Lundqvist earns first podium finish

Just four races into his rookie season with Chip Ganassi Racing, Linus Lundqvist already has earned his first podium finish.

On Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park, Lundqvist drove the No. 8 American Legion Honda to a convincing third-place finish in the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix powered by AmFirst. Lundqvist finished more than two seconds ahead of fourth-place Felix Rosenqvist, moving up 16 places from his spot on the starting grid. That also earned him the Hard Charger of the Race.

“I’m extremely happy with the podium,” Lundqvist said following the race. “It’s my first in INDYCAR, and it’s been a little bit rough for me the first couple of races. But man, what can I say? The team did an amazing job. The American Legion Honda today was super, super fast. I basically just listened to whatever they told me to do. They said, ‘Be patient here and you’ll get your reward at the end’, and that we definitely did.”

Lundqvist led four laps in the No. 8 Honda that features Be the One branding and went into the pits for the final time on Lap 70. That allowed him to go all out over the final 20 laps while other drivers were trying to conserve fuel.

“I think for the first time ever I was not on the save fuel strategy. I was not the one being passed, which was nice,” Lundqvist said. “Obviously, we had a bit of everything in that race for us. We started obviously quite far back, in 19th. In the beginning it was just about basically saving fuel as much as we can, see what we can do later in the race.

“It was after that second to last restart, we were able to push hard, stretch the field a little bit. When we came out, we were in a very good position. That kind of made our race.”

It was again another strong team effort by CGR, with all five cars finishing 15th or higher. Alex Palou, driving the No. 10 Ridgeline Honda with American Legion branding, led 12 laps on his way to a fifth-place finish. Palou currently sits in third place in the points standing, just three spots behind Colton Herta.

Fellow Ganassi driver Marcus Armstrong finished ninth, Kyffin Simpson 14th and Scott Dixon 15th.

The NTT INDYCAR SERIES now moves to Indianapolis for the month of May, starting with the Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course on May 11 and then finishing up with the 108th Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge on May 26 on the IMS oval.

“The month of May is obviously going to be big, doing it for the first time. You hear so much about it. Being able to participate is like a dream come true,” Lundqvist said. “We're obviously here to do a job. Ganassi has had a record of having very good cars at the 500. I'm excited to feel that out. I also realize it's going to be a learning curve.

“Obviously, this is a nice boost of confidence. We'll have a week off, but we're back at it again for the GP and obviously the big one. Yeah, just back to work.”

To learn more about The American Legion’s Be the One veteran suicide prevention program, click here.