After their front row lockout in qualifying, the race result at Thermal Club was a bit of a disappointment for the Arrow McLaren duo of Pato O'Ward and Christian Lundgaard, as they both fell behind Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou late in the race. The driver of the No. 10 Honda drove to a more than 10-second victory to start the 2025 IndyCar season two-for-two.
But both O'Ward and Lundgaard are now in the top four in the championship standings, and neither driver has placed lower than 11th in 2025, with their combined average being a solid 6.0.
The pace they brought throughout the weekend, coupled with Team Penske's lack thereof, has already led to suggestions that perhaps this could indeed be the year in which the Penske/Ganassi "big two" actually becomes a "big three".
O'Ward is still O'Ward. He won a career-high three races last year, and he is regularly a top five finisher in the championship standings, even if he's yet to take that true next step into the championship contender tier.
As for Lundgaard, he looks like the real deal as well; he too is now ahead of the entire Penske trio in the standings. After carrying a struggling Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team for the better part of three years, he is doing exactly what you'd like to see a young driver do when given an opportunity with a superior team, and he has hit the ground running.
But Lundgaard is also up against an interesting historical tidbit.
The No. 7 car is still winless since Danica Patrick became the sport's first and only female winner at Twin Ring Motegi nearly 17 years ago.
It's a crazy stat to consider, and Lundgaard's third place result marked the No. 7 entry's 15th different podium finish since Patrick's victory.
In total, 284 races have been contested since then, and 264 have featured a No. 7 car.
Patrick is responsible for three of those podium finishes, finishing third in the 2009 Indy 500 and second in the races at Texas Motor Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway the following year for Andretti Green Racing/Andretti Autosport. She did not record any in her final full IndyCar season in 2011.
Four-time Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais recorded three for Dragon Racing in 2013 after driving the No. 7 car only part-time in 2012, with a second and a third on the streets of Toronto before another third on the streets of Baltimore.
Since 2014, the number has belonged to the team now known as Arrow McLaren. It was still Sam Schimdt's Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team in 2014, and Mikhail Aleshin placed second on the streets of Houston as a rookie that year.
James Jakes placed third at NOLA Motorsports Park the following year before Aleshin returned in 2016 and ran second at Pocono Raceway. Aleshin did not return to the podium in 2017 before being replaced.
The number wasn't used for more than Jay Howard's Indy 500 effort in 2018, making 2018 the only year since Patrick's win in which it wasn't at least used on a part-time basis, but it returned in 2019 after the team sidelined the No. 6 that Robert Wickens had used before his harrowing crash at Pocono. As a rookie, Marcus Ericsson placed second on the streets of Belle Isle.
The 2020 season marked the start of the McLaren partnership, and rookie Oliver Askew placed third at Iowa Speedway. He was replaced by Felix Rosenqvist in 2021, though Rosenqvist didn't finish on the podium until his third place finish on the streets of Toronto in 2022.
Alexander Rossi, whom Lundgaard replaced after two years, finished in third place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in 2023 and then again at Laguna Seca in 2024.
But 15 podium finishes without a win is one thing. The other? The fact that the teammates of the No. 7 driver have racked up a whopping 18 wins during that same stretch.
O'Ward, who is still somehow McLaren's only winner since their return to IndyCar, has seven victories to his name, while James Hinchcliffe had three, Tony Kanaan, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Simon Pagenaud each had two, and Mike Conway and Marco Andretti each had one.
Can Lundgaard be the man to end this extremely lengthy win drought after becoming the ninth different driver of a No. 7 entry to finish on the podium since Patrick's victory?