McLaren driver lets loose with an expletive verdict on his intense duel with Alex Palou

Christian Lundgaard, the Arrow McLaren driver, wrapped up the Thermal Club Grand Prix, held in Thermal California, on Sunday, March 23, in 3rd place. The young Danish driver has put up an Instagram story about how he feels about his battle with Alex Palou at the event.

Lundgaard qualified in 2nd position alongside McLaren veteran teammate Pato O'Ward. During the race, however, strategy played a crucial role, ultimately favoring Palou. After an intense battle with the Chip Ganassi Racing driver, Lundgaard conceded his 2nd place.

The #7 Arrow McLaren driver recently took to Instagram to share how he felt after the intense battle with the reigning Champion.

"This is what @indycar is about F***ing loving this series" he wrote

Christian Lundgaard via Instagram @lundgaardofficial

The Danish racing driver shared a video from IndyCar's official Instagram account. The video showcased the battle between Palou and Lundgaard. Palou and Lundgaard. Palou closed the gap to the McLaren duo within the final 15 laps of the 65-lap race.

The British-based team achieved their highest 1-2 qualifying finish. This marked a team milestone, surpassing their previous best qualifying result at Texas Motor Speedway in April 2023, where Alexander Rossi qualified first and Felix Rosenqvist qualified third.

However, the team could not finish the race in the same order due to a huge strategy gamble that didn't work out in their favor. The papaya-coloured team had to settle for a 2-3 finish in the end.

This was a comeback for the team after a disappointing start at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix where Lundgaard finished in P8 while O'Ward finished in 11th position.

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Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward speaks about the scorching temperatures at Thermal Club Grand Prix.

Post race, Arrow McLaren driver Pato O'Ward spoke about how the Energy Recovery System (ERS) was affected by the intense temperatures at the track. The Mexican driver commented on how he couldn't use the ERS throughout the race.

Due to the overheating, O'Ward had restricted access to ERS, which made him settle for second place in the race. While in a conversation with Marshall Pruett from the RACER, O'Ward said,

“Yeah, for 50 percent of the race I couldn’t use the thing. Just overheats. Obviously, here it’s probably one of the most helpful areas where the hybrid is of good use, because of those very stop-and-go corners and long straightaways,”

The blockers also played a huge role. These blockers help in regulating the temperature of the engine. Nick Snyder, Pato O'Ward's strategist, explained how the blockers affected the race.

“It was nothing intentional on our side. In hindsight, we probably should have adjusted our blocker configuration a little bit. Certainly didn’t go into the race expecting to have any issues, but this is the hottest, longest we’ve ever run, and IndyCar bumped up the energy limits for this event, which was great. We were totally fine in qualifying, but just the long run in the race with no cautions, we had a little heat soak there and just ended up on the high side of temps," Snyder said.

Regardless of the issues the Arrow McLaren team managed to secure a 2-3 result in the race. The team will aim to improve upon this result at the upcoming ACURA Grand Prix of Long Beach, scheduled for April 13th at 4:30 PM ET.