Pit Road Miscue Derails Lundgaard’s Challenge to Palou’s Dominance at Barber

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Christian Lundgaard had the pace and the strategy to take down Alex Palou’s dominant run Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park, but with a single miscue on the final pit stop of the day, it was all gone in the blink of an eye.

After leading 10 laps on the day, Lundgaard and his No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet charged from a 10^th place starting spot to put them in prime position to capitalize on the final stop. He would come to pit road four laps later than Palou banking on the overcut being the winning strategy to get him out in front of Palou for the final run to the finish.

However, a bobble on the left-rear during the stop cost him crucial seconds, dropping him from the lead to third-place in the exchange.

https://twitter.com/IndyCar/status/2038327915616567578

With his hopes for a win now dashed, Lundgaard drove like a man possessed over the final laps to claw his way past Graham Rahal to score a runner-up finish on the day – his best finish of the season.

But the disappointment of having his first win since 2023 in his grasp only to be taken away loomed large afterwards as he will have to wonder what could have come of the day had that not happened.

“Everything you just said sounds great except the P2 part,” said Lundgaard. “I think we had a race-winning car today. Obviously, it’s frustrating, the past many few races, we’ve produced such great race cars on Sunday. We’ve been lacking on Saturday. It’s just frustrating.

“Obviously, you win races on Sunday, so that’s when you need to have a good car. I think we need to put ourselves in better positions. I think even with the pace and how the race panned out today, we had the car to win the race, we had the pace, we had the track position at the time.”

“I’m not really sure what happened in the pit stop. I’m not sure I can really comment too much on it. Again, it’s unfortunate.

“Obviously came out behind Graham there on the last stint and just wanted to really get that second place for the team, as well. It wasn’t just for me. This is where we were. At least with a bubble on pit road, let’s get the same result, not worse. We had the pace. Got by Graham. That was nice.”

Lundgaard added that in a short debrief afterwards his crew told him that he would have come out square with, or even a bit ahead, of Palou if his pit stop went off as normal, making the disappointment of how things panned out sting even more.

“Obviously, the pace was there to win the race. I think it would have been a fair and square fight on the last stint if that would have been the case,” said Lundgaard. “We sit here now and it wasn’t the case, so…

“I mean, there’s not really much to say to it. I think overall we had a race-winning car today. If we would have started three positions further up, I think our race would have been very different.

“We need to be better on Saturdays.”

Lundgaard now sits third in the standings, 35 points back of championship leader Kyle Kirkwood heading into the next event at Long Beach (5:30 pm ET, April 19 – FOX).