Lundqvist, Armstrong, Blomqvist complete test
Trio go through rookie orientation phase at IMS
INDIANAPOLIS — In the leadup to his Indianapolis 500 Rookie Orientation Program on Wednesday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Linus Lundqvist said one piece of advice stood out.
“Don’t crash.”
Less than two hours into his first laps on the famed 2.5-mile oval – and first laps with his new home, Chip Ganassi Racing – the 24-year-old Swedish driver nearly failed that very important part of the three-phase test.
Shortly after completing Phase 2 – running 15 laps between 210-215 mph – Lundqvist told reporters he suffered a tire failure that nearly sent him out of control while running well above 200 mph.
“Not going to lie, that was a little scary,” Lundqvist said. “But the boys got it sorted. We just had to put a new set on, and then we had no issues the rest of the day.”
Despite the brief interruption, Lundqvist was the first of the Wednesday’s trio of drivers, along with CGR teammate Marcus Armstrong and Meyer Shank Racing’s Tom Blomqvist, to complete the last of the ROP phases, running 15 laps at or above 215 mph. Lundqivst, too, paced the small field with 102 laps.
“I didn’t even know that, but hell yeah, that’s bragging rights,” the 2022 Indy Lights champion said with a chuckle. “That’s going to be my Instagram caption.
“But really, this was so special, because it’s a place you spend so many years on the sidelines, watching this race and dreaming about driving around (IMS) and to finally be able to do it in my first outing with CGR, that’s very special. I feel very fortunate to be in this position. I thoroughly enjoyed today.”
Lundqvist’s introduction to the IMS oval came about a year later than he’d planned. It was slowed by a scholarship for his Lights championship that had been slashed by more than half. Unknown by most in the feeder series, Penske Entertainment funneled a sizable chunk of money that had traditionally gone toward champion’s scholarship into race weekend purses. At the 2022 postseason banquet, Lundqvist accepted a $500,000 check that he and his team at HMD Motorsports had expected to be well over $1 million.
That change made it a much steeper climb for a driver with virtually no other outside funding to grab a full-time IndyCar ride; it didn’t even guarantee him a 2023 Indy 500 ride, as had been typical of scholarship winners. The lack of a ride, though, made him an obvious choice for teams needing a midseason stand-in, which MSR did in the wake of Simon Pagenaud’s violent season-ending crash at Mid-Ohio. In making his debut in the August street race in Nashville, Lundqvist made a surprising trip to the Fast 12 in qualifying and turned the race’s fastest lap before his debut race ended early in a solo crash.
A 12th-place finish on the IMS road course the following week with MSR put the Swede firmly on the map for teams scouring the free agent market. Marcus Ericsson’s decision that same weekend to move on from his four-year tenure at CGR paved the way for Lundqvist’s hiring three weeks later.
“Patience definitely paid off in my story,” he said Wednesday. “In my last three months, basically my whole life changed, and I never would’ve been able to guess that at the beginning of the year.
“But if someone told me, ‘Hey, you’re going to sit out most of 2023, and then you’re going to end up at Ganassi for 2024, I would’ve taken that deal for sure. I’ve ended up in a very good place.”
Armstrong, Lundqvist’s brand-new CGR teammate – who he met and spoke with for the first time Wednesday morning in an IMS bathroom, of all places – spent this year waiting as patiently as he could to get his first taste of IndyCar ovals. He spent his rookie campaign only running road and street courses in CGR’s No. 11 Honda he shared with twotime 500-winner Takuma Sato. During May, he watched Indy 500 practice from just about every corner of the facility in preparation for the real thing the following year.
“And I enjoyed it a whole lot more than I expected – and that’s not to say I didn’t expect to enjoy it, but the intensity of it, it’s pretty special,” Armstrong said after completing his test session Wednesday. “Watching onboards and TV is one thing, but feeling how the car moves and how the wind affects you, and just the tiny details around this place, it’s special.
“I thought it was actually quite difficult to do Phase 1 (10 laps between 205210 mph), because you have to try and
BBpredict the lap speed, which isn’t easy when you don’t have a reference of what’s fast and what’s slow. I thought it was actually difficult to stay at that pace initially.”
Outside that uncertainty, the 23year-old New Zealander said he felt “pretty comfortable straightaway” in his second day on an IndyCar oval. He also tested last month at Texas Motor Speedway.
“As soon as I could go (flat-out), I was,” he said. “I had a ton of confidence because of how rock-solid this Ganassi car is around here. But you also notice that all four corners feel very different around here, especially with the wind – even when it’s fairly low.
“I can definitely understand that in a month around here, it’s going to be difficult to know what you’re looking for and trying to be productive. A month here with different conditions constantly, you can probably chase your tail a bit.”
Blomqvist, who left the track shortly after turning his final lap for Road Atlanta and his final race for MSR as the team’s full-time sportscar ace, had the day’s top lap of 220.176 mph. The three drivers combined to turn 285 laps, with the Ganassi duo comfortably in the 219s by the end of the day.
The teams tuned the cars to max out well short of the top speeds we’ll see in qualifying come May, allowing them to feel as if they were flat-out even if there was plenty more available speed in the cars. All three said Wednesday they were happy to wrestle with that reality for the next seven months, rather than feeling pressure to get up to speed far quicker.
“I’ve still got so much to learn, and I still feel like I’m a novice, which I basically am, right?” Blomqvist said. “But it was so important and fortunate to get these laps under my belt. Now, we’ve got a lot of time to process things.”
Added Lundqvist: “I don’t want to imagine (qualifying speeds) right now, cause I thought Turn 1 felt tight even now. It’s just one of those things you have to build up to. My first lap, I’m not even sure I made it over 200 mph, and that felt like, ‘Damn, I’m not sure I can go much faster.’ And then at the end of the day, you end up at 220 mph and still feel fine.”