On the track where he made his IndyCar debut in August 2021, and scored his first podium last year, the Dane delivered a brilliant pole, by 0.0027s from Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow McLaren.
“I can finally call this home, I think,” said the man who claimed IndyCar’s Rookie of the Year honors last season. “It feels amazing. Waking up this morning, I knew we were going to have a chance to get into the Fast Six because we've done that pretty much every time we've been here, at least with me, and I hoped it was going to happen, and now I can sit here and it's a reality, which is pretty cool.
“Honestly, right now it feels awesome getting my first NTT P1 award, but with that said, Jack [Harvey] is P4 and Graham [Rahal] is P8. That is the best qualifying we've had in those two years that we've been teammates.
“I think it shows the progress that we're on. It's taken a little longer than we would have liked, but now we've got to finish it off tomorrow, but I'm just super happy for the team.
“My podium here last year, it was a big relief for me and the team. I knew my ability to be able to finish on the podium. I know what I'm capable of. But to deliver it to the team is what meant the most to me, and this, too. Everyone works so hard. We built a new facility. It hasn't paid off until now, so we're going to keep digging deep.”
RLL has had a disastrous start to the 2023 season, with low grid positions and some unfortunate accidents, but the glimmer of a revival was there when Lundgaard qualified and finished sixth in Barber Motorsports Park two weeks ago. With all three cars starting tomorrow’s Grand Prix of Indianapolis in the Top 10, Lundgaard believes the team is bouncing back, as it did midseason last year.
“The podium here last year was a step, and we had a very good end to the season last year, but we weren't able to continue that going into the beginning of this season,” he said. “It annoyed me a lot because obviously I'm asking the question, ‘What have we done different?’ There wasn't really anything that was dramatically different that should drastically change…
“So now sitting here I'm only proud of this team. Everything we've achieved up until now, I would say we set the benchmark in Barber a couple of weeks ago where we were pretty much consistently sixth throughout the whole week, to now start off with a pole.
Asked if he expected his first pole to come so soon, just his 23rd IndyCar start, Lundgaard replied: “Well, I would have hoped it came sooner. Whenever it comes, I hope it was the right time to do it.
“The one thing I was annoyed about having my podium here last year was I didn't want to have it here because I did my debut here and I didn't want people to think this was just the track that I was fast at!
“And we showed up in Nashville and was P1 in the first session the weekend after. This is what I want to do now. Now we're starting the race from pole, but we also need to win the race. We need to take it step by step and see what we can do tomorrow and back it up for the proper month of May.”
He later added: “At this point I think we'll be pretty disappointed in second tomorrow or just a podium. I think we're absolutely going for winning the race.”
