If you’re having trouble understanding the Arrow McLaren decision to jettison Christian Lundgaard, you’re not alone.
During their “SPEED with Harvick and Buxton” show on Monday, FOX broadcasters Will Buxton and Kevin Harvick wondered the same thing as they talked about the biggest INDYCAR free agent move in decades with six-time series champion Scott Dixon leaving Chip Ganassi Racing after 25 years and race for Arrow McLaren, who in the process moved on from Lundgaard despite the Denmark driver currently sitting third in the championship standings.
“When you look at Lundgaard, he’s now got after this weekend, since he joined McLaren, he’s been on the podium for 39 percent of his race starts with that team,” Buxton said on the show. “What more are you supposed to do to prove to the team that you’re the guy?”
Arrow McLaren announced Monday that Dixon and former McLaren driver Felix Rosenqvist will join the team, while Lundgaard and Nolan Siegel will not return in 2027. McLaren has not been shy in its goal to win the “triple crown” of Grand Prix of Monaco, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Indianapolis 500. Dixon (2008) and Rosenqvist (2026) have won the Indy 500. Lundgaard, who has two road-course wins, has not yet mastered the ovals.
Buxton compared that move to the biggest moves in football and soccer in the last decade.
“Dixon to McLaren for me, it’s [Tom] Brady to the Bucs,” Buxton said. “It’s [Lionel] Messi to Miami. It is a generational great who has achieved everything, going somewhere to create a new ethos, a new sense of team, and take them to the titles that they want. But they want the [Indy] 500, not the title.”
Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan told FOX Sports that Dixon brings a “championship mentality” as a six-time champ.
“If Zak’s stated aim is the Indy 500, I love Scott, he’s done 25 years with Chip Ganassi Racing — he’s won the Indy 500 once,” said Buxton of McLaren CEO Zak Brown. “He’s won six titles in that time. He would love a seventh. But Zak has said his stated aim is not to win the championship, because if you want to win the championship, you keep Christian on your team.
“So the two stated aims don’t mesh for me in an easy explanation of why they’re letting Christian go. And maybe I’m taking it, maybe I’m getting too emotional about it and too personal about it, because I feel for Christian. I don’t know what more the kid needs to do.”
Current McLaren driver Pato O’Ward has finished second in both the championship standings and Indy 500 but has never won either. He’s the closest a current McLaren driver has gotten to reaching either of those feats.
Kanaan indicated that having Dixon, O’Ward and Rosenqvist will give the team a driver stable like he had in the mid-2000s with Dario Franchitti and Brian Herta that has great chemistry.
“It seems like a friend hire,” Harvick said. “And sometimes from a business standpoint, you have to separate what’s going to be great for the team and your friendships.”
That’s not to say Harvick doesn’t like the move for the drivers. He compared Dixon’s move to the one he made from Richard Childress Racing to Stewart-Haas Racing during his NASCAR career.
“The interesting part to me is you want to win a championship and you’re getting rid of your championship contender,” Harvick said. “And now you’re bringing in Scott Dixon, which, look, if I’m Scott Dixon and I’m at the end of my career and I’m having fun and want to go experience something else, it was exactly what I did when I went from RCR to SHR.
“And it gives you a chance to reboot and do all those things and have some leadership in a team. It’s going to be a fun experiment for Scott to be able to do that. But can he still win?”
Buxton said he felt this was a move fueled by Rosenqvist winning the 2026 Indy 500.
“Felix was seen as one of the fastest drivers in the sport, but a driver who couldn’t get it done,” Buxton said. “He would choke repeatedly. He wins the Indy 500, the biggest race in the world, brilliant, with one of the greatest last laps you’re ever going to see. Gutsy. Did he choke? Absolutely not.
“He put in the best last lap of an Indy 500 you are ever going to see. But how much of this is recency bias? Would Tony Kanaan believe the words coming out of his mouth if Felix Rosenquist had come back second? I don’t believe he would.”
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Arrow McLaren is overhauling its 2027 full-time INDYCAR driver lineup, with a pair of Indy 500 winners set to join mainstay Pato O’Ward.
