Oilpressure

We just witnessed our eleventh straight IndyCar race (twelfth, if you count the 2020 double-header), and I can honestly say I’ve never seen a wilder race at Road America than the one we saw this afternoon. Christian Lundgaard won a whacky race that saw him fall back to dead last after contact with Scott Dixon on Lap One. We were in Turn One at the start of the race, so I didn’t see it happen. But when I heard over the PA that Lundgaard was limping back to the pits, I figured his day was done. It wasn’t.

In the post-race press conference, he said that winning the race today was not on his bingo card when he woke up this morning. In fact, from what he was saying in the press conference – Lundgaard was more confused by the events of the day than anyone. He said he was surprised after he came out of the pits and rejoined the field at the end, how well he could pass cars. He almost wondered what was wrong. He said he was passing cars effortlessly until he got behind Rossi, who he said was surprisingly fast at that point in the race.

Lundgaard admitted that Marcus Armstrong should’ve won this race. He won’t get any argument from a lot of people. Armstrong had pace all weekend and I started thinking on Friday that we might be looking at a first-time winner in Armstrong this weekend. But the racing gods weren’t ready for Armstrong to win just yet. His Honda engine gave out at the end of Lap 51 and Lundgaard breezed by him after he had already resigned himself to a second-place finish.

At that point, it looked like the podium would consist of Lundgaard, David Malukas and Graham Rahal; who turned a horrible qualifying effort into an apparent podium finish. But on the final lap of the race, which was a one-lap dash to the finish – Rahal and Will Power tangled in Canada Corner. Rahal was turned around and backed it into the wall, while Power continued and took Rahal’s spot on the podium.

In the press conference, Power acknowledged that Rahal was probably not happy with him, but from his perspective – there was nothing he could do. From what I understand from someone who spoke to Rahal after the race – saying Rahal was not happy is quite an understatement.

Alex Palou made an uncharacteristic mistake during the race. He pitted while running second, but he committed a pit speed violation. Once everyone pitted, Palou ended up in eighth-place. Still, he worked his way up to a fifth-place finish and extended his points lead. He now leads David Malukas by 60 points, and Kyle Kirkwood by 61 points. Christian Lundgaard is now fourth in points and trails Palou by 77 points.

It was a whacky race, especially in the end. As much as we love Road America, there have been a few racing duds here. Who remembers when Alexander Rossi led wire to wire in a caution-free race here in 2019? What we saw today was not that. This one will have people talking for a while.

That will do it for us for the weekend. We are staying here tonight and driving back to Nashville on Monday. I will have my usual Random Thoughts on Monday. Thanks to everyone who followed along this weekend. Please check back tomorrow as we put an exclamation point on the weekend. Here are a few of Susan’s photos from the weekend. (All photos: Susan Phillips)

George Phillips

This entry was posted on June 21, 2026 at 5:53 pm and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.