After nine races of the season, Lundgaard’s highest finish was a ninth place, but following a test at Sebring, the team bounced back, with both Graham Rahal and Lundgaard looking strong at Toronto while at the next road course, Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Lundgaard nailed a second place finish. He then qualified third at Nashville and fourth at Portland, even if the race results didn’t reflect his pace.
Yet today at Laguna Seca, where he struggled during his first test last week, Lundgaard climbed from 16th on the grid to finish fifth. That pushed him 18 points clear of David Malukas in the Rookie of the Year standings.
“I think actually this race today might have been one of the better races we've had all year,” he said. “I think we weren't really competitive all weekend. We were sort of there but not really there. We didn't qualify well enough. We were good on the blacks [Firestone’s harder primary compound], but as soon as we put the reds [softer alternates] on there was just no pace.
“We did the job today, and I'm just happy that the team gave me the opportunity to be here and achieve this. I'm grateful for Bobby. Thank you for giving me this opportunity and keeping me. I'm happy about that. Now I've got another championship to win.
“You only get one shot at the rookie championship, so getting it was a big achievement for me.”
Rahal, who was CART Indy car Rookie of the Year back in 1982, said: “It's been a tough year for us. The first third or half of the year, very spotty. We did not give our drivers, Christian, Graham or Jack [Harvey], the cars that they deserved to have.
“Having said that, everybody pulled themselves together and kind of figured it out. Probably since, just before Toronto, the performance as a team increased measurably compared to where we were, and then we really saw what our drivers could do.
“As a driver, and I've been there, if you don't have the right equipment, I don't care how good you are, you're not going to be able to show it. But this team really came together. There was a lot of hard work throughout the team…
“I'm just so pleased for Christian. Rookie year, every track outside of Indy GP was a new circuit. You go to Texas, that's an intimidating place. You go to Toronto, you go to Iowa. I mean, this young man had to learn as best he could these circuits in a very short period of time…
“So I'm really pleased not just for Christian, but I'm really pleased for his team, his group, Ben Segal, his engineer who was new to us this year and new to Christian. “This is kind of a beginning process, and they really, over the course of the year, grew together, and the results we see today are a reflection of that.”
Naturally neither Lundgaard nor Rahal wished to go into details about what changed at the Sebring test to make the cars faster on not only street courses but also road courses. But Rahal did explain it had a galvanizing effect on the team he co-owns with David Letterman and Mike Lanigan.
“There was a lot of soul searching going on by halfway in the season. A year earlier we'd been much more competitive. We had embarked on a few development things, and there was clearly a lot of questioning.
“We did that, and I have to say I think Graham is the one that really pushed that we needed to go figure this out, and I think all the other guys felt that. But we needed to really be honest with ourselves as a team. I've seen this before where teams have gone down certain paths because you believe in it. As I told our guys, ‘Don't fall in love with an idea because it's all about the reality.’
“So they all went down and did this test, and Christian, Jack, Graham spent a day or two in Sebring in the middle of summer. It was hotter than hell… And we found a lot of answers. Some of those answers were not friendly to the things that we believed at the time. We took those answers, and again, we faced reality, and the next race, Toronto… it was like, ‘OK, we're back in the hunt’…
“I'm proud of our team because… everybody was willing to accept the findings, whatever they may be, and there was no ego involved. All we wanted to do was become better, become where we were and beyond, and I think the results of that test were crucial for the remainder of our year.”
