'The dream is still very much alive': IndyCar interest gives Linus Lundqvist belief he'll return

Indianapolis Star

3 days ago

Linus Lundqvist has attended nearly every IndyCar race in 2025, despite not having a ride, in hopes of remaining on teams' radars for 2026.
TORONTO — It's been a painful 10 weeks for Linus Lundqvist, spending nearly every weekend watching Indy cars race around the Midwest from the sidelines. But it's a purposeful agony he's chosen, and the 2024 IndyCar Rookie of the Year is hoping the emotional scars he talks over with his therapist will before long pave the road back to the cockpit of the only job he's ever wanted.
'It's hard, because my passion is driving and winning, and it hurts to be at a racetrack and watching everybody else do it and not me,' Lundqvist told IndyStar while serving as a reserve driver for Arrow McLaren, a one-off opportunity spurred by the mild concussion Nolan Siegel suffered last weekend at Iowa Speedway. Lundqvist, who has 20 IndyCar starts under his belt with a resume that includes a pair of podiums, a pole and a 16th-place finish in the championship as a rookie with Chip Ganassi Racing a year ago, was tabbed to be on standby this week and weekend in case the team's full-time driver of the No. 6 wasn't cleared to return.
Lundqvist actually traveled with the team Thursday morning with Siegel back in Indianapolis awaiting clearance – a call the young American driver eventually received, meaning the 26-year-old Swede will roam the IndyCar paddock this weekend in a papaya uniform instead of plain clothes, his seat marginally different while on the timing stand instead of the grandstands. Ultimately, Sunday was largely the same.
'I'm very up front about the fact that in this sense, it sucks, but I also know that it's my best shot at being back at a track and driving next year is being here and going through all of that and being ready,' Lundqvist continued. 'It's like, yeah, it's pain, but pain I'm willing to go through to hopefully be on the grid next year.'
Days ahead of this season's IndyCar opener at St. Pete, Lundqvist announced he wouldn't be on the grid full time in 2025, noting he'd been 'formally notified' by CGR in January that what he described as a 'multi-year agreement' had been terminated after just one year. The writing appeared to have been on the wall for some time, with his former home announcing back in October that its roster for 2025 was set and seats elsewhere around the paddock largely having been almost entirely set for months.
Whereas his former teammate Marcus Armstrong, who similarly had inked a multi-year deal with CGR, had been loaned out to Meyer Shank Racing, a team CGR entered into a technical alliance with ahead of this season, Lundqvist felt he'd been left high and dry as IndyCar's newly launched charter system that allows teams to run a maximum of three full-time cars for guaranteed entry into each race forced CGR to scale its lineup back from five cars to three.
'I am hopeful that through the provisions in my CGR agreement, we will be able to reach a resolution that would place me back in a competitive seat,' Lundqvist wrote on social media in February. 'In the meantime, I will continue to pursue other racing options, preferably in IndyCar where I hope to continue my career and build on my open-wheel successes to date.'
That pursuit, Lundqvist has explained, has involved attending most IndyCar races within driving distance of his Indianapolis home, taking his helmet and safety equipment with him and preparing as if he was scheduled to be in the car, so that if such an opportunity were to come about, he'd be ready to best prove himself, knowing he may only get one more shot to audition for a second chance.
After all, in a short three-race substitute stint for Meyer Shank Racing near the end of the 2023 season coming off his rather dominant 2022 Indy Lights championship run, Lundqvist made his IndyCar debut and took the paddock by storm, starting in the top 12 for all three races and notching a 12th-place finish on the IMS road course in his second career race. Just a couple weeks later, he'd been scooped up by the hottest team on the paddock of late.
Siegel energized for Toronto return: 'I have a greater appreciation for what I'm doing.'
'For me, this is very much a no-brainer. (IndyCar) is my Plan A, B, C and D. There's no backup plan,' he said. 'I'm very determined to make this work somehow, and the only thing I know is to be here, ready and available and staying sharp, because I know that if you're at home feeling sorry for yourself, nothing's going to come of it.
'So every race I can be at, the best thing I can do for myself is to be here, be ready, and when I got the call from Arrow McLaren, it was, 'OK, I must be doing something right. I'm still in the ballpark to be considered in case something were to happen.''
When at the track, Lundqvist can be frequently seen chatting up various team owners and officials, doing his best to ensure he's top of mind for anyone who may have an opening, whether that's a short-term one like Arrow McLaren this weekend, or a full-time shot for 2026 and beyond as IndyCar's silly season begins to kick into high gear in the coming weeks.
'I'm still quite positive about my chances of being on the grid next year. Obviously, this is IndyCar and motor racing, and you never know until something is done, but I also think if those conversations I've been having with teams were, 'No, we're not interested,' then I'd probably at some point stop showing up to races and say, 'OK, this isn't going to work,'' Lundqvist said. 'But I keep showing up because people keep saying they're interested and that there might be opportunities, so that's what I live on right now, that the dream is still very much alive.'