Lundgaard’s dominant victory from pole position on the streets of Toronto on Sunday marked a huge turnaround for Bobby Rahal’s team after a disastrous Indianapolis 500 was followed by another poor performance at the Detroit Grand Prix.
But internal changes at the team, which included some staff being let go, have revitalized the squad and it scored its first IndyCar success since Takuma Sato’s Indy 500 win of 2020.
“I think it's been coming,” said Lundgaard. “If I'm going to be completely honest, I would have expected it to come in about three weeks when we got back to Indy [for the second race on the road course].
“Having my first pole there [in May’s first event], my first podium [at the same track last July], it would have been great to have the first win as well, but it came today.
“I can't thank the team enough because all the progression that we've been making throughout this year, we just struggled to be able to start the season good enough. We struggled on especially the superspeedways.”
Bolstered by this maiden win, the 21-year-old Dane – who was formerly part of the Alpine F1 Academy before switching fulltime to the United States last year – believes there is more to come.
“The races that are coming up are races that we were competitive at last year,” he declared. “So I do think that we have a chance of at least getting another if not three, two more wins this year.”
Lundgaard, who is now seventh in points, was at a loss to explain the swings of fortune that his team has endured this year, which veered from a first career pole at the Indianapolis road course to the horrendous lack of pace at the Indy 500 just weeks later.
He added: “I struggled after Detroit just to understand what was going on because [I] put it on pole in the beginning of May [on the road course]. Then we have the 500 – we were absolutely last. We got into Detroit, and we just can't find our feet.
“Then we go to the next racetrack, Road America, and we were suddenly very competitive, we go to Mid-Ohio and we were very competitive again.
“We come here, and I did not expect this, but I'm proud to say that now we've done it as a team.
“We had a podium last year, which was a second, and I only think it was a matter of time before we had a win.”
