Christian Lundgaard wins his first career IndyCar race in Toronto

The NTT IndyCar Series returned from its week off on Sunday afternoon racing the streets of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The streets of Toronto have hosted open wheel racing since 1986 which was won by Bobby Rahal. Michael Andretti has won the most races in Toronto (7) as a driver with Dallara and Chevrolet tied with 13 wins.

Rahal’s driver, Christian Lundgaard started the Honda Indy Toronto on the pole with Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin starting second to make up the front row.

It did not take long for the first caution flag to come out. On the first lap, six cars were involved when Ryan Hunter Reay, Tom Blomqvist, and Jack Harvey raced three wide in a tight and narrow section of Turn 2. The three drivers collided when Blomqvist hit the wall before turning both Hunter-Reay and Harvey. At the same time, the field tried to avoid the accident but Graham Rahal hit Benjamin Pederson. Alexander Rossi and Devlin DeFrancesco were also involved in the crash.

The cleanup lasted eight laps before the race could resume on the ninth lap. Lundgaard led the opening 18 laps before making his first pit stop with Scott McLaughlin taking the lead. Lundgaard fell to 12^th place while McLaughlin led 16 laps before making his first pit stop.

During McLaughlin’s lead, Lundgaard moved back up the field including racing Rinus VeeKay for eighth place. He made his way back up to third before regaining the lead after Marcus Ericsson and Scott Dixon pitted.

The racing was excellent with lots of passes from all over the track. On lap 42, Romain Grosjean lost grip of his steering wheel before crashing hard into the wall at Turn 10 for the second caution of the day. Before the crash, Grosjean was slipping back when he lost the sixth position to Alex Palou. The race resumed on lap 45. However, Kyle Kirkwood hit Helio Castroneves from behind at Turn 10 which brought out the third caution.

Behind them was Alex Palou, who avoid the accident by touching the wall and slightly damaged the front wing. Kirkwood was issued a stop-and-go penalty for the incident. During the caution, Lundgaard and nine other drivers went to pit road.

Scott McLaughlin was the new leader as the race resumed on lap 51. Ten laps later, McLaughlin pitted and Scott Dixon was the new leader. Behind him, Alex Palou and Christian Lundgaard battled for the third position. Lundgaard passed Palou for second place before taking the lead after Dixon pitted on lap 62. In the closing laps, Will Power was short on fuel with two laps to go and pitted.

Christian Lundgaard drove away to his first career NTT IndyCar win by 11.7893 seconds over Alex Palou. Palou’s front wing held on by a thread. In addition, Lundgaard’s win snapped a three-year winless streak for Rahal Letterman Lanigan racing since the 2020 Indianapolis 500.

Colton Herta, Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin, Marcus Armstrong, Pato O’Ward, Graham Rahal, and Felix Rosenqvist wrapped up the top ten.

“I’m pretty drained from energy right now. The Hy-Vee Vivid Clear Rx car has been fast all weekend, and I said it before the race that we had a car that was fast enough to win. We pulled it off,” said Lundgaard. “This team, they do deserve this. If you look at where we were earlier this season and even last year at this point, we were nowhere near this. I’m just extremely happy for everybody right now.”

“We knew it was going to be an eventful race,” said Palou. “We had a really fast car and got into the accident with the 27 (Kyle Kirkwood), and Helio (Castroneves). I don’t know how we made it with this wing. The car was still handling ok and we just had to save a ton of fuel and tires but we made it.”

The NTT IndyCar Series heads to Iowa Speedway for a doubleheader. Race one is on Saturday at 3 pm on NBC, and race two is on Sunday at 2 pm on NBC. Subscribe to Fubo to watch all of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season. Purchase tickets for all IndyCar races today on StubHub and Viagogo.

Finishing Order: