CHEVROLET INDYCAR RACE REPORT – Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio – O’Ward grabs win

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CHEVROLET IN THE NTT INDYCAR SERIESHonda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio2.258-Mile, 13-Turn Mid-Ohio road courseLexington, OhioSunday Race ReportJuly 5, 2026

LEXINGTON, Ohio (July 5, 2026) – Team Chevy celebrated July 4th and America’s 250th Birthday with a third straight NTT INDYCAR SERIES victory, when Pato O’Ward in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet crossed under the checkered flags just ahead of his teammate Christian Lundgaard in the No. 7 VELO Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.
Rinus VeeKay in the No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet missed out on a podium by a half-second, his best road and street course finish of the season. Also collecting his best road and street course finish of the season was Christian Rasmussen, who brought the No. 21 Splenda Chevrolet home in 6th. David Malukas (No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet) in 8th, Josef Newgarden (No. 2 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet) in 9th and Nolan Siegel (No. 6 NTT DATA Arrow McLaren Chevrolet) gave Team Chevy seven of the top ten in the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio.
Pole-winner Lundgaard led the first 41 laps on the 2.258-Mile, 13-Turn Mid-Ohio road course, as the field approached the halfway point of the race and the second of three rounds of pit stops.
O’Ward made his move on the 42nd lap, getting a better run off The Keyhole (Turn 2), getting beside his teammate who chose to defend the inside of Turn 4, forcing the No. 5 to hang it around the outside of the right hander. Lundgaard gave his teammate room as they remained side-by-side into Turn 5. O’Ward had the preferred inside line, delivering him to Turn 6 in the lead.
The No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet was the third best on pit road on this day, and they executed flawlessly over the last two stops, allowing him to lead 45 laps, four more than his teammate. The pair of Arrow McLaren drivers led 86 of the 90 laps, and Chevrolet-powered drivers led 88 of 90 laps.
Chevrolet notable numbers
— O’Ward’s win is the 242nd all-time win for a Chevrolet-powered driver and the 132nd since the introduction of the 2.2L Twin-Turbo V6 in 2012.— O’Ward’s win is the 13th for a Chevrolet-powered driver at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and the 7th since the introduction of the 2.2L Twin-Turbo V6 in 2012. — O’Ward’s win is his 10th all-time, moving him into a tie for 43rd all-time and 10th with Team Chevy, tying him for 7th on the all-time Chevrolet-powered win list with Danny Sullivan. — O’Ward’s win is Arrow McLaren’s 30th all-time and their 12th win with Chevrolet power.— O’Ward and Lundgaard’s podiums are the 691st and 692nd all-time for Chevrolet-powered drivers and the 376th and 377th since the introduction of the 2.2L Twin-Turbo V6 in 2012.— O’Ward and Lundgaard’s podiums are the 49th and 50th for Arrow McLaren since joining Team Chevy in 2020. — O’Ward and Lundgaard’s podiums are the 35th an 36th at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for Team Chevy— O’Ward’s podium is his 33rd with Chevrolet, tying for 5th with Helio Castroneves on the Team Chevy all-time podium list. — The dozen Chevrolet-powered drivers completed 1080 of a possible 1080 laps, with O’Ward and Lundgaard keeping their streak of completing every lap this season alive.
Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio – Race Results:

What they’re saying – Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio race:
Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet won:“It’s been such a strong weekend for all of us at the team, Team Chevy, everybody at Arrow McLaren, These cars really have been a joy to drive. I think I can speak on behalf of Christian as well. They gave us everything we needed to, to fight for the win today. And we’ve been so close in pace, right? I mean, you start qualifying .02 or something separating us. So, I knew the race was going be tight as well. But I was banking on a mistake just being there that was going to give me the opportunity. I saw and I took advantage of it, and we controlled it from there. Back-to-back wins for the team. Now, all three cars in the top 10 in this race as well. For us at the No. 5 side, it’s been a consistently top five year, but it hasn’t been a consistently good year on the podium. This is our first one, so glad it’s a win, and we’re going to try and go get it in Nashville. I think we’ve got some unfinished business there from last year.”
Christian Lundgaard, No. 7 VELO Arrow McLaren Chevrolet finished 2nd:“I’m just trying to catch my breath, honestly. That was very long, very tough race. We were very loose. In these conditions when you’re loose, it makes the car a lot heavier to drive. I wasn’t really happy with the rear of the car all race. Congrats to the team for a one-two. He was much stronger in Turn 2 than we were, which is really the passing opportunity. I had nothing in Turn 1. I wasn’t really fast, where I needed to be fast.”
Rinus VeeKay, No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Chevrolet finished 4th:“That was a good race. We race like we belonged up front. First of all, we had a great test a week ago. We showed pace, but then to really finish it off on a weekend like this. We were fighting for a podium there, unfortunately, got beaten by the No. 27 (Kirkwood) on pitlane. On the final stop, we were right there. Good strategy by the No. 76 crew, and, of course, incredible car, really good pit stops all year round by my guys, so I’m really happy. The JHR boys are incredible. They were incredible this weekend, so it’s a team effort.”
Christian Rasmussen, No. 21 Splenda Chevrolet finished 7th:“Today was definitely up there as one of the hardest, most physical NTT INDYCAR SERIES races that I’ve done. It was really tough out there, but man, I just drove my heart out at the end. I had no push-to-pass against (David) Malukas, who I think had 60 seconds or something like that. I just knew I couldn’t make any mistakes and had to maximize every single lap, and I did, so I’m very happy with this result. We really turned our weekend around. We struggled in practice, but by qualifying we got our first Fast 6 appearance and executed well in the race.”
David Malukas, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet finished 8th:“Overall, a really good weekend. We flipped this car three or four times. Back and forth, back and forth to get into a window and the car was there every single time. That race was unfortunate for us. We made some mistakes here and there. This track is all about getting as much time as you can and you slowly go backwards a little bit. Overall, with those mistakes. From the mistakes I made, to the guys, that was probably our worst. To say P8 is our worst, is really awesome. These guys are so bad-ass, and there is so much more to come from this team. We’ll learn these mistakes and go get them at the next one. Thank you to Verizon and thank you to Chevy. Incredible engine this week. Congrats to Pato, for getting Chevy up top.”
Josef Newgarden, No. 2 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet finished 9th:“Great job by my PPG team. The car was great, Team Chevy continues to step it up on the natural terrain circuits. Looking forward to racing at my home track at Nashville Superspeedway.”
Nolan Siegel, No. 6 NTT DATA Arrow McLaren Chevrolet finished 10th:“It was a good day today. We moved forward and made the most of it given where we started. Congrats to the team on the 1-2 for the 5 and the 7, the team’s first 1-2. I’m overall satisfied with our day, and am looking forward to some oval racing next.”
Caio Collet, No. 4 Combitrans Amazonia Chevrolet finished 11th:“It was a good day overall. The team executed. really good race strategy wise, pitstops I think we did everything well today. Unfortunately, we had an incident with another car that was running a different strategy he was probably a lap behind, and we went off track which probably cost us a top-10 there. But nevertheless, fighting for the top-10 is where you want to be. We did everything right today. Big thanks to Combitrans and Chevrolet for all of their effort this weekend and hopefully we can keep on doing races like that.”
Santino Ferrucci, No. 14 Homes For Our Troops Chevrolet finished 19th:“Not our day obviously. I think we did a really good job with the race car. It felt relatively competitive. We tried to get off strategy early in hopes for a caution that never came and that ended up being our race. Just unfortunate.”
Alexander Rossi, No. 20 ECR Java House Chevrolet finished 20th:“Where do I begin? Really, a tough weekend overall. There were some glimmers of goodness, but ultimately, we really didn’t have the pace, and there were no strategy plays we could make to try to move forward in an all-green race. Frustrating day. There’s lots to look over and learn from. Good job to the 21 car, and I look forward to getting back out there in Nashville.”
Sting Ray Robb, No. 77 Juncos Hollinger – Goodheart Chevrolet finished 22nd:“Frustrating day. I don’t really know what to say, one to forget I guess. Not really anything bad or mistake wise, just lack of execution and p22 is as good as we did. Disappointing weekend after what could have been a Fast 6 qualifying. Had a really good car under us yesterday and I don’t know what happened today, so we’ll look at it and go to Nashville. A track that I like, an oval that I like, hopefully we’ll be towards the front.”

NTT INDYCAR SERIES News ConferenceSunday, July 5, 2026Pato O’WardTony KanaanPress Conference
THE MODERATOR: Wrapping up today’s the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio, Pato O’Ward joins us, the champion this year, who led a race-high 45 laps in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, second win here at Mid-Ohio, first win of the season, 10th of his career, jumps up to fifth now in the 2026 NTT INDYCAR Series championship, and by the way, there’s a big Mexico match later tonight, so this could be a really big day for you.
PATO O’WARD: Yeah, man. Hopefully we can bring out the broom, Mexico sweep.
Q. Getting that first win here this year, how big was this?
PATO O’WARD: It’s great. It’s great that the first podium of the year for me is a win. We’ve had performances, and I think today was a textbook showing of execution. I want to give it to my guys in the pits; they were phenomenal. I know they’ve been working so hard because this year that has been a bit of a challenge, and I know they’re working so hard to give me the pit stops that they gave me today. I know they’ve been working hard for that.
I really want to recognize that because they make or break my race. They truly allowed me to fight my way and keep my position today as we were fighting on track.
Obviously the cars have been strong all weekend. It’s been a very strong weekend for all three cars. It was a matter of being perfect.
Q. You want to talk about the pass for the lead there?
PATO O’WARD: Yeah, like I said, the pace has been so close between Christian and I. We’ve basically matched each other every single session. It’s been the weekend that obviously the team wants to have every single weekend. We want to be fighting exactly where we were today every single time.
I was positioning myself to bounce on an opportunity whenever he would make a mistake, so I was banking on that he was going to make one, and he did. That’s what ultimately gave me the opportunity, and I took full advantage of it.
It’s always more fun to do it on track over a pit stop sequence or something.
Q. When you’re racing like that with a teammate, is that a thing where you can trust your teammate a little bit better than if it had been somebody from another team?
PATO O’WARD: I think it depends who you’re racing. You can really tell who you can race side-by-side with or who’s going to tell you, no thanks.
Obviously Christian is one of the best in the series. Like obviously Palou is not an Arrow McLaren driver, but I think if I was in that situation with him, he would also respect me like that, and I think you can say that about a lot of other guys, like Malukas and that stuff. I don’t think it really makes a difference.
But obviously as for the team’s instance, we obviously don’t want to take both cars out. We knew that we were going to race hard, and it was either his or mine. I ran a cleaner race.
Q. I hate using cliches, so I won’t, but how important was it for you to get that “he hasn’t won a race this year or finished on the podium” out of the way?
PATO O’WARD: Honestly, I wasn’t really worried. I’ve been in this business for a long time. I know there’s plenty of other guys that have had many more years than I have, but I’ve got plenty under my belt to understand how things flow. The bad luck doesn’t last forever, but the good luck also doesn’t.
Today was a simple showing of execution, and even coming off of Road America, I had so much pace. I’ve had so much pace in the last two road courses. Sadly, Road America we weren’t even able to fight because we got hosed by that yellow.
But this weekend it was an all-green race. Physical, oh, my God, really physical. Really hot in there. But that’s why we train so hard in the off-season. That’s what’s most important.
Yeah, honestly, that’s it for me. I knew my win was coming. Whether it was going to be in the last couple races or in the middle, I don’t know. But obviously I made it happen today.
It’s just nice to kind of put ourselves in a position to keep on climbing, keep on building on this great momentum that we’ve had because I do feel like some good results have ran away from us just from little details. But today I really want to thank my guys for giving me an amazing race car and in the pits. Like I said, that is so important.
THE MODERATOR: All-green race, to your point. Somehow there were still 24 cars that finished on the lead lap, so crazy race. Tony Kanaan joins us, who is the team principal at Arrow McLaren, as they celebrate their 30th all-time win, first ever one-two finish in INDYCAR history for the team, so congratulations. I saw you were a little emotional on the pit stand there.
TONY KANAAN: I’m finding now that I forget that I’m on TV sometimes, and when my oldest son texts me and says, hey, you’re embarrassing me on TV, I think I should stay in the truck. I was a nerve wreck.
I was excited, obviously. We were having such a good weekend with the two cars and Nolan being in the top 10, it’s just something that I’m not handling the team principal role on the other side well, but I was excited. I think it’s been a great day for the team.
I’ve learned over the years that you’ve got to celebrate each one of them because you never know.
Q. Pato, all year it feels like it’s been one thing or another for you, whether it’s luck with yellows, pit stops, feel in the car. How rewarding is it to finally have everything go right today; Christian makes a mistake and you capitalize?
PATO O’WARD: Well, it’s been great. Obviously this is why I’m here, and the reality is I’ve really strived for perfection from my side every single race weekend. I don’t want to make mistakes. I want to be clean. I want to be smart. I want to put the car and pick my battles, and I really feel like I’m driving better than ever. I don’t think the results this year have really shown how I feel inside of the race car because, like you said, about one thing or another, but the most important thing in this business is you need to be comfortable and confident of what you can do and about what you can control. Sometimes you can’t control everything. Sometimes you will do everything perfectly, and things won’t work out.
But I don’t think it’s a reason to lose motivation, lose hunger. I know it was just a matter of time for things to kind of click, or at least not go against us.
Obviously it’s sometimes on the extremes. You might have horrible luck or you might have insane luck. We haven’t had that insane luck yet, so maybe we do, and it would be nice to keep racking up some more. But yeah, it’s just great to get this first win of the season for me.
Nashville I truly believe is a place that obviously I’ve always enjoyed, the team enjoys, and we’ve got some unfinished business from last year just with that unlucky, whatever that was. I’m excited to go back there, and we’re going to try and repeat but actually finish the race where we were.
Q. TK, it appears that Christian or Nolan could be out the door here. You made your expectations clear with Nolan, but as it pertains to Christian, what has he maybe not shown you to verify that you want to bring him back?
TONY KANAAN: I think first, there’s a lot of talk about what we’re doing in the team and a lot of speculation. I think we haven’t reached an agreement yet. I think you guys will see in the near future what the team is doing. We haven’t been able to agree on a couple things.
But I think as a team principal, I’m responsible for running this team as best as I can, and I think Christian has shown his potential, but also, there are other options out there, and I’ve got to consider all of them. The decision hasn’t been made yet.
Although people keep putting people in my cars, it’s not done until it’s done. He’s still very much in play, and he’s an extremely capable race car driver. We’ll see what’s going to happen.
Q. Pato, you’ve indicated you didn’t have a lot angst about when the win was going to come, but I think the perception is that you’re the leader of this team, the veteran of this team, and there are decisions made on this team to help you. I’m curious, is any of that in your head when trying to perform or win or add pressure to you?
PATO O’WARD: I mean, I think the team gives us all the tools the best they can. I wouldn’t put myself as I get the best of everything. I truly feel like we’re all very equal, and we all have as good of a shot as anybody else.
I think it’s up to us, being the quarterback of my little 5 car team, to try and lead and to try and really maximize what our potential can be.
You know, I feel like — I don’t really get rattled. I know a lot of people — and there’s been so much noise, people writing me off already, but the people that actually watch and they actually know what they’re watching, they truly know what’s going on, and they really do see that a lot of the times it can be something that’s out of your control.
Honestly, this year there’s been quite a bit of that. That’s the nature of this sport. It’s not going to be the last time, and it’s not going to be the first time. I’ve had plenty of years here where — they’ve been up and down, up and down, but the most important part was everybody was writing me off, oh, what a horrible year. I’m still fifth in the championship, and this is my first podium. Rack up two or three more, and I’m fighting for the championship. I still am.
People need to chill. It’s just, the championship is long. There’s plenty of racing to go. I sure as hell am not getting worse.
I keep working hard. I obviously enjoy my life outside of racing, as well, which is very important, and along with that, you’ve got to enjoy it with your guys. You have to. You never know when it’s your last time, your last win together. You never know. It’s so important to do that because that’s truly why we do this. We do this to win and to compete, but we also do this — what makes it so much sweeter is actually the people that we get to share it with after making these strong relationships within the team.
For me, obviously papaya is a second family, and they will remain to be. I always try and give the best I’ve got. There’s not once where Tony has come to me and he’s like, I need you to try harder because I know he knows ex act ly how much I expect from myself and how perfect I want to be, and that’s how I do everything, jobs, investments. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing. That is what you want to do.
Q. You’re 94 points behind Alex with seven races to go, so that’s doable?
PATO O’WARD: Yeah, obviously it’s doable. I think at this point last year I was somewhere there, as well, and if it’s not first in the championship, a repeat of a second would be great. It’s not the end of the world. We’re obviously still working hard. We’re still getting better.
Like Tony said, we’re all trying to put these pieces together to make this team stronger as a whole. It’s not about me. It’s not about Christian. It’s not about Nolan. It’s not about Tony. It’s not about Zak. It’s about making everything as strong as possible.
When you see the two biggest goals that any race team in INDYCAR has, it’s winning the Indy 500 and winning the INDYCAR championship, which we’ve been very close on both. We’re going to keep working hard.
Q. You mentioned you’re excited for Nashville. You think you’ve got unfinished business there. Looking at the other six races outside of Nashville and kind of the stretch run of the season, is it realistic that you can be competitive enough to make up that points differential and be a factor in the championship?
PATO O’WARD: I mean, if we keep having weekends like today, certainly so. That would be fantastic. Obviously Nashville has been a great place for me and the team. Portland we’ve been very strong, as well. Markham, we’ve had the best street course results that we’ve had in quite some time this year. I’m excited for Markham. I’m excited for Washington. That one is going to be crazy. Milwaukee, we’ve won there before.
There’s plenty of opportunities left. Like I said, I’m not changing my approach. It’s going to be the same as it’s been all year. I didn’t really change it this weekend, either.
Q. Tony, a lot of noise surrounding the team this weekend —
TONY KANAAN: Really? I haven’t heard anything.
Q. To be able to deliver a one-two amidst all of this noise, talk about that from your perspective as a team principal.
TONY KANAAN: Hey, they make noise, we’ll make a bigger noise. That’s how we work. I think this is a statement of what it is. There is a lot of things going on, a lot of distraction, and we’re able to keep this team on track with what we came here to do. We came here to win the race. We came here to finish one-two-three, and we finished one-two. We’re trying to win this championship.
I kept the team tight. I kept the team at truth. They’re going to hear from me whatever the decision is.
If they haven’t heard from me, that means there is no decision made yet. But rest assured that the decision is going to come with a lot of certainty and not taking for granted that 130 people are putting their life and their faith towards me, towards this guy that has a lot of responsibility, and I feel responsible for all of them.
If I have to take a gamble, take a gamble, and if I need to take a hit, I’ll take a hit. I’m here to win races. That’s what Zak put me here for. That’s why I wake up every morning, and I’m working on that team for 13, 14 hours a day since I retired. For me, nothing is changing. Bring it on. Bring the distractions. Will we’ll keep changing that a little bit. Today we’re going to talk about one-two.
Q. A lot of teams and drivers can get complacent in the summer, middle part of the season. Everybody seems locked in from all three aspects, from Christian to Nolan to Pato. Talk about how good that is to have all three aspects locked in going into this latter half of the season.
TONY KANAAN: It says a lot about how much work we’ve been doing. Look at this team three years ago and look at this team now. It’s not the same team. We’ve been changing. We’ve been adding personnel. We’ve been adding a lot of the culture that we’ve been trying to achieve. We’ve been adding the Hunter-Reays and the Kyle Moyers and also working with the drivers with what we need and what they need to be able to perform. There is no excuses when you have a name like McLaren and a boss like Zak.
I just said, this was our first one-two, and my text to him says, and it won’t be the last, and that’s Zak. Proud of them, proud of the drivers with the distraction and everything that has been going on. I’m trying to be as mindful and as fair as possible using my own experiences. I’ve been through some ups and downs in my career, if I can help them out. But the focus is we always leave is all at the racetrack because at the end of the day the results will speak for themselves.
As much as you win and you put yourself in a position to do so, I think your life will become easier one way or the other. Proud of them. Proud of Pato. There is a lot of talk, and I’m not going to debate on it, and I think he has me handling that quite well. So is Christian, and then Nolan with his best last four races, he’s stepped it up pretty much every race.
Q. You mentioned about the 130 people that work for you back in Indy. Can you talk a little bit about the investment that McLaren have put into the team? You’ve got the new race shop. How proud are you of the work that the team has done?
TONY KANAAN: I mean, if you look at our last, what, I would say 16 months, we got the shop up last July, I think. We had six months to turn it around. We spent two months with the cars are parked and the entire team was building chairs, desks, making — patching walls and stuff in the team to make it our home.
I remember when Zak presented this challenge, I would say, to me, I asked him where he wants to be. I knew the answer, right? To set a standard like that, we need a facility that we’re able to compete with Penske and Ganassi and to provide the opportunity of just anything, manufacturer things that we couldn’t do in the old shop because it was too small but also the work environment, the culture.
You guys know me well enough from my previous career I love to have fun and I think we can still win and have fun. I don’t want to run like other teams. I want to be different. I want to be the guy that you walk into my office and I have to remind you, maybe I’m busy, but if you are comfortable to just walk in.
Proud of the team. Our home is awesome. I love it. I spend more time there than at my house. If I ask my wife that, since we build that, it’s an excuse for me to be there all the time.
If you look at the past 20 years, only two teams have won the championship. When we got — I got the responsibility and everyone else put McLaren with those guys, we have to step it up, and we did, and we are. We’re getting there with the shop and everything else.
I can’t really run a team and be compared to legends, which is Chip and Roger, that have had so much success for the last 30 years. I can’t go to a fight without the proper guns, the same guns that they have. Obviously made a huge difference. We’re proud of it, and hopefully we’ll get there.
Q. Pato, Christian was here and said earlier that the track conditions from the warmup today morning to the race were totally different. What is your opinion about that? Do you feel also that the track conditions were different?
PATO O’WARD: I thought it was a little bit warmer for sure, but I think it was the same change that we usually get on the other road courses, as well, when all this rubber starts getting laid down. The cars do seem to change a little bit. But I wouldn’t say that it completely transformed what we’ve had. I think in terms of pace, we were right where we have been compared to the rest of the weekend, right? Obviously the track will fluctuate and things need to change, but we’ve got things inside of the car that we can mess around with to put it in a bit more of a happy place.
Q. Pato, I don’t know if you’ve been keeping track, but that was 14 races without a podium. How much of a relief is it to finally get that off your back? That’s actually the most races that you’ve gone in your INDYCAR career without a podium. Will how much of a relief is it, and how much of a difference do you think it makes going forward through the rest of the year?
PATO O’WARD: Yeah, it’s obviously nice that the first one has been a win because, yeah, a win does hit different than just a second or a third. I think this is — I had a bit of a sniff of it in Road America. I really did. I was positioning myself there to take the win, and we had so much pace.
Coming into here, I knew that we were going to be able to do something similar to that, and we went out there and executed. That was the most important part.
Yeah, it’s been nice, but honestly, I don’t really look at all of that. I just go every single weekend with the open mind that we always want to do better than the previous year. We always want to do better than the previous weekend. That’s what we did.
Q. TK, this is the first weekend this year that all three McLaren drivers have been in the top 10. I know you feel like you’ve made a statement to the public, but how does this affect morale within the team, given that this has been such a big weekend?
TONY KANAAN: I mean, we get to celebrate tonight. Tomorrow, everybody is going to report to the shop at 7:00 a.m. because we’ve got to go to Milwaukee. It’s going to be a short celebration, but look, I think this is a little bit of — this is a part of the result. Today we get to enjoy it for a couple hours. But we’ve been winning at the shop every day with what we’re building, how we are communicating, how we are going through the good days and the bad days, how we sit down and have very, very uncomfortable meetings talking about putting ourselves in a position to be accountable for what we need to do better.
Today was just an execution of the work we’ve been doing at the shop. The wins are made back home. Today was just the result of it. Proud of them, and we’ll get a couple hours to celebrate, and we’re going to have a team meeting at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow and everybody is going to be working again.
Pato does talk a lot in the team meeting, if you guys think I talk a lot. Christian will do it, as well. So does Nolan. It’s a big family.

NTT INDYCAR SERIES News ConferenceSunday, July 5, 2026Christian LundgaardPress Conference
THE MODERATOR: Wrapping up today’s the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio presented by the 2027 CR-V hybrid, Christian Lundgaard is here. After leading 41 laps this afternoon in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, best finish here at Mid-Ohio, second runner-up finish of the season, fifth podium of 2026, 14th career podium, as well. Just your thoughts on an all-green day. Pretty grueling inside the car for sure but second place finish for you today.
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: Yeah, very long day, very tough day. Obviously very tough physically out there with the heat, but also just an all-green race. It didn’t really help that we were quite loose. We kind of went into the race knowing that — or thinking the balance was going to go towards understeer, and I don’t think that was the case as much. I think we kind of overreacted and made the car a lot harder to drive.
Very, very difficult, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how difficult the car is to drive. I still think we sort of maximized today, which is always nice.
Q. Talk about trying to hold off Pato.
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: Yeah, at the end of the day it was a mistake of my own. I was struggling so much on entries with the rear. It happened three times before that lap. Then obviously I wanted to be the good sport. I could just easily have run him off the track in 4 if I wanted to. Didn’t.
We fought. We touched. I think that’s always good racing.

Q. Christian, I’d like to go back to the pass. You mentioned you made a couple of mistakes. Was that because of traffic ahead of you or was that just what the car was giving you?
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: No, I struggled all day. Even on the first stint, wasn’t particularly happy with the rear. I was nowhere in Turn 1 all day. All high speeds, just no rear, stability. It made sense with what we did overnight and even after warmups. It’s pretty clear in my head what really happened.
Obviously we were fine-tuning the car as the race went on and the last stint was better but still struggled a lot.
Q. To struggle that much and come away with a second place, how does that happen?
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: Maximizing a weekend.

Q. Christian, with this weekend over for you, what are the next steps for you as far as figuring out your situation for next year?
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: I’m going to go take a shower, I’m going to sleep and then see what comes.
Q. Are you going to sleep well?
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: Me? I sleep great. I’m a big sleeper.
Q. Is there any part of you that is anticipating being proactive in this and figuring it out, or are you just waiting for people to call you maybe?
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: I guess both. I mean, it isn’t really where my head’s at now. There’s, what, nine races to go, eight races to go? Eight. Plenty of races to win. Seven, whatever. Seven races. Plenty of races to be competitive at.
Q. Christian, you said earlier you struggled with the rear. Did you have already this problem today in the morning in the warmup, or it just came up during the race?
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: No, we were struggling with it in warmup. But again, I feel like the track condition was so different. I don’t know what specifically the track temp was different in the race. Obviously it was rising quite high throughout the race.
It’s a very different track than it was this morning. But I think it was highlighted even more in the race.