"Tony Kanaan was a big part of my decision" - Christian Lundgaard explains his 'no-brainer' deal with Arrow Mclaren

IndyCar driver Christian Lundgaard joined the Arrow McLaren team for the 2025 IndyCar season as the announcement was made in July 2024. The Dane recently came out and detailed his reasons for joining the Papaya team citing former IndyCar driver Tony Kanaan as a ‘big part of his decision’.

NTT IndyCar's account on social media platform X uploaded a video featuring Lundgaard where the Arrow McLaren driver explained his reasons for joining the team as he prepares to make his debut for the team at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix.

“Joining Arrow McLaren is awesome for me, but it's much more than just a team. I think seeing what they did in IndyCar over the past few years, it was a no-brainer for me to come here. Tony was a big part of my decision as well. I've obviously seen him race, raced against him,” said Christian Lundgaard.

“I've leaned a lot on him. But getting to know everybody is obviously the challenge. And for all of us to get up to speed, working together is really the key factor. But at the end of the day, we're going to come out strong. I'm not here to spend the first couple of races getting up to speed. We want to be competitive from the get go,” he added.

2004 IndyCar champion and 2013 Indy 500 winner Tony Kanaan joined Arrow McLaren’s IndyCar team as a special advisor in 2023. McLaren’s former Team Principal Gavin Ward left the team at the end of the 2024 season and Kannan was promoted to Deputy Team Principal.

Christian Lundgaard raced in the junior Formula categories in Europe at the beginning of his professional open-wheel racing series. He raced in the FIA F2 Championship for the 2021 season and joined the IndyCar series to race for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team as a full-time driver.

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Christian Lundgaard’s Day 1 at the two-day IndyCar Sebring International Raceway

Christian Lundgaard participated in the two-day IndyCar test and took the Arrow McLaren around the 1.67-mile short course at the Sebring International Raceway. The Danish driver set a lap time good enough for a Top 5 during the first day of the test.

Lundgaard took to the track in the morning session and set a lap time of 52.6626 seconds with an average speed of 114.312 miles per hour. The Arrow McLaren driver completed 61 laps during the four-hour session and was just 3-tenths slower than the fastest time set by teammate Pato O'Ward.

Christian Lundgaard will join Pato O'Ward and Nolan Siegel at Arrow McLaren for the upcoming IndyCar season. The trio will form the youngest partnership at 23, 25 and 20 years old respectively. Lundgaard will get behind the wheel of the No. 7 Arrow McLaren powered by Chevrolet.