Christian Lundgaard Wins Chaotic Sonsio Grand Prix
- Lundgaard earns first win of 2026, his first at Indy GP, and second career win
- Rossi frustrated by hybrid engine failure and slow yellow flag response
- Palou and Kirkwood overcome early setbacks to fight back to front of field

Speedway, IN – Christian Lundgaard muscled past David Malukas with 18 laps to go to win a chaotic and barnburner of a Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Road Course.
The day started with Alex Palou earning Pole Position after rain forced IndyCar to postpone yesterday’s qualifying, as he looked for his fourth straight win at the Indy GP.
The race started with chaos, a massive crash in Turn 1 when Felix Rosenqvist misjudged the entry and collided with Pato O’Ward, Scott Dixon, and Caio Collet. The field was then shuffled, with Palou maintaining pace over Kyle Kirkwood, who was struggling to keep up.
Alexander Rossi had a spotlight moment after his car stalled on the frontstretch due to a hybrid failure on lap 22. IndyCar decided to throw a local yellow instead of a full-course yellow to give other drivers a chance to complete their green-flag pit stops. Rossi was able to get out of his car, afraid to be stranded on an active racetrack, causing a full-course yellow. It was also noted that there was an electronic caution error on the frontstretch, showing one set of lights to be yellow, and the other green.
Rossi spoke with Georgia Henneberry of FOX after the caution and not mincing any words towards the series and the hybrid engine. “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. 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 miles per hour, 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, just pretty frustrated.”
Due to Rossi’s caution, front-runners Palou and Kirkwood had not pitted yet, causing them to restart from the back of the field and work their way back to the front.
The final caution came out on lap 28 after Sting Ray Robb collided with a recovering O’Ward, causing Rosenqvist to launch off the front tires of Kyffin Simpson and was able to land back on all four tires.
The race shifted to the focus of Malukas and Lundgaard, who were trying to cover Palou as he charged through the field. Lundgaard pitted two laps before Malukas and was able to hunt down Malukas with an advantage on push-to-pass, with a bold pass before the Hulman Boulevard chicane.
Lundgaard led 20 of the 85 laps and earned his first win of 2026, his first at the Indy GP at the same track he made his series debut in with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in 2021, and his second career win. His first win came with RLL at Toronto circa 2023. This was also his first win with Arrow McLaren and Tony Kanaan at the helm of the team.
Lundgaard spoke with Jack Harvey of FOX post-race. “I really didn’t expect this today. This was a long wait for this win. Especially around this place. Jack, you know how fast I’ve always been here. It’s just been time after time after time disappointment, and now we’re here. Let’s go! We did it! Let’s go! Good start to May!”
Malukas led the most laps with 20, ultimately had to settle for a runner-up finish once again, for his first career road course podium. Graham Rahal, the former teammate of Lundgaard, rounded out the podium in third for his fourth podium at the Indy GP, and celebrated with team co-owner David Letterman.
The official results of the 2026 Sonsio Grand Prix at Indianapolis:
- #7 Christian Lundgaard (Arrow McLaren – Chevrolet)
- #12 David Malukas (Team Penske – Chevrolet)
- #15 Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing – Honda)
- #2 Josef Newgarden (Team Penske – Chevrolet)
- #10 Alex Palou (Chip Ganassi Racing – Honda)
- #9 Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing – Honda)
- #45 Louis Foster (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing – Honda)
- #19 Dennis Hauger (Dale Coyne Racing – Honda)
- #27 Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti Global – Honda)
- #6 Nolan Siegel (Arrow McLaren – Chevrolet)
- #66 Marcus Armstrong (Meyer Shank Racing – Honda)
- #8 Kyffin Simpson (Chip Ganassi Racing – Honda)
- #26 Will Power (Andretti Global – Honda)
- #14 Santino Ferrucci (A.J. Foyt Racing – Chevrolet)
- #76 Rinus VeEKay (Juncos Hollinger Racing – Chevrolet)
- #3 Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske – Chevrolet)
- #77 Sting Ray Robb (Juncos Hollinger Racing – Chevrolet)
- #5 Pato O’Ward (Arrow McLaren – Chevrolet)
- #4 Caio Collet (A.J. Foyt Racing – Chevrolet)
- #47 Mick Schumacher (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing – Honda)
- #18 Romain Grosjean (Dale Coyne Racing – Honda)
- #28 Marcus Ericsson (Andretti Global – Honda)
- #60 Felix Rosenqvist (Meyer Shank Racing – Honda)
- #21 Christian Rasmussen (Ed Carpenter Racing – Chevrolet)
- #20 Alexander Rossi (Ed Carpenter Racing – Chevrolet)
Alex Palou controls the championship lead over Kyle Kirkwood by 27 points before heading into the Greatest Spectacle in Racing and defending his win from one year ago. Round 7 of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series is the 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 24th, with coverage beginning at 10:00 AM.