Insider: Alexander Rossi, Christian Lundgaard next big dominoes in IndyCar Silly Season
When Arrow McLaren officials left Road America on June 9, the battle to drive its No. 6 Chevy for 2025 was said to be a two-horse race. As a known commodity with more than two years of experience in the series, Callum Ilott, the team’s stand-in Indianapolis 500 driver, was said to hold a slight edge over Theo Pourchaire, the reigning Formula 2 champion who had been handed the ride for the rest of the year following Ilott’s 11th-place 500 finish.
At that point, team personnel hadn’t made any contact with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing race-winner and high-profile free agent Christian Lundgaard, and Arrow McLaren decisionmakers hoped to have the team’s 2025 lineup buttoned up by the late-July break for the Summer Olympics. Priority at the time was coming to terms with Alexander Rossi on a contract extension.
Over the next 10 days, after flashing speed in Zak Brown’s United Autosports Le Mans effort, losing out on a future at Juncos Hollinger Racing that many in the paddock at Road America expected to be his and making known his wishes to jump straight to IndyCar, Nolan Siegel leapfrogged Ilott and Pourchaire – largely on the intuition of Arrow McLaren sporting director Tony Kanaan.
The move, which Kanaan told reporters Wednesday he urged team principal Gavin Ward to make and said he was willing to bet his new job on, made for the latest curveball in what’s increasingly becoming a year-round, never-ending Silly Season chess board within the IndyCar paddock. Siegel leaves behind a partial season program at Dale Coyne Racing and jumps to an Arrow McLaren squad that is now on its fifth driver to have been announced to run the No. 6 in 2024.
There’s a chance that the next several moves on the board could be rather tame; the three biggest names are at least likely to stay put. Still, ink on paper and press releases are the only things that can make those certain – and even then, as we know, nothing’s ever truly ‘certain’ in the IndyCar driver market.
Insider: Why Arrow McLaren replaced Theo Pourchaire, signed Nolan Siegel
Alexander Rossi, Arrow McLaren nearing contract extension
Brown, the McLaren Racing CEO, was asked about Rossi’s future with the team more than a month apart at the Grand Prix of Long Beach and at Carb Day for the 500. His answer in reference finalizing plans for the team’s No. 7 Chevy entry, which Rossi has manned as part of a two-year deal, was the same in both instances:
“Soon.”
And finally, nearing the end of June, ‘soon’ may arrive. Multiple sources say that Rossi and the team remain in talks over a contract extension and the new deal could be buttoned up as soon as the end of June.
At Road America, one team source told IndyStar that both sides valued the continuity of what a new deal would mean. For Rossi, it would mean an opportunity to build upon the makings of a consistent front-running entry where he’s finished in the top-7 in nearly half his points-paying races (11 of 24).
Already this year, Rossi has matched the number of times he finished ahead of speedy title-contending teammate Pato O’Ward (3) in a year where the young Mexican driver still sits 4th in points. Though Rossi’s yet to seriously challenge for a win at his new home, there’s reason to think that form can return with some better luck and refining of the details.
For Arrow McLaren, the return of Rossi would continue to give the team a reliable, loyal, sometimes frank veteran voice within the team – something it’s sorely in need of after a year of chaos off the track. Rossi also represents a polished, accomplished voice as a spokesperson for the team’s many partners, and a driver known and respected for the ways he can help deliver much-needed feedback to an engineering program still trying to match Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing with more regularity.
Both sides have hinted there’s no reason a deal shouldn’t come together, though Arrow McLaren jumping at the opportunity to scoop up Siegel puts Rossi in a worse negotiating position. The No. 7 could represent the last ‘Big Four’ team seat available for 2025 (more on that in a moment) with Rossi, Ilott and Lundgaard Arrow McLaren's likely targets. This deal reaching the finish line is likely to hinge on both sides finding common ground on Rossi’s compensation in a landscape where young, high-profile drivers have been commanding higher salaries.
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Christian Lundgaard's options outside RLL shrinking
Long seen as an expected Arrow McLaren target as an IndyCar race-winner and multi-time polesitter, Lundgaard seems more and more likely set to stay at RLL. The 22-year-old Danish driver rode a one-race deal in 2021 into a full-time drive in 2022 – a contract the team quickly restructured that August to keep him through the end of 2024. Coming off a 2023 campaign where he logged four top-4 finishes, two poles and his first IndyCar win, he was viewed by many as a hot commodity and one that could be primed to graduate from a perceived mid-pack team to one that would give him better odds at competing for a championship.
And yet, with Penske and Andretti set at three full-time cars and their three drivers all on long-term deals, Arrow McLaren potentially locking up Rossi and Ganassi juggling the futures of a trio of young drivers in their first full seasons, there may be no spots for Lundgaard to graduate on to.
With his young driver finishing ahead of the entire Andretti Global lineup a year ago and two of Arrow McLaren’s three cars, team co-owner Bobby Rahal made clear before the 2024 season even started he didn’t think Lundgaard needed to go elsewhere to compete with those at the top of the sport.
“Obviously we want Christian to stay with us, and we’re going to do what we can to make that happen,” Rahal said. “I don’t think he needs to go to another team, cause he’s faster than most of those teams right now.
“Frankly, for Christian, there’s kinda a family here, and he likes the environment. I think we’ve improved the team, and if you’re a driver and see that kind of progression, it’s like, ‘Why would I want to go anywhere else?’”
From March: Bobby Rahal on courting Christian Lundgaard
And yet, Lundgaard told reporters at St. Pete in March that he was permitted to speak with other teams – atypical in a world where incumbent teams typically hold an exclusive negotiating window with their drivers that lasts into the summer.
“Obviously, there’s interest, but at the same time, I’m here to work with the team. We have unfinished business at a lot of circuits, and I trust the team,” he said. “It’s going to be an interesting season, but my focus is where it needs to be.
“I think everybody has a shot (at signing me), but (RLL) have the first pick.”
While saying he didn’t think Lundgaard would find a home “more suitable and built around him”, teammate Graham Rahal indicated to reporters in March that he believed a large part of Lundgaard’s free agency would come down to money.
At the team’s Fast Friday press conference at the IMS media center more than a month ago, when asked whether the sides were currently talking about a new deal, team co-owner Mike Lanigan’s response painted a somewhat icy picture of the negotiations.
“We talk to him all the time. Now, whether they talk to us, that’s another question,” he said. “I know he’s committed to racing. I just want him committed to this team.”
Added the elder Rahal: “I think there’s a lot to gain for both of us to continue. We’ll leave it at that.”
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PREMA remains most likely Silly Season wildcard
The remaining wildcard for Lundgaard, should he want top-dollar to stay at RLL, could be the looming threat of PREMA. Having announced in April their intention to launch a two-car operation next year, rival teams in the paddock believe PREMA is prepared to offer sizable salaries to its targeted drivers.
Lundgaard remains a name often associated with the upstart team as a driver who might react fondly to a big payday and a chance to launch something of his own (along with Ilott and Rinus VeeKay), though the impact of the charter system is not to be ignored. Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles was set to meet with team owners at Road America two weekends ago to move towards finalizing IndyCar’s charter system, though that meeting was canceled last-minute after Miles told IndyStar that morning that Penske Entertainment decisionmakers made revisions to the program that they were wanting to more slowly and methodically run by owners at Laguna Seca .
IndyCar’s charter program has long been expected to cap the number of cars at each race (minus the 500) at 27, with 25 chartered entries eligible each year to win one of the 22 Leaders Circle spots that pays just over $1 million each. A popular suspicion among paddock members was that IndyCar would keep its number of charters at 25 but cap the field there – an idea Miles denied – but there remains a belief that one or more of those core tenants to the format has changed.
Under the previously understood system, unchartered PREMA cars would have to qualify to race each weekend against similar entries – currently CGR’s Nos. 4 and 11 cars. Multiple sources in the paddock have indicated in recent weeks there doesn’t appear to be any owners positioning themselves to immediately sell a charter once they get their hands on one later this year.
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Other IndyCar Silly Season notes
Though not with direct knowledge of the sides’ agreement, multiple sources in the paddock have indicated they would presume Meyer Shank Racing holds an option on its newest driver, David Malukas, after signing the young talent in the wake of his exit from Dale Coyne Racing and release from Arrow McLaren. As it’s been explained to IndyStar, a team wouldn’t typically give a driver an extended tryout without ensuring that if the relationship works out, they get first dibs on reupping with a driver that could then be in demand. Though it’s been nine months since he’s raced and his injured left wrist is not yet 100%, if Malukas can match (or come close to matching) Felix Rosenqvist by the time we hit the oval-heavy stretch of the end of the year, don’t be surprised if this is a pairing that extends into 2025.
Though they have Indy NXT title contender Louis Foster and standout sophomore Jamie Chadwick on their development roster, Andretti Global is not considering expanding back to four full-time cars for next year, with his three IndyCar drivers all locked up through the end of 2026. Michael Andretti was effusive with praise in the wake of Chadwick’s breakthrough win at Road America this month and said more weekends like that – where the young British driver won from pole – could hint at the 26-year-old being ready to graduated to IndyCar, though Andretti said he did hope she would stay for one more year and make a serious push at a title. Foster, on the other hand, is described by many as perhaps the most IndyCar-ready talent in the series, sitting 19 points back of championship leader Jacob Abel.
You’d have to go back to 2016-17 to find the last two seasons where CGR rolled out an identical lineup to the previous year, and an under-the-radar talking point on this year’s Silly Season is whether Chip Ganassi, Mike Hull, Taylor Kiel and company will maintain continuity into 2025. With Scott Dixon and Alex Palou believed to be secured under long-term deals, CGR signed Marcus Armstrong, Linus Lundqvist and Kyffin Simpson – all in their first full-time seasons and the latter two true rookies – to quote-unquote ‘multi-year deals’ late last year. Paddock-wide, at least some (if not all of those) are presumed to be one-year deals loaded with team-friendly options on the back. With three top-10s and currently tied for 14th in points, Armstrong has been head-and-shoulders stronger than his teammates – though he also committed the cardinal sin of racing by punting his teammate Lundqvist in Turn 1 on Lap 1 after the latter started on pole. Unless IndyCar opts to cap fields at fewer than 27 cars, it’s not imperative for CGR to immediately trim down from five full-time cars, though it would seem logical for that move to come at some point. With Armstrong’s stronger results and Simpson’s family money, Lundqvist, the 2022 Indy NXT champ who brings little if any budget to the table, could be the most likely candidate at the moment.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Alexander Rossi, Christian Lundgaard main targets in IndyCar Silly Season
