All the gossip was confirmed as truth on Monday afternoon. Arrow McLaren confirmed Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist would join the organization for the 2027 season alongside Patricio O'Ward. McLaren also confirmed the return of Ryan Hunter-Reay would return for the Indianapolis 500. With two drivers entering, two drivers are exiting.
Christian Lundgaard and Nolan Siegel will exit the team at season's end. For Siegel, he joined the organization halfway through the 2024 season. Lundgaard started with the team last year.
The attention has been on Lundgaard's departure. Currently third in the championship, Lundgaard is one of three drivers to win multiple races this season. The others are Álex Palou and Josef Newgarden. With 11 podium finishes in 28 starts with McLaren, Lundgaard has the second-most in the series during that time behind only Palou's 18. No other driver has more than seven, including his teammate O'Ward.
Ninety-time times out of 100, Lundgaard is staying at McLaren, and there isn't a question about 2027, 2028 or even 2029. Lundgaard would be a long-term driver with the team with plans to build around him and succeed.
Why isn't that McLaren's plan?
The unofficial reasoning is the Indianapolis 500. In seven seasons since McLaren's full-time return as an IndyCar participant, it has yet to win the Indianapolis 500, though it has had a few close calls. With the organization fresh off a world championship in Formula One and about to start a sports car program that will compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship's Hypercar class with a chance to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans starting next year, McLaren is still waiting to win IndyCar's biggest race, and it wants to win now.
McLaren does not believe Lundgaard can help achieve that goal at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Enter Scott Dixon, one of the greatest IndyCar driver ever but also one of the greatest Indianapolis 500 drivers ever even if his only victory in the event was in 2008. Enter Felix Rosenqvist, he just won the race less than two months ago. Three-quarters of McLaren's 2027 Indianapolis 500 lineup will feature Indianapolis 500 winners, and O'Ward has finished runner-up twice.
If there is one gripe with Lundgaard, it is his oval form. We are in the middle of his fifth full season in IndyCar, and the Dane has never had a top five finish on an oval let alone come close to challenging for a victory. All the road and street courses victories in the world were not going to save his job if McLaren did not believe Lundgaard could be a contender next May.
However, there was one driver, not long ago, who many questioned his oval form and if he would ever be competitive on the discipline. That driver was Felix Rosenqvist. In his first two seasons, oval success was slim. A near-runner-up finish in the 2020 season opener at Texas was the lone bright spot, but even that was overshadowed because the result did not show in the final box score. While running second, Rosenqvist ran high in turn two and hit the wall after getting in the marbles. He was classified 20th.
At the time of McLaren's announcement for its 2027 driver lineup, Lundgaard had made 26 oval starts. The results are not great. As mentioned before, he has never finished in the top five. His best oval results is sixth, which came last season in the second Iowa race and at Milwaukee. His average finish is 15.615 in 26 ovals starts. Among the full-time drivers currently on the grid who are in at least their third season (everyone but Louis Foster and the three current rookies) plus every champion since reunification (Dario Franchitti, Simon Pagenaud and Hunter-Reay), Lundgaard ranks 21st out of 25 drivers in average finish in their first 26 oval starts. The only drivers he is ahead are Romain Grosjean, Kyffin Simpson, Siegel and Sting Ray Robb.
Guess who is just ahead of Lundgaard though?
That would be Felix Rosenqvist.
In Rosenqvist's first 26 oval starts, stretching from the 2019 Indianapolis 500 to the 2024 Indianapolis, Rosenqvist's average finish was 15.038. It dipped at McLaren. Rosenqvist joined McLaren with an average finish of 14.818 in 11 oval starts. He had never finished better than seventh on an oval prior to joining McLaren, and he wouldn't finish better than seventh until his sixth oval start with the team. Lundgaard joined McLaren with a worse average finish on ovals, 16.75 in 15 starts, and his best oval finish was ninth.
Rosenqvist had the pleasure of getting a third season at McLaren. In 14 oval starts with the organization, his average finish was 14.357 though he did finish fourth twice including once in the Indianapolis 500. Lundgaard has made ten oval starts with McLaren. Though he has never finished in the top five on an oval, his average finish on ovals with McLaren through ten starts is better than Rosenqvist's average with the organization. Lundgaard's average over the last season-and-a-half is 13.8.
On ovals, the results have not been there, but is Lundgaard being rushed out the door? He has been replaced for a driver whose path he has essentially copied. There is no guarantee Lundgaard will continue to follow the same path, but it might not be as difficult as you think.
Just over a month ago, Rosenqvist won the Indianapolis 500, but in his last 15 oval starts, the 15 since making his 26th oval start, his average finish is 13.066. His only top five finishes have been in the Indianapolis 500, a fourth in 2025 and first this year. During that timespan, he has three other top ten finishes and five finishes outside the top fifteen. In the last ten oval races, Rosenqvist's average finish is 12.7, only 1.1 positions better than Lundgaard over the same span. We are about a half a foot away from Rosenqvist only being on average one full position better than Lundgaard with zero victories in the last ten oval races. Would that have really have gotten McLaren's attention to bring the Swede back to the team?
McLaren has decided its way to achieve its goal is to hire winners, specifically Indianapolis 500 winners. It almost feels too easy to be true, and it could be an elementary strategy that reaps the same results the organization has already been achieving. Since 2013, only two drivers have won multiple Indianapolis 500s, and McLaren didn't hire either of them. McLaren has bought pedigree. It has landed one of the greatest to ever race and the guy who just won McLaren wants to win the most. That doesn't equal victories though.
It is a strategy, but whether it is a better than riding with a driver who is already winning for the organization just not at the right tracks will be found out next year. There is only one way this decision can be deemed a success, and one driver could spend the rest of his career making them regret the day they made it.
