Arrow McLaren Serves Danish at Sonsio Grand Prix of Indianapolis

The No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet driver recorded his third podium of the season, first for the team in his second season there, and gave the organization its 28th victory.

“It’s a lot of unfinished business for me around here,” Lundgaard said. “Obviously, being competitive here pretty much every year except last year, I really wanted to get some redemption for that. We worked hard to try to figure out where we really went wrong last year.

“I think we obviously did, but it just feels awesome. I hope that it doesn’t take another three years for another one, right?”

Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan assured him, “It won’t.”

“It feels awesome right now,” Lundgaard said, “and I’m sure I will probably realize tomorrow what really happened today. It really wasn’t what I expected waking up this morning. With qualifying getting pushed to this morning and racing the same day, it’s not really a traditional IndyCar weekend. This is a two-day weekend already, and everything just kind of felt very fast.

“I thought we were going to be a little better in qualifying than we were,” the No. 4 starter said. “So, keeping my head cool after the lap 1 incidents with everything that happened there. You go into Turn 1 wanting to make position, not lose positions.

“I felt so bad for Pato [teammate O’Ward], because we had such a good plan planned for how we were going to attack the race between the two of us. We had two cars in the front [O’Ward started on the outside of the first row], and we knew the 10 car [Palou] was going to be strong. Obviously having one car left up there, but also losing positions kind of hurt a little bit. For me it was just take my race as it was from there. Then the strategy didn't work out for them [Palou and company]”

Kanaan punctuated Lundgaard’s thought with “Finally.”

The first 30 laps of the race were—in the words of Felix Rosenqvist, who was involved in two of three caution incidents in that span—“messy.” And it started on the first lap, with Rosenqvist receiving a drive-through penalty.

'Crash on the first lap.Geoff Miller - Getty Images

Team co-owner David Letterman (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) deadpanned that it appeared “a few folks got together.” He was right—Rosenqvist was hit from behind, spun Pato O’Ward, then collided with Scott Dixon and Caio Collett. Rinus VeeKay also was involved.

"Feel bad about lap 1,” Rosenqvist said. “It was kind of messy, because someone drove into my rear on the launch. So I couldn’t really get going. Christian [Lundgaard] was on my outside, and we tried to outbreak each other. And then all of the sudden Pato was just there. I feel really bad for everyone involved in it, and I tried not to hit people. This one was definitely my mistake.”

He said of the Lap 28 chain-reaction wreck that involved Sting Ray Robb and O’Ward, and saw Rosenqvist run over the left wheel of Kyffin Simpson, “That last one, I don’t really know what happened yet. But definitely a disappointing day to go out completely." The Meyer Shank driver finished 23rd.

In between those incidents, Alexander Rossi had a mechanical problem and stopped his car along the pit wall near the start-finish line on Lap 22. That triggered a pit stop strategy scramble that spoiled a thrilling battle between Palou and Kyle Kirkwood. On Lap 39, Kirkwood’s chances fizzled with a disastrous pit stop. And Palou never could make a significant move through the field, although his top-five finish ensured he’d still lead the standings.

Lundgaard’s quest to sweep the two Indianapolis races—like Palou did last season—will begin May 12-18, with practice for the 500-Mile Race. Qualifying will be May 16-17.

Who is ‘Timmy Kachow?’

He’s known in the NTT Indy NXT paddock as Timmy Kachow. Technically, he’s Tymoteusz Antoni “Tymek” Kucharczyk. He’s barely 20 years old and from the 13th-century village of Lodygowice in Poland, south of Krakow, near the borders with Czechia and Slovakia. And who knows if he was just being silly or if he was serious? But he said what he fears most is butter—yes, butter. Go figure.

Penske Entertainment: Chris Jones

However, he wasn’t afraid of anything Saturday on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, building on his springboard of consistency to claim the victory in the second Indy NXT Indianapolis Grand Prix race the weekend’s doubleheader.

For the driver of the No. 71 HMD Motorsports entry, his best showing had been third place (three times), and he was fourth Friday in Race 1. Kucharczyk improved from fifth place to first just two turns into the race on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile course and led all 30 laps.

“What a special day,” Kucharczyk said. “To do it here, coming back to November in my first test in an Indy NXT car, now a winner here at Indy, it’s spectacular. I’m so grateful to my sponsors, to my team,” the first Polish driver in the IndyCar development series said after recording his first triumph in America.

Kucharczyk, the only driver to earn a top-five finish in the first five races of the season, managed to hold off runner-up Max Taylor and said, “It was a tough race. It was really, really hard to hold Max behind me. He was pushing me for the whole race. Max was pushing really hard, so I had to save the Push to Pass at the end, as well. It’s all good. I made it happen, so super, super grateful.”

Race 1 winner Enzo Fittipaldi was third Saturday.

Next on the schedule for this series is the May 31 Detroit Grand Prix.

Norway’s Dennis Hauger ‘ice cool’

Rookie Dennis Hauger, driver of Dale Coyne Racing’s No. 19 Honda, like every other competitor, was anticipating qualifying in the pouring rain Friday before officials pushed time trials back to Saturday morning. But he wasn’t anxious about how that would play out.

“I grew up in the rain in Norway, on the ice in Norway. So I'm used to going sideways,” Hauger, from Aurskog, Akershus, north of Oslo, said. Ice, he said, is “what I grew up in when we had wholakes and stuff. We had a lot of fun with that with go- karts and cars. So yeah, good memories and good times.”

He could say the same for his performance Saturday, which came in warm, dry (mid-70s and sunny) conditions. Hauger started 24th and finished eighth, his best so far.

Mick Schumacher driving with broken wrist

Mick Schumacher, the former Formula 1 legacy driver, isn’t particularly chatty. And he didn’t say anything publicly about the fact he has been competing with a broken wrist since the season-opener at St. Petersburg. Trying Saturday to win on the Indianapolis road circuit where his famous father, Michael Schmacher, won five times in Formula 1 appearances at The Brickyard, he gave Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing a 20th-place finish to go along with teammate Graham Rahal’s podium finish and other teammate Louis Foster’s seventh-place showing. Schumacher is expected to undergo surgery for the fracture at the end of the season.