Lundgaard earns 1st IndyCar pole at Indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS — Danish driver Christian Lundgaard won his first IndyCar pole Friday, claiming the No. 1 starting spot for Saturday’s Indianapolis Grand Prix.

Last season’s rookie of the year posted a fast lap of 1 minute, 9.3321 seconds on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course. It’s the first time Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has won a pole this season.

A late wiggle on Felix Rosenqvist‘s final qualifying run left the Swede to start second after going 1:09.3348. Alex Palou, the Spaniard who won the 2021 series title, earned the No. 3 starting spot.

It certainly wasn’t easy on the cooling course, which was vastly different from the two practice rounds that were conducted in mostly sunny, hot conditions.

The result: Some of the pole favorites didn’t even make it out of the first round of qualifying. The list included defending race winner Colton Herta, four-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves, three-time Indianapolis GP winner Simon Pagenaud, two-time series champ Josef Newgarden and two drivers in the top five of the current standings — Scott McLaughlin and Romain Grosjean.

Four Indianapolis 500 winners were eliminated from pole contention in Round 2 — Marcus Ericsson, Scott Dixon, Alexander Rossi and Will Power. The six-car shootout also was left without any of Team Penske’s three cars and only included one car each from powerhouse teams Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Autosport, which had won three of the four previous poles this season.