Sonsio Grand Prix: Lundgaard starts Month of May with Indy win

SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Arrow McLaren driver Christian Lundgaard opened the Month of May with a victory in the Sonsio Grand Prix by avoiding Turn 1 chaos and overtaking David Malukas late in the race on the 14-turn Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course.

After escaping to the grass during Felix Rosenqvist’s Turn 1 lock-up, Lundgaard charged back to the front through a combination of on-track passes, tire strategy and well-timed pit stops.

The win marks the Danish driver’s second career IndyCar win and his first with Arrow McLaren. Lundgaard’s maiden win was in 2023 on the streets of Toronto while driving for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing at the time.

During the post-race press conference, Lundgaard noted that winning at Indianapolis was not something he expected when he woke up on Saturday morning after a combined qualifying and race day.

“It feels awesome right now and I’m sure I will probably realize tomorrow what really happened today,” Lundgaard said. “It really wasn’t what I expected waking up this morning. Obviously, with qualifying getting pushed to this morning and racing the same day, it’s not really a traditional IndyCar weekend.”

“Obviously, this is a two-day weekend already, and everything just kind of felt very fast. We made a lot of good progress from P1 to P2. I thought we were going to be a little better in qualifying than we were. So keeping my head cool after obviously the Lap 1 incidents with everything that happened there. Obviously, you go into Turn 1 wanting to make position, not lose positions.”

Before the Green Flag

Push-to-Pass rules changed ahead of the Sonsio Grand Prix after a software failure in Long Beach. Officials now allow drivers to use Push-to-Pass at any time on road and street courses instead of limiting it to restarts.

Alex Palou claimed pole position for the Sonsio Grand Prix after rain pushed qualifying from Friday evening to Saturday morning. Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist secured second and third on the grid, respectively.

Lap 1 Chaos

Before Alex Palou reached the green flag, Rinus VeeKay made contact with Mick Schumacher ahead of him, causing the Dutch driver to fall behind the pack.

Soon afterward, Felix Rosenqvist locked up in Turn 1, causing contact with Pato O’Ward, spinning the Mexican driver. Caio Collet and Scott Dixon crashed into the stopped Rosenqvist, who received a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact on Lap 1.

Palou kept his lead after the incident as O’Ward fell from second to 21st place. David Malukas avoided the wreckage to take second with Graham Rahal in third. VeeKay and Rosenqvist were penalized for emergency services in a closed pit. Both drivers restarted the race at the back of the field.

The green flag waved on Lap 6 as Kyle Kirkwood took this opportunity to overtake Rahal for third in Turn 1. Louis Foster made a similar move on Scott McLaughlin for 10th place. Christian Rasmussen found himself in the grass, damaged, as he safely made it back on track.

Kirkwood made the same move a lap earlier on Malukas to take second as the Andretti Global driver tried to catch Palou.

Hybrid and timing issue for Rossi

On Lap 21, Alexander Rossi lost his hybrid power as he came to a stop on the frontstretch. The full-course yellow came out late due to an issue with the official scoring and timing, as Rossi got out of his Ed Carpenter Racing machine in frustration.

“Well, it’s pretty annoying to have failures on the car because of a product that we didn’t ask for, that doesn’t improve the racing, so that’s frustrating,” Rossi said. “Second of all, the fact that it took that long to throw a full-course yellow when a car is on the front straight, and people are going by at 170 mph, also seems insane when they don’t let us drive in the wet yesterday. So, I don’t really know where the priorities lie, so pretty frustrated.”

Alex Palou and Kyle Kirkwood pitted on what they thought was a local yellow on the frontstretch. Palou’s No. 10 pit crew got him out ahead of Kirkwood as they re-entered the track in 19th and 20th, respectively.

The race restarted on Lap 26 after Will Power went wide while leading the field to the green flag. Christian Lundgaard attempted to overtake Graham Rahal in Turn 1, then took third from Rahal around the outside. Josef Newgarden overtook Louis Foster on the restart lap to take sixth place.

Rosenqvist’s Tough Day Continues

On Lap 28, Felix Rosenqvist was pushed into Turn 13 by Kyffin Simpson to avoid contact with Sting Ray Robb, causing the Meyer Shank Racing driver to catch some air. This incident caused a third full-course caution at the IMS Road Course.

Then, David Malukas restarted the race on Lap 32 with Christian Lundgaard and Graham Rahal in second and third. Alex Palou successfully took 13th place from Rinus VeeKay, as Kyle Kirkwood passed Caio Collet for 11th in Turn 1. Once again, Palou made the same move on Lap 34 to take 12th place from Collet.

Kirkwood kept climbing as he overtook his teammate, Marcus Ericsson, on Lap 35, then Scott Dixon on Lap 36 to finish in ninth.

Later, Palou pitted on Lap 39 to get some clean air as Kirkwood climbed higher in the running order. Kirkwood pitted a lap after Palou, as the No. 27 pit crew had an issue getting the new right-front tire on the car.

Malukas pitted from the lead on Lap 48 to re-enter the race in sixth place. Lundgaard pitted a lap after Malukas, as the Arrow McLaren driver returned to the track right behind Malukas in fifth place.

Battle for the lead

With 20 laps to go, Christian Lundgaard and Graham Rahal pitted and re-entered in second and third place, respectively. Lundgaard was back on track with clean air. David Malukas answered back with a pit stop from the lead. The Team Penske driver kept his lead as he went back on track just in front of Lundgaard.

However, Lundgaard had more Push-to-Pass than Malukas as they battled for the lead. Lundgaard caught up to Malukas as the Arrow McLaren driver took the lead around the outside of Malukas with 19 laps remaining.

With three laps to go, Santino Ferrucci and Mick Schumacher battled for 11th as both drivers made contact. Schumacher got into the rear of the Connecticut native, causing the AJ Foyt Racing driver to spin. Schumacher was hit with a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact.

Lundgaard took his second career IndyCar victory by 4.671 seconds over Malukas. Graham Rahal rounded out the podium in third.

The Month of May continues with the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, airing on Memorial Day Weekend with coverage beginning at 10 a.m. ET on FOX.

Results: 2026 Sonsio Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course

GRID Ranking

The 2026 GRID Ranking is the 10th year of the world’s premier motorsports ranking system, which was initially released on Sunday, April 5.

The official ranking includes drivers participating in seven racing series (NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, Formula E, WRC, Supercars, MotoGP). Each driver earns GRID Ratings, which help determine their seeding in the GRID Ranking.

DRIVER	OLD RATING	PREVIOUS RANKING	MOST RECENT FINISH	NEW RATING	NEW RANKING
Alex Palou	19.80	4th	5th	18.33	4th
Kyle Kirkwood	17.80	5th	9th	15.17	7th
Christian Lundgaard	10.80	20th	1st	13.50	11th
David Malukas	8.20	33rd	2nd	10.17	22nd
Josef Newgarden	N/A	N/A	4th	9.00	29th