022 Indy Lights champion has had a typical rookie season in some regards – making and learning from mistakes – and as the championship has accelerated towards its finish, Lundqvist has also proven to be one of the great surprises with a road course podium at Barber and an oval podium at World Wide Technology Raceway.

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Add in his strong qualifying at the first Milwaukee race, passing Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and leading 19 laps, and coming home sixth, and the 25-year-old has been showing the kind of growth and pace that should have him on a number of teams’ radars for 2025.

“We had a good day, but I’m not gonna lie, I’m almost a little bit disappointed with a P6 because I felt like we drove a good race and were real fast,” Lundqvist told RACER. “For the first time, I properly led an IndyCar race, which was fun. So I’m taking a lot of positives from it. We had a couple of things go wrong as well, both on my end and elsewise, so there are things still to polish up for the second race, but we’ll take a P6 today.”

Although it’s unconfirmed, his Ganassi team is expected to trim two of its five cars from the program next season, which would make Lundqvist a free agent. Sitting 16th in the drivers’ championship, Lundqvist has Graham Rahal and Romain Grosjean directly behind him and Rinus VeeKay and Marcus Ericsson, the former driver of his No. 8 Honda, right in front of him with two races left in the season. It’s heady territory for a rookie.

“It’s not a bad time to start ramping up the pace here,” he said. “I want to be here, and I do believe that I deserve to be here, too, and all I can do right now is try to focus one race at a time, one qualifying session at a time, and try to prove and do my best on track. I’m trying to work on opportunities.”

Summer break provided a useful reset for Lundqvist

Chip Ganassi Racing rookie Linus Lundqvist says the opportunity for a reset during the break in the schedule between Saturday night’s NTT IndyCar Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway and the previous race at Toronto three weeks earlier …

Chip Ganassi Racing rookie Linus Lundqvist says the opportunity for a reset during the break in the schedule between Saturday night’s NTT IndyCar Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway and the previous race at Toronto three weeks earlier played a part in his matching his career-best result of third.

“Unbelievably happy,” he said. “We’ve had a season with a lot of ups and downs, let’s put it that way. I think the summer break was actually good, I think, for everybody on the team to kind of take a little bit of time to reflect — especially on my side — on the lessons that I’ve had to learn.

“Basically before that it was flat out since end of April. I haven’t had a proper time to go back and look through everything I learned. It was all preparation for the next weekend. The month of May was hectic. Good to get a bit of a break and kind of let everything settle down. Hopefully now with this momentum, we can finish the year off strongly and show what we learned.”

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Good vibes were important, but so were good tires. Lundqvist was fifth when the race was red-flagged with 10 laps to go after the restart crash involving Will Power and Alexander Rossi, but he’d just had a new set of Firestones bolted onto his No. 8 Honda a few laps earlier. The two cars ahead of him — those of teammate Alex Palou and Andretti Global’s Colton Herta — had not.

“I was nervous as anybody,” he said of the final restart. “Basically when they said we were P5 in the restart, I was like, ‘All right, I wouldn’t be too unhappy if I saw a checkered flag right now. I’d take a P5.’ Then the red came out.

“I was a little bit worried about what was going to happen with the guys behind us. They said, ‘Everybody else was a lap behind.’ That makes me feel a little bit better.

“I knew we had a pretty big tire advantage going forward. I think Alex and Herta had, like, 45- or 50-lap-old tires. We were basically on stickers. I knew we might have a possibility to do something here. Obviously got around Alex as he got squeezed into Turn 1, then one or two laps later we got the move done on Herta.

“Towards the end we had five or six laps to kind of let it go. I knew that a podium was on the cards and we got it done.”

Saturday’s third place matches Lundqvist’s career-best finish, which he scored early in the season at Barber, and comes at a time of uncertainty at CGR as the team weighs the possibility of needing to downsize from five entries to three to comply with the requirements of IndyCar’s proposed charter system, which mandates a maximum of three cars per team.

“My focus right now is just finish the year strong and try to show what we learned from the beginning of the year,” Lundqvist said. “I’d like to think we’ve showed that when everything comes together, we can be as fast as anybody, dare I say, and hopefully look forward to next year and to stringing it all together [to do] what we’re all here to do, which is compete for championships.”

Turn 1 incident snowballed into a day to forget for CGR

Don’t hit your teammates. That’s the first rule within a multi-car team. Unfortunately for Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong, who qualified third for Sunday’s Road America IndyCar race-directly behind teammate and first-time polesitter Linus …

Don’t hit your teammates. That’s the first rule within a multi-car team.

Unfortunately for Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong, who qualified third for Sunday’s Road America IndyCar race—directly behind teammate and first-time polesitter Linus Lundqvist — that primary rule was broken when the New Zealander hit the back of the Swede’s car at the first turn on the first lap and caused both Ganassi cars to spin and stall.

Armstrong would retire on the 35th of 55 laps and Lundqvist, who dropped to 25th in the 27-car field, put in a stellar recovery drive to claim 12th for a Ganassi team that had a race to forget for four of its five cars.

The two made amends after the race, and the rookie’s maturity showed after his best qualifying day in the series turned sour due to the racing equivalent of the cardinal sin.

“We had a chat after the race, and honestly, I’m more so just sad, disappointed that the race didn’t go further from where we started,” Lundqvist told RACER. “I was so excited about this race. I thought we were in for a good one, but sadly, it didn’t last longer than Turn 1. It would have been so fun and interesting to see what we could have done starting at the front, because I think after that happened, the pace was pretty good from our part.

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“You know, again, it would have been fun to have had a go at it, but these things happen in racing. There’s a lot of positives to take from this weekend, so I’m going to try to focus on that. I know I’ll have a beer tonight, but we’ll back at it again in two weeks at Laguna.”

A contrite Armstrong was understandably disappointed with what took place on Sunday.

“Tough day,” he said. “One of the toughest I think in my career. Turn 1, I don’t really know what happened to be honest, but I got penalized for it so it must have been my fault. It was not my intention to ruin the race already in the first 20 seconds so I’m disappointed with myself. Then we had mechanical issues after that. It was a trying, bad day. A very bad day.”

Lundqvist gave himself a few laps to wallow in frustration for the opportunity that was lost, and then he and race engineer Brad Goldberg got down to business and picked up 13 positions at the end of 55 laps.

“Obviously…Saturday was amazing, but if you disregard what happened on lap one, and even, honestly, even the first six or seven of laps — because I was a little bit deflated — but then we kind of got back into our groove and then I think we we did as good as we could have,” he said. “Our pace was good in clean air. I struggled a little bit in traffic and trying to pass people but once we committed to our overcut strategy, every time we hit those clear laps at the end, we were always able to move ourselves forward.

“Brad came to me after the race and said, ‘That that was quite enjoyable for me,’ because he had to think a little bit outside of the box here. Overall, it was a race of what could have been. We just have to do it again. Give it another shot.”

Lundqvist leaned into British F3 experience for wet Road America pole

Linus Lundqvist’s pole position for the XPEL Grand Prix at Road America was an outlier in other ways than just being the Swede’s first career pole in the NTT IndyCar Series. It came in a wet qualifying session that caught out a number of the series’ …

Linus Lundqvist’s pole position for the XPEL Grand Prix at Road America was an outlier in other ways than just being the Swede’s first career pole in the NTT IndyCar Series. It came in a wet qualifying session that caught out a number of the series’ most experienced hands…and the Chip Ganassi Racing driver who mastered the conditions best said he had some useful experience to draw upon, despite this being his first full season of IndyCar racing.

“Yeah, it was hectic. It was crazy. I say one of the craziest qualifying sessions I’ve had,” said Lundqvist. “This feels like an average British F3 qualifying back in the day-type of style where it started off torrential rain, then the last part it dried up, we threw on the slicks. It was kind of fun going back to that, a little bit back to my roots. Even growing up back in Sweden, half the racing we did was in the rain. I’m pretty comfortable there.

“Obviously towards the end it was staying online, not touching the wet. That’s basically what I had in my mind. It happened to be good enough for pole.”

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Others, notably Team Penske’s Will Power and Josef Newgarden, went over the line in the decisive Firestone Fast Six session, Power spinning off and Newgarden crashing heavily. But as Lundqvist pointed out, testing the limits was the only way to find them.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s so difficult because you still have to be committed,” he said. “To even get temps into the tires, when it’s these dry/wet conditions, you have to push super hard to get the tires up to temperature. To be fast as well, you’re going to have to approach it almost like a dry lap or a dry session. If you’re just one foot or even half a foot with your outside wheels, you’re going to go off. That’s also what makes these conditions so exciting, because it’s very rewarding when you do put it together, but it’s so easy to be a foot off or half a foot off, and obviously have the opposite.”

Sunday’s forecast calls for cloudy but dry conditions, yet Lundqvist noted the Road America circuit hadn’t only proven tricky in the wet this weekend.

“You’ve seen people go off. I think obviously in the wet it’s super tricky to stay on track, especially now towards the end where you just have one dry line. But even in the dry, people were going off,” Lundqvist said. “I think around this place, you usually don’t run that much downforce, which makes it a little bit tricky in the high-speed braking zones. I think it’s so easy to snatch a front right or front left — off you go.”

Lundqvist romps to first IndyCar pole at drying Road America

In need of a big change of fortune, Linus Lundqvist delivered at the perfect time on Saturday as the 2022 Indy NXT champion earned his first pole position for Chip Ganassi Racing. The young Swede was a rocket in the No. 8 Honda as a day of …

In need of a big change of fortune, Linus Lundqvist delivered at the perfect time on Saturday as the 2022 Indy NXT champion earned his first pole position for Chip Ganassi Racing. The young Swede was a rocket in the No. 8 Honda as a day of rain—which affected the majority of qualifying—transitioned into sunny and drying close to the Firestone Fast Six session.

“Thanks to the No. 8 crew for sticking with me,” Lundqvist said. “It’s been a rough couple of races, so to be able to bounce back like this, it’s nice. There’s no better way of rebuilding confidence than with my first ever pole in IndyCar, in these conditions as well.”

With drivers able to trade their Firestone wet tires for the first time and give the quick Firestone alternate slicks a try on the mostly dry single-groove Road America road course, it was an intense battle as Lundqvist motored to first on his last flying lap with a tour of 1m45.1519s, just ahead of Andretti Global and Colton Herta’s 1m45.2913 in the No. 26 Honda. Ganassi teammate Marcus Armstrong continued his impressive body of recent work with third in the No. 11 Honda (1m45.6592s).

“It was disappointing to not get the pole,” Herta said. “However, I am happy with the front-row start. It’s so difficult in these conditions when it’s wet.”

Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood was fourth and adversity struck both of Team Penske’s pole contenders as Will Power spun and stalled, which voided his two fastest laps according to the rules. He was sixth as a result while teammate Josef Newgarden was circulating and looking like he was on pace for at least third. A heavy crash on the final lap battered the right side of his car and relegated him to sixth and Power to fifth as a result of being the last driver to bring out a caution. Newgarden was able to climb from the car under his own power.

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It was a banner day for Ganassi’s young drivers with rookie Lundqvist on pole, Armstrong in third, and rookie Kyffin Simpson, who qualified a career-best 12th. Ganassi’s championship leader Scott Dixon was 11th and its reigning champion Alex Palou was 7th.

Qualifying opened as the first group took to the circuit with light rain falling and once the 10-minute session was over, Alexander Rossi, Pato O’Ward, Marcus Armstrong, Josef Newgarden, Will Power, and an impressive Kyffin Simpson transferred.

Out and finished were Christian Lundgaard, Marcus Ericsson, Rinus VeeKay, Santino Ferrucci, Nolan Siegel, Luca Ghiotto, and Pietro Fittipaldi.

The second group went without incident until Helio Castroneves spun and stalled with just over three minutes left. The red flag lifted and some drivers chose fresh rain tires that were cold and their used wets that were warm.

The drivers to transfer were Herta, Palou, McLaughlin, Kirkwood, Dixon, and Lundqvist. The knockouts were led by Romain Grosjean, Christian Rasmussen, Theo Pourchaire, Jack Harvey, Felix Rosenqvist, Graham Rahal, Sting Ray Robb, and Helio Castroneves.

The Firestone Fast 12 was run on a wet track but the rain stopped falling, and with the track improving with each lap, Herta, Kirkwood, Armstrong, Power, Lundqvist, and Newgarden would go on to vie for pole in the Fast Six.

Seventh through 12th was set with Palou, McLaughlin, Rossi, Dixon, O’Ward, and Simpson.

RESULTS

‘It’s just a hard day’ – Palou on CGR’s missing 500 qualifying form

Chip Ganassi entered more cars than any other team owner for the 108th Indianapolis 500. Although there were no expectations for the winner of the last three Indy 500 poles to place all five Ganassi cars in the Fast 12 group that will run for pole …

Chip Ganassi entered more cars than any other team owner for the 108th Indianapolis 500.

Although there were no expectations for the winner of the last three Indy 500 poles to place all five Ganassi cars in the Fast 12 group that will run for pole on Sunday, nobody predicted the Honda-powered team would miss the Fast 12 altogether.

The last time it happened was 2019, and before that, it was 2013 and 1990. In light of Scott Dixon’s poles in 2021 and 2022 and Alex Palou’s in 2023, having at least one of them in the Fast 12 seemed like a foregone conclusion, but Palou was bumped out late on Saturday by Dreyer & Reinbold Racing’s Ryan Hunter-Reay.

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When day one of qualifying was over, Palou was the top Ganassi representative in 14th, followed by rookie Marcus Armstrong in 16th, rookie Kyffin Simpson in 18th, Dixon in 21st, and rookie Linus Lundqvist in 27th. Among the quintet, the 21st-place starting position for Dixon represents his worst in the New Zealander’s 22-year career at the Speedway. His previous 21 starts were all inside the top 20.

“It’s been tough, as everybody…was expecting us to be up front; we always also wanted to be up front,” Palou told RACER. “The team is coming from three poles in a row here at the 500. We wanted to be there; we wanted to fight. Unfortunately, we’re missing speed — still don’t know where, but that’s the truth. Today, it’s just a hard day.”

Linus Lundqvist suffers first crash of 2024 Indianapolis 500 practice

Linus Lundqvist has suffered the first crash during practices for the 2024 Indianapolis 500. Watch Lundqvist’s accident from Thursday.

The NTT IndyCar Series completed two practice sessions for the 2024 Indianapolis 500 with no accidents, but that changed on Thursday morning. During the third practice session of the week, Chip Ganassi Racing driver [autotag]Linus Lundqvist[/autotag] became the first driver to wreck after his No. 8 car got loose, exiting Turn 2.

Lundqvist backed into the wall behind two Arrow McLaren drivers and descended the race track into the grass. The back of the No. 8 car was destroyed, but thankfully, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver got out under his own power. Lundqvist was later seen and released by the infield care center, so he should be good to go moving forward.

Lundqvist is the first but likely not the last to wreck during practice, qualifying, or the actual Indianapolis 500. The 2.5-mile track is treacherous, especially at 230 miles per hour. The Indianapolis 500 is a nerve-wracking competition, but one that provides drama and excitement like no other sporting event in 2024.

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Lundqvist escapes injury in crash during Indy practice

Linus Lundqvist has been checked and released by IndyCar’s medical team after crashing at Turn 2 during Thursday’s practice session for next weekend’s Indianapolis 500. The Chip Ganassi Racing rookie caught the curb at the entry to the corner and …

Linus Lundqvist has been checked and released by IndyCar’s medical team after crashing at Turn 2 during Thursday’s practice session for next weekend’s Indianapolis 500.

The Chip Ganassi Racing rookie caught the curb at the entry to the corner and lost the rear, sending the No. 8 Honda into the barriers tail-first before it snapped around and impacted the wall with the right side of the car.

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“I’m all right,” said Lundqvist after leaving the infield medical center. “Just want to apologize to the team — obviously not what we’re looking to do. It’s a shame. I know that the guys worked so hard to put this car together. It sucks.

“It’s my mistake; I know exactly what I did. I touched the curb in Turn 2 and couldn’t hold onto it. It’s something that you talk about often at this place, but it’s just a mistake on my part and the team’s going to pay the price for it.

“It goes so fast, and when you get down there and you realize where you’re at, it’s kind of too late. It’s a small mistake, easy thing to happen, but big consequences.

“I know we’re going to bounce back from something like this. Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck in the moment; obviously it hurts and especially when it’s your mistake. But we’ll rebound, I’ll learn from it. There’s another week or so until the race so we’ll bounce back for that.”

Lundqvist was seventh fastest with a best of 226.261mph at the time of the crash, on a day when the entire field is scrambling to take advantage of what appears to be the only window of cooperative weather before qualifying begins on Saturday.

Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward was the session leader when the caution arrived courtesy of a 228,861mph lap in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.