If Arrow McLaren was on a campaign to be talked about as much as possible over the past two weeks, they have succeeded. It all started at Road America two weeks ago, when Christian Lundgaard had an improbable last to first drive to win his second race of the season. He followed that up with winning the pole for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio on Saturday. Pato O’Ward had a brilliant drive to win at Mid-Ohio on Sunday, with Lundgaard finishing a close second.
In the meantime, they made silly-season headlines all last week without confirming much at all. My guess is that Arrow McLaren was the most mentioned IndyCar team over the past two weeks, with Chip Ganassi Racing being No. 2. What a difference a year makes. Last year, all the headlines were being made by Team Penske, with penalties, management suspensions, terminations along with constant speculation about Will Power’s future; while they slogged through their worst season of the current century. I imagine they are enjoying being away from all of the chaos.
This weekend’s race at Mid-Ohio certainly had a papaya tint to it. With all of the off-track drama going on, Zak Brown’s team was able to put it all behind them and put two of their three cars on the front-row. The front-row starters swapped their finishing positions, but even Nolan Siegel; who, along with Lundgaard, was given permission to seek other employment, finished tenth.
The first half of the 2026 season was considered a disappointment for Arrow McLaren. Lungaard had been the only real bright spot, winning two races and earning two additional podium finishes. Their lead driver, Pato O’Ward, had been consistent but had no wins and no podiums. It became obvious by May that Nolan Siegel would probably not be retained for next season. But it seems like the team has caught fire, on-track and off, in the last two weeks.
There is speculation that Lundgaard had already been told his services were no longer wanted, before his spirited drive at Road America. He also drove like a man possessed at Mid-Ohio this weekend. The only thing that kept him from winning his second race in a row was the handling that went away in his car in the second half of the race, after the sun came out. Still he finished second on Sunday. His performance over the last two races have been enough to vault him into third in the championship standings.
Those standings are still led by Alex Palou, who was kind of quiet most of the weekend. A small mistake in qualifying was big enough to prevent him from advancing to the Firestone Fast Six, ending his streak of consecutive poles at five. Palou started eighth and was probably happy to salvage a fifth-place finish. He had a sixty-two point lead over David Malukas to begin the weekend, and left Mid-Ohio with a fifty-six point lead over Kyle Kirkwood. To lose only six points in what would be considered a bad weekend for Palou, shows just how much of a grip he has on this championship – but this is the closest the gap has been in July since 2022, when he lost the championship to Will Power.
As for the race itself – despite the ravings of Will Buxton telling us what a fantastic race we had just been treated to, I found the race a tad boring. To me, it was a typical race at Mid-Ohio. I’ve watched a lot of races there over the past forty years. More times than not, races at Mid-Ohio tend to be somewhat processional due to how hard it is to pass there. We saw that early on, when Christian Lundgaard was in the lead, yet he was stuck behind the last-place car of Dennis Hauger and could not pass him. Hauger wasn’t necessarily holding him up – it’s just that there were few places to pass. Since he was still trying to stay on the lead lap, Hauger was not going to let him by, and I don’t blame him.
It didn’t help that there were no cautions to give us some res-tarts. Most of the passes took place in the pits, but the battle between Lundgaard and O’Ward was actually settled on the track. O’Ward passed Lundgaard on Lap 42. The box score says that was the last time Lundgaard led, but I could swear there was another time he led before O’Ward passed him again. Maybe I dozed off and dreamed that. I guess I’ll have to go back and re-watch it later this week.
Although the race itself lacked a whole lot of drama, there was enough drama going on from earlier in the week. I was not expecting a very exciting race, so I was not disappointed. Twenty-four shiny (and one matte black) race cars were going fast and trying to beat each other. That means it was a good day.
TV Coverage: Despite Will Buxton trying to oversell what we had just seen when the race was over, I thought FOX had a very solid weekend. From their silly season coverage that started when the green flag fell on Practice One on Friday, to their race coverage on Sunday – I thought they did a very good job.
I’m sure I’m in the vast minority, but I am not a soccer fan. I laugh at these people that are suddenly talking about the pitch and red cards, like they know what they are talking about. I am one person who will be ecstatic when the World Cup comes to a close, just before the start of the Music City Grand Prix in a couple of weeks. That being said, I grew tired of all the World Cup discussions during the broadcasts. Yes, I know why they are doing it – FOX has the rights to all of the World Cup games. So it is all a big cross-promotion. Hopefully, IndyCar will benefit with soccer being the lead-in for the Nashville race in a couple of weeks. But for this grumpy non-soccer fan, the soccer conversations have grown tiresome on the IndyCar broadcasts.
Other than that – I thought it was a very good weekend for the FOX crew.
A Distant Second: Those that are suffering from Palou fatigue are getting frustrated when Palou has a relatively bad weekend, yet he increases his points lead over second-place. How is that possible, many ask? It’s simple. No one can consistently battle for second-place. Since March, Championship discussions have centered around Alex Palou, Kyle Kirkwood and David Malukas. It’s easy to forget that Palou lost the points lead after crashing in the second race of the season at Phoenix. He did not regain the lead until after winning the fifth race of the season at Long Beach. It’s hard to believe that he has won only once since then – at Detroit.
If you are not a Palou fan, you are wondering how he has kept his lead and even strengthened it, while having several subpar weekends. The problem is that no one seems to want to mount a charge while in second-place. As soon as a driver climbs into second-place, they stub their toe in the next race. Even at Gateway, when Palou ran out of fuel and finished seventeenth; his two closest rivals Kirkwood and Malukas did not pounce on the opportunity. They finished sixth and seventh respectively. Kirkwood pulled within forty-nine points of Palou, but that was as close as anyone has gotten. Kirkwood and Malukas have been hop-scotching over each other as Palou pulls away – even on a bad weekend.
On Sunday, Malukas finished eighth while Kirkwood finished fourth. That moved Kirkwood back into second, after he fell to third at Road America. But now there is a new player – an angry and motivated Christian Lundgaard. By finishing second on Sunday and winning the pole of Saturday, Lundgaard now sits third in the championship – just sixty-five points behind Palou. Since Malukas and Kirkwood seem to not want second-place; I’m betting that Christian Lundgaard is the only one that will make things interesting for Palou. I think Lundgaard is going to be one to watch over the remaining seven races this season. Can you imagine how much fuss there will be if he wins the championship after being kicked to the curb by McLaren?
No Issues: For the first time in a while, we had no engine issues and no hybrid issues. The Morning Warm-up Show had Honda’s David Salters as a guest. He is President of Honda Racing Corporation USA (HRC), and he barely got comfortable in the seat before Townsend Bell brought up Honda’s engine failure at Road America that cost Marcus Armstrong his first career win. Ou could tell Salters was uncomfortable, but he didn’t shy away from it and said it was inexcusable. He did not elaborate on what happened, but I’m not sure he would say even if he knew.
Engine failures have not been common in the NTT IndyCar Series for years, now. But they seem to have become a little more regular this year – especially in the Chevy camp. Between engine issues becoming more common and the unreliable hybrid system that has randomly plagued the series in the past couple of years, the series needs to focus on dependability as the develop the new car and engine formula for 2028. It was good to have a weekend that was not affected by something totally out of a driver or team’s control.
Ganassi Woes: Over the years, I may focus on a team that had an unusually rough weekend. I don’t focus on the teams that are usually backmarkers, because them having a rough weekend is not that unusual. It is usually Andretti Global, McLaren, Penske or a mid-level team that had a particularly rough outing. I can’t remember when I have focused on Chip Ganassi Racing, but they had a rough weekend.
It started before Palou had a bobble in Round Two of Qualifying that cost him advancing to the Firestone Fast Six. Scott Dixon had been the focus all week once it was announced that he had informed the team he would not return in 2027. He was only mid-pack in the Friday practice session. As it turned out, that was the highlight of his weekend. Dixon was twenty-second quick in the Saturday morning session. That is also where he qualified. Even without a penalty for holding up Romain Grosjean in qualifying, he still would have been there because he was so slow. He ultimately finished seventeenth on a track he usually dominates,
Kyffin Simpson had been showing steady improvement and appeared ready for a breakout race. It may come later this season, but he regressed this weekend. He started eighteenth and finished a very forgettable fifteenth.
Palou moving up three spots to finish fifth, was the only highlight for Chip Ganassi Racing all weekend. Hopefully they can right the ship before the Nashville race in two weeks. Nashville Superspeedway is a track that Dixon won on three years in a row; but that was twenty years ago.
Drive of the Day: Other than the race winner, there weren’t a whole lot of candidates yesterday. Pato O’Ward only moved up one spot, even though he drove brilliantly. I don’t base this just on how many spots you move up, but what you do with your results. Basically, it’s a loose criteria and it basically goes to who I want to give it to.
This week it goes to Kyle Kirkwood. He had a rough weekend two weeks ago at Road America, and only qualified tenth on Saturday. But he moved up seven spots and earned a podium finish, on a track not known for passing. Not only did he get a podium and reassumed second place in the standings, he won the Oilpressure.com Drive of the Day.
All in All: I saw a lot of angst on social media from fans complaining that Sunday’s race was boring. What were they expecting? This wasn’t Texas Motor Speedway or Milwaukee, this was Mid-Ohio. As I said earlier, it was a boring race but exciting races at Mid-Ohio are few and far between. They happen in about one out of every three or four races there. I thought Sunday’s race was fairly representative of the typical IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio. Most people know that going in. I have an idea that these are either young or new fans groaning about being bored. Seasoned fans knew what to expect and we weren’t disappointed.
The crowd looked good, and they looked like they were having a blast. When was the last time you heard an entire hillside at a racetrack sing Country Roads in unison? From what I know (since I’ve never been there), the crowds that attend races at Mid-Ohio are similar to those that go to Road America. They are extremely knowledgeable about racing, and they don’t require a concert to lure them to a race track. They know what they are in for. Even though I would not expect a scintillating race, I hope to go there one of these years.
George Phillips
