Indycar in Mid-Ohio was more about Silly Season than the race itself

The big headlines this week all revolved around McLaren as they found themselves at the center of silly season.

Coming into the weekend, we found out that Scott Dixon, 6 time champion, would be leaving Chip Ganassi Racing after a quarter of a decade with the team in one of the biggest announcements in Indycar history.

proceeding that announcement came the announcement from MSR that Marcus Armstrong would be retained by the team and move into the number 60 Honda from 2027, an announcement that seemed to baffle many, including myself, who thought Armstrong moving into the number 9 Honda would be a slam dunk move. In the end, it's a statement by MSR of intent to build on their new number 1 driver and build for the future.

This move led to the announcement of Scott Dixon and Indy 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist to join McLaren from 2027, a move that shocked the entire paddock and left many upset, due to the implications of Christian Lundgaard and Nolan Siegel being out of the team for next year. However, we did not have these moves confirmed yet, so the basically confirmed rumors flooded the paddock and put Lundgaard in the spotlight.

The Dane has the current highest road course finishing average of a 1.33, with a second place in barber, and two wins in the IMS road course and Road America.

His achilles heel, however, which seems to be the reason he was ousted by McLaren, is his ability on ovals, where he is not very strong compared to the likes of Dixon and Rosenqvist. Tony Kanaan and Zak Brown have a vision for the team to be threats on ovals and specifically the Indy 500, but Lundgaard doesn't fit into that agenda with his poor performances.

So this weekend, a road course, allowed Lundgaard to show the other teams what he is capable of and put it on pole, and comfortably led the race until a mistake trying to lap traffic allowed O'Ward to steal the lead and eventually the race win, though Lundgaard still finished second and still has the highest finishing average on road courses of all drivers this season with a 1.5 finishing average.

Image Credits: Motorsport.com

Overall the racing here was actually pretty good, for a track that doesn't really have some of the best overtaking opportunities. But like I said, it was more about silly season than the actual race, giving us lots to talk about and even more to be excited for in the coming races.