By: Ashley McCubbin

“I’m not going to lie, I was bummed out, too, and I kind of sat at home asking myself, okay, I’ve done everything that I possibly could, but we still haven’t had a chance. Am I going to give up? I said, no, that’s not me, that’s not who I am. So I decided I’m going to do everything I possibly can to still try to remain in the game and give myself a shot and persevering and reminding people that you’re here for a reason. That helped. Then when I did get the opportunity, I think we did the most out of it, and that’s why I’m sitting here today.”

One of the biggest reasons for drivers to want to compete in Indy NXT is knowing they will be given an opportunity if champion to compete in the NTT IndyCar Series. Linus Lundqvist won the title last season, with the Swede turning it into three races with Meyer Shank Racing.

However, awaiting another year before going full-time has allowed another door to open, as it has been announced he will drive for Chip Ganassi Racing in 2024.

“It’s unbelievable. Still today I have difficulty to put into words how much this means. I’m incredibly thankful to Chip and Mike and everybody involved who are making this happen,” he commented. “Firstly, it’s a dream to even be an INDYCAR driver, but to be able to do it with a team like Chip Ganassi Racing, it’s unbelievable.

“I know that it’s a big challenge ahead, but I know that I’m going to have a great team around me with some great people. I’m going to try to learn as much as I can and hopefully provide some good results for us.”

It’s a chance that Lundqvist has been chasing for awhile, admitting he has been harassing Chip Ganassi for two and a half years now. It wasn’t an easy road along the way either, as he admitted the disappointment in not being able to align things together last winter with CGR or Dale Coyne Racing.

“(I) tried to do everything that I could to kind of remain still in people’s mind and at the forefront of this team process, and when the opportunity came to do Nashville, obviously I grabbed it and tried to do the best I could, and after that some more serious talks started to happen,” he revealed. “Obviously here we are a couple of weeks later. It’s been intense, but at the same time, like I said, this started a very, very long time ago.”

The Swede drove three races for Meyer Shank Racing filling in for the injured Simon Pagenaud, scoring a best finish of 12th in the Indianapolis Grand Prix. The aforementioned series debut at Nashville unfortunately ended with a crash. Even though he may not gotten the results desired, he is thankful for the opportunity in knowing what it can lead to now down the road.

“I was happy as well that we were able to do Nashville, a street course, Indy, a road course, and then Gateway, a short oval, and then having tested at Texas earlier this year, a superspeedway. So we’ve ticked a lot of boxes this year,” he explained. “I would have liked to have ticked all of them and been racing full-time, but if not, this turned out to be the second best way, and hopefully, like I say, next year I’ve already done a few races and have that under my belt.

“I have the relationship with Honda, know how they work. I’m looking forward to getting stuck into it now with Chip Ganassi Racing and all these new people I’m going to be working with.”

Lundqvist will be attending the final two races of the season alongside the team in hopes to learn from Scott Dixon, Alex Palou, and Marcus Erisson. It’s an opportunity he feels will be beneficial.

“Obviously looking from the outside, just seeing how the team operates, learning everybody’s names, it’s easy and simple stuff like that just makes life easier when you go into a season and you want to extract the most out of each and every team member,” he commented. “I’m really looking forward to it, and like I said, I know it’s going to be tough in the beginning, but I also know I’m going to have the best people surrounding me.”