Christian Lundgaard shares "fairytale" story about achieving special IndyCar record

Arrow McLaren star Christian Lundgaard made his full-time IndyCar debut in 2022 and took over the IndyCar record at Laguna Seca in 2023. The Danish driver recently came out, detailing the backstory behind why the record means a lot to him as he labelled it as a fairytale.

Christian Lundgaard raced in the F2 series for two full seasons before participating in one race for Rahal Letterman Lanigan in 2021. He then made his full-time debut for RLL in 2022 and joined Arrow McLaren in 2025, the team he is currently racing for.

Although the Danish driver got his first IndyCar win at the Indy Toronto, he revealed that Laguna Seca is his favourite track in the series. Christian Lundgaard holds the qualifying lap time record at Laguna Seca, which was set during the 2023 IndyCar race qualifying with a lap time of 1:06.4610.

The Laguna Seca circuit was resurfaced ahead of the 2023 race, which gave the IndyCar cars better grip and led to overall faster lap times for everyone. However, with IndyCar introducing hybrid systems, which have made the cars heavier, it'll be difficult to break Lundgaard's record in the near future.

Christian Lundgaard was asked about his earliest memory of the Laguna Seca circuit, to which he replied,

“Um, I will say there was this big Yan Magnus crash at Laguna Sega back in back in the IMSA days when he raced in the Corvette.” (21:30 onwards) “That was over the line at Laguna on the final lap for the win. There's this famous video of the Corvette and the Porsche, you know, banging banging around for that entire lap. And that entire highlight is just stuck in my head ever since I saw it. Yeah,” added Lundgaard “And I loved that track ever since and now I hold the track record. Yeah. At Laguna and IndyCar. And it's kind of like a little bit of a fairy tale story from that. That's kind of the only real story, you know, in terms of looking up to,” he continued

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Christian Lundgaard suggests Laguna Seca is difficult to race in with the hybrid IndyCar

Laguna Seca is infamous for the undulations, including the corkscrew corner. Christian Lundgaard, when questioned about his favourite IndyCar track, responded with Laguna Seca, but detailed how the race experience isn't as great as one-lap qualifying, given the weight of the car since the hybrid was introduced.

“Yeah. It's difficult to race that now with the weight that we have? Um, but I would say from a one lap, especially in 2023 when they repaved the track. I mean, it was so fast.”

IndyCar introduced the hybrid power units midway through the 2024 season, which added over 100 lbs to the cars.

Edited by Pranay Bhagi