“Where are my parents? Where are my parents?”
That’s all Linus Lundqvist wanted to know after climbing from his car on pit lane at Barber Motorsports Park.
With his first IndyCar podium clinched, the rookie from Sweden wanted to find his mom and dad and celebrate the biggest achievement of his career — so far, at least — with his run to third place in the No. 8 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.
Two days earlier, the 25-year-old was telling RACER about his approach to the early portion of the season where being smart and steady instead of going on an immediate attack was his preferred approach.
“I know I need to get in all the laps and do all the miles so I can get comfortable, and when I feel the timing is right, there’s more there to use,” Lundqvist said. “But I don’t help myself or my team, as a rookie, if I’m crashing all the time.”
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His season opened with a quiet run to 21st at St. Petersburg, was followed with a sixth at the non-championship Thermal Club event, produced a decent finish of 13th at Long Beach, and with his team’s use of the same three-stop strategy that propelled Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and Will Power to a 1-2 result at Barber, Lundqvist was in tow to secure the final step on the podium.
As a byproduct of finishing every race to date and capping them off with a third at the most recent race, Lundqvist enters Saturday’s Indianapolis Grand Prix holding eighth in the drivers’ championship, which is another impressive feat for a kid with six total IndyCar races to his credit.
“We got the podium and the strategy that we were on was right, but we had to do tons of fighting, especially in the beginning of the race, and I really liked that,” he said. “At St. Pete and Long Beach, we had to do a lot of saving fuel and it was what it was, but at Barber, this was the first one where we were actually pushing all the time and it was fun.”
The 2022 Indy NXT champion, who replaces countryman and Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson in the No. 8 car, is loaded with talent, but he errs towards pragmatism instead of dipping into braggadocio behavior.
“We are still like a new team within Ganassi, with me getting to know how to do everything, so this podium was great, but I have so much more work to do to get better.” he said. “I was not stressing about anything before (Barber), because I have very high confidence in the team. And they believe in me. So we know that once we figure each other out and everything clicks, we’re gonna be fighting for wins.”
Former Ganassi IndyCar driver Charlie Kimball was watching the race in the Barber paddock, and once it became apparent Lundqvist had his first podium in hand, he shouted “Brad Goldberg!” in deference to his former race engineer.
Under Goldberg’s care and tutelage, Kimball won the 2013 Mid-Ohio race in the No. 83 CGR Honda and also enjoyed the most successful years of his career. Ericsson would find the same when he was paired with Goldberg as five wins — including the 2022 Indy 500 — were delivered in concert with his engineer.
“I can’t praise Brad enough,” Lundqvist said. “Obviously, his CV speaks for itself, and more so for me, coming into a big team like Ganassi, I wouldn’t say it’s intimidating, but it’s a big difference. Brad has been a huge help and comfort for me because he’s talked me through everything. He’s a human teddy bear, until you put him in a race situation, and all of a sudden, he is as competitive, if not more, than any other person that I’ve met. I think that’s why we clicked so well.
“He can sense that I’m very competitive and I can sense that he wants to win as bad as anybody. And then I think our personalities match off-track where we’re fairly low key and mellow and happy. But when we get into the races, we’re able to switch to that race mindset. I was very pleased to give back a little bit to him and everybody on my team with the podium because the first couple of races haven’t been super smooth from our side. So it felt nice at Barber in a kind of way to say that, ‘Hey, you are doing a good job teaching me and we’re definitely on the right path here.’”
