The newest Team Penske driver led a race-high 27 laps before scoring his best IndyCar result to date
David Malukas continues to inch closer to that breakthrough maiden win in the IndyCar Series. After starting fifth, the 24-year-old Chicagoan catapulted to the front amid a blend of varying strategies following, leading a race-high 27 of 85 laps in the Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
The potential win was in play, too, until Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard made a daring pass on the outside of Turn 2 and completed it at the exit of Turn 4 on Lap 68. In the end, Malukas was left watching Lundgaard pull off into the distance to take the checkered flag directly ahead of him by 4.613s. It marks the second podium of the year for Team Penske’s newest driver, and highest finish through six races.
“We keep getting close,” Malukas said. “We keep getting close. Look, that race was honestly, it was very fortunate. We were having so much luck.
” David Malukas, Team Penske Photo by: Icon Sportswire via Getty Images And Malukas wasn’t afraid to address that, noting the opening lap incident in Turn 1 that saw Felix Rosenqvist accidentally make contact with front row starter Pato O'Ward and impact a couple of likely contenders.
“You have the start, which took out a lot of fast guys,” Malukas said. “Then you go into this pit cycle, and I'm not too sure what happened to Kirkwood. He went into the pits, and then I just see him going through the grass. I was confused what happened there.
Played out, again, in our favor.
“Then lap cars got out of the way, and then we actually got some clean air, which we so desperately needed with the way our setup was. We were having so much push being behind some cars. Everything was just so fortunate. I said, ‘Wow, the IMS gods, they're with me.
’ They gave me all this luck.
“Then at the end, I mean, Lundgaard was just so fast. I was trying everything I could sideways pretty much 50% of those laps. He was just still pulling, pulling.
” David Malukas, Team Penske, Christian Lundgaard, Arrow McLaren, Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images via Getty Images Malukas admitted this result was far more than he expected, especially considering he had previously finished no better than 12th and had two other results outside the top 20.
“Look, we came into this weekend thinking this was going to be, at least for me, I came in thinking this was going to be our hardest race of the whole season, and it ended up being our best result yet, which it was just fantastic,” Malukas said. “It's really, really cool. ” And especially “cool” considering the next race is the Indianapolis 500, where he finished second a year ago with AJ Foyt Racing.
“It's really good momentum going into the 500,” he said. “Yeah, I'm very, very happy. ” For his part, Malukas recalled the battle with Lundgaard, whom he was teammates with during his karting days in Italy.
“Yeah, we were having some moments,” Malukas said. “I could see he was trying to set up for the undercut. We ended up having some little issue, and he managed to stick around the outside. Probably could have been maybe a little bit more, you know -- a little bit more aggressive, but I thought I have some fair racing.
“Yeah, I mean, it was a proper move. It was very good. Yeah, I don't know. It was also that last site we were struggling with pace.
Not really too sure what went wrong. We'll go back and study it and see what we can find. ” Read Also: IndyCarAlex Zanardi’s top 10 moments IndyCarGraham Rahal “not a fan” of new rule allowing push-to-pass on restarts IndyCarConor Daly tops Indy 500 test with 225mph lap on opening day Photos from Indianapolis - Saturday
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