Danish driver Christian Lundgaard in the No.45 VIVID Clear RX Hy-Vee Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda made history on Sunday, becoming the first Dane to win an NTT INDYCAR SERIES race as he took victory in Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto. Lundgaard took pole on Saturday and with the help of a great strategy scored Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s first victory since Takuma Sato won the 2020 Indianapolis 500.
Speaking following the action, Lundgaard commented saying:
I’m pretty drained here right now. The Hy-Vee VIVID Clear RX car has just been fast all weekend and I said it before the race that we had a car that was fast enough to win and we pulled it off. I think we did it by 10 seconds. This team, they do deserve this. If we look at where we were earlier this season and even last year at this point we were nowhere near this. I’m just extremely happy for everybody right now. Yeah, I mean, honestly whatever Bobby, Mike, and David are doing for this team and all of the partners — I know that even Randy at Hy-Vee, everything that they’re doing for this team — we’re moving forward and now we get to get rid of our mustache!”
Graham Rahal in the No.15 United Rentals Honda started the race from 27th place and came home inside the top ten in ninth place and speaking following the action he commented saying:
It was a good day overall. We were able to work our way forward and avoid several messes. Obviously, we got in a couple (of messes) but we were able to keep things as clean as possible. I think we just need to get a little bit better. Obviously, great job to Christian. I think we just did a good job overall with strategy and everything that played out well for us today and we turn our attention to Iowa.”
It was a disappointing race for Jack Harvey in the No.30 Hub Honda as he was caught up in a first lap incident and was forced to retire from the race and speaking following the action he said:
My race lasted half of a corner. All I know is that I was ahead of three cars who were kind of involved and from my vantage point I was on the inside and it looked like three cars were never going to fit in that gap. I wasn’t the last car in that gap so to me there’s a possibility it should go third car, second car, and first car. I was the first car so not sure I’m prepared to take the responsibility on the crash. I felt like I did everything I was expected to do so that’s annoying. Yeah, we just need to put together a couple of results to turn a little bit of this bad luck around because clearly the cars were quick today and I felt good pretty much all weekend. I felt like we started out in position. Really, I’m happy for the team and for Christian getting that win. I know it’s been a second but that just didn’t happen overnight. I mean, those things are hard work and I’m really proud of the team working so hard to get it on the back of what was a difficult day to dig deep and work hard. I think at that point I just want to say thanks to the team for providing us with such good cars and ultimately a car quick enough to win a race. I’m really happy for everyone involved.”