Linus Lundqvist could exhale with relief—he'd earned a long-awaited podium in Saturday night’s thriller in St. Louis.
The rookie pilot of Chip Ganassi Racing’s No. 8 Honda had navigated the mayhem that lurked around every corner of the 1.25-mile oval only to line up fifth on the final restart (lap 254 of 260), making him a late contender — with a fresher set of tires than those ahead of him, no less.
Going on the attack, he made quick work of teammate and championship leader Alex Palou to grab fourth. Lundqvist then won a side-by-side battle for third with Andretti Global’s Colton Herta, who tried to pull a block on Lundqvist and drive him down to the low line on the backstretch, with no luck.
Third matched Lundqvist's career-best result from Barber Motorsports Park, way back in April. (Herta, meanwhile, was penalized by Race Control for the attempted block and relegated to the last car on the lead lap, pushing him down to fifth place.) The result was significant for the 25-year-old Swede and 2022 Indy NXT champion, who hadn’t scored a top-10 since being at Barber.
“Unbelievably happy,” Lundqvist said. “We've had a season with a lot of ups and downs, let's put it that way. I think the summer break was actually good, for everybody on the team to take a little bit of time to reflect—especially on my side, reflect on the lessons that I've had to learn.
While there were anxious moments after the red flag came out with nine laps to go following a multi-car crash on a controversial restart by eventual race winner Josef Newgarden, Lundqvist knew he had the better matchup — and the tires — to make some magic happen.
“I was nervous as anybody,” said Lundqvist. “Basically when they said we were P5 in the restart, I was like, ‘All right, I wouldn't be too unhappy if I saw a checkered flag right now. I'd take a P5.’ Then the red came out.
“I was a little bit worried about what was going to happen with the guys behind us. They said, ‘Everybody else was a lap behind.’ That makes me feel a little bit better.
“I knew we had a pretty big tire advantage going forward. I think Alex and Herta had, like, 45- or 50-lap-old tires. We were basically on stickers. I knew we might have a possibility to do something here. Obviously, got around Alex as he got squeezed into Turn 1, then one or two laps later we got the move done on Herta.”
Lundqvist had come into Sunday's race off a tough couple days, but still with high hopes.
“This weekend in itself has not been ideal. We had some issues in P1, then qualifying didn't go exactly to plan. We knew we had good pace in the car. Especially when we actually got some clean air, I was able to push. I think most of the race was just fuel running, hitting your fuel mileage—which I think was the same for everybody. We were able to extend.
“We got a little bit lucky with the last yellow. Unlucky with the second-to-last yellow. Kind of worked out in the end for us.
With the looming charter system potentially shaking up the number of entries Lundqvist's team, Chip Ganassi Racing, will run next year, the importance of a strong finish isn't lost on him.
“My focus right now is just finishing the year strong and trying to show what we learned from the beginning of the year. I'd like to think we've shown when everything comes together that we can be as fast as anybody, dare I say. And hopefully look forward to next year and to stringing it all together — what we're all here to do, which is compete for championships.”
