Nobody wants to admit the real reason for Christian Lundgaard's departure

Whether or not the decision to bring in six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon and reigning Indy 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist bears fruit remains to be seen, but Arrow McLaren became somewhat of a laughingstock within IndyCar circles when they decided to cut ties with Christian Lundgaard for the 2027 season.

At the time, Lundgaard was third in the championship standings. He has since moved up to second, has two wins this year, and earned his first podium finish on an oval in a race at Milwaukee Mile that he would have run away with if not for an incredibly (and perhaps conveniently?) slow final pit stop.

Yet their reason for dumping him supposedly has to do with the fact that he "can't win on ovals", a point that seems to be brought up any time anybody has uttered the name "Lundgaard" over the past two and a half months.

Lundgaard recently commented on some of his past oval struggles and noted that he expects both Dixon and Rosenqvist to struggle as well because of how the team's cars are set up, prompting O'Ward to call his soon-to-be former teammate "full of s***".

Quite frankly, Lundgaard's claims have already been somewhat proven. Rosenqvist drove for McLaren from 2021 to 2023 and didn't score a single oval podium finish, registering an average championship finish of 13.7; O'Ward's was 4.7 during the same stretch. Now Rosenqvist is an Indy 500 winner and hasn't finished lower than 12th in points with Meyer Shank Racing.

But the real reason for Lundgaard's departure sure seems blatantly obvious, doesn't it?

Pato doesn't like him, and Pato is McLaren's de facto No. 1 driver, even though Lundgaard has accounted for 70% of the team's podium finishes this year. This kind of attitude from O'Ward didn't just randomly start this past week with one Lundgaard comment.

Had they brought Lundgaard back, Pato would not have been happy, so McLaren had no choice but to move on. Period.

The "can't win on ovals" excuse is the real crock of s*** here.

We already know that McLaren are not straightforward about their driver decisions, with Tony Kanaan insisting, time and time again, that Nolan Siegel was not hired due to his money.

Not only was that lie totally exposed in the Alex Palou court case, but two and a half seasons and zero top five finishes later, they finally had no choice but to pull the plug on him as well.

And no, the team principal who supposedly "put his job on the line" to put Siegel in the car, after the team had already supposedly committed to Theo Pourchaire, has not seen his job become at risk, even after inexplicably giving the perennial 20th-place Siegel a longer leash than Lundgaard.

You don't just simply fire the driver who is second in the championship, has outscored Alex Palou on road courses, and likely hasn't even peaked. And he's still 25 years old, nine years younger than Rosenqvist and 21 years younger than Dixon.

It's always felt like there was something else going on, and now that's basically an unavoidable reality.

On the surface, it's not necessarily O'Ward's fault, either. It's the fact that McLaren, despite being, like every other team on the IndyCar grid, an IndyCar team, has a Formula 1-type mindset. The lead driver's opinion is the only one that matters. What the lead driver says goes, and the lead driver doesn't like Christian Lundgaard.

Decision made: signed, sealed, and delivered (to a smiling Chip Ganassi, most likely).

Even if he doesn't finish ahead of Lundgaard in the standings, O'Ward is the team's top driver. It's a widely accepted statement. He has been their cornerstone since arriving in 2020, and it took seven years until another driver won a race.

He is the most marketable driver in the series, even as he continues to look for his first Indy 500 win and first IndyCar championship. Having O'Ward frustrated with team dynamics is not something McLaren could afford, especially if it came with the possibility of their so-called lead driver finishing behind his teammate in the standings and growing even more upset.

Keeping him happy is the team's number one priority.

Yes, even if he might well be the only happy guy in the organization about Lundgaard being in line to join rival Chip Ganassi Racing after being shockingly kicked to the curb as if he runs no better than 22nd every week in championship-level equipment.

Need more evidence? As fans questioned the team's move to hire Dixon, who has clearly lost a step amid an age-46 season that has been his worst in 24 years, O'Ward referred to the criticism as "disrespect".

Nobody questions Peyton Manning's greatness either. But he was a shell of himself in 2015, and that's what Dixon's current form currently resembles. There's really no way around that, and to classify the obvious as "disrespect" just to make some kind of a statement is laughable.

There's also no threat of Dixon outrunning O'Ward over a full season, and we already know Rosenqvist isn't doing it either. So again, keeping O'Ward happy, F1-style, is the clear priority.

But as for Lundgaard being dropped, despite a career year?

O'Ward, who himself was visibly frustrated with his team and the car's pace on weekends when Lundgaard had zero issues finishing on the podium, had nothing to say.

Talk about real disrespect.

Perhaps this could further develop into the kind of rivalry IndyCar needs, between drivers and between teams, moving forward.

But if Lundgaard manages to win the Indy 500, Fox Sports better be swarming the McLaren pit stand for a word with TK and Zak Brown in the moments that follow.

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