Just one race after we highlighted the fact that Christian Lundgaard's podium finish at Thermal Club was the 15th podium finish for the No. 7 car since its most recent IndyCar win, which was earned by Danica Patrick at Twin Ring Motegi in 2008, another odd McLaren stat re-emerged on the streets of Long Beach, California.
Lundgaard has hit the ground running to start his first year with Arrow McLaren, as he followed up his Thermal Club podium with another P3 effort in Long Beach.
His average finish through the 2025 season's first three races is 4.7, and he finds himself in third place in the championship standings behind the season's only two winners in Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou and Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood.
But in addition to trying to become the first winner in a No. 7 car in 17 years, Lundgaard is trying to do something else.
He is aiming to become the team's first winner not named Pato O'Ward since a certain Fox Sports announcer found victory lane at Iowa Speedway in 2018.
Back in 2018, the team now known as McLaren had no affiliation with Zak Brown and the Woking-based team. That partnership did not start until 2020, and it slowly progressed toward January's confirmation the McLaren now have sole ownership of the organization.
In 2018, the team was still known as Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, and James Hinchcliffe earned his sixth and final IndyCar win at Iowa that July, a come-from-behind win which saw him overtake Josef Newgarden late after Newgarden had dominated pretty much the entire race.
Nobody not named Pato O'Ward has won for McLaren since.
The team did not win again until Pato O'Ward, who had yet to make his IndyCar debut at the time, won at Texas Motor Speedway in May 2021. O'Ward has gone on to add six more wins since, including a career-high three in 2024, but nobody not named O'Ward has found the top step of the podium for the team yet.
Felix Rosenqvist is the only other McLaren driver to finish second, where O'Ward has finished 14 times since 2020, during that span, though Robert Wickens and Marcus Ericsson did each record a runner-up finish after Hinchcliffe's victory during the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports era. Rosenqvist finished in second at Portland International Raceway in 2023.
Can Lundgaard end a drought that goes back to Patrick's Japan win, while subsequently ending the drought that goes back to Hinchcliffe's second Iowa win?
The fourth race on the 2025 IndyCar schedule is the Children's of Alabama Indy Grand Prix, which is set to be shown live on Fox from Barber Motorsports Park beginning at 1:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 4. Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss any of the action from the "Augusta National of Motorsports"!