Take a long flight with: Christian Lundgaard

You’ve just boarded a plane. Ahead of you is a non-stop flight from Los Angeles, to… let’s say Copenhagen. A flight long enough that you really hope you end up with someone interesting sitting next to you.

When you arrive at your row, your companion for the next 11 or 12 hours is already seated. He glances up and… hey, it’s Arrow McLaren IndyCar driver Christian Lundgaard! As a racing fan, you’re very excited about the hours of motorsports conversation that awaits as you cruise 30,000 feet above the Atlantic eating tiny pretzels. But given that it’s such a long flight, you’ll probably also learn some other stuff about him. This interview is the first installment of a new series about that other stuff.

Aisle or window seat?

“Window. I never really go to the bathroom on the plane, so I definitely choose windows.”

Why golf has been a game-changer

“In 2015, my parents built a house on a golf course in Denmark. It's basically just on the side of the driving range. So I'd always just go over and whack balls, basically. So the basic motion was there; I just never really played. I played one round in the UK, where I was moving more grass than ball, and didn't touch a golf ball for a golf club for three years after that.

“And then when I moved to the U.S. I really started playing. I love the game, for multiple reasons. At least, this is what I told myself at first. My dad's a big golfer – why else would you build a house on a golf course? I was really to try to beat my dad, like, that was my... you know, if once I can beat him at least once, then I can give him some **** for that. But my girlfriend, who I met after I started playing golf, is a collegiate golfer. Obviously I wasn't very good at first, but now I'm a little bit better just due to her, which is very nice.

“Now, it's too addictive. I want to play all the time. I try to play as much as I can. Also, I use it as a weekend preparation – when I can play, I will play before a race weekend, because it removes all sorts of focus from anything else. I think it was 2024, at Barber, I drove down three days early, and just played golf before the weekend. And it was one of the best weekends I had that year. So pretty much since then, I've just carried that on.

“It's not a superstitious thing. I'm not very superstitious at all. I think it's just... well, one, I'm too competitive, so I go out there and obviously try to get better. But now a lot of us drivers are playing together, so that makes, makes it a lot more fun. A lot of us live next to each other, so it's basically a phone call in the evening: 'Hey, do you want to go play tomorrow morning?" So now, instead of trying to beat your dad, you're trying to beat them.

“McLaughlin's good. I think Scotty's probably the best one in in the paddock. I know Graham Rahal's good, but he doesn't play a lot. Rasmussen started recently. Herta started recently. I don't actually know who else plays, but it's fun just to get out there and whack some balls.

Trying to beat McLaughlin is already part of Lundgaard's job. But now it's also becoming part of his downtime. Chris Jones/Penske Entertainment

He grew up near Legoland. The proper Legoland

“I’ve got a bunch of Lego just laying around. Lego is from half an hour from where I grew up – where it was founded and built, where the factory is. They built the original Legoland there. So I always find it so funny when people ask, ‘Have you been to Legoland?’ I'm like, ‘Yes, have you? Like, are you in Florida? That ain't Legoland.’

“Now, for Christmas, me and my brother buy a Lego kit each year, and each year we swap. I think this year was my turn. It ended up sort of showing up late, so we actually never did it. It was... what did we buy this year? It was some Star Wars stuff. Prior years, it's been... I think last year or two years ago, we built the McLaren P1. I've got a pretty much all the Technic cars. I've got the Titanic. I've got the Eiffel Tower.

“It's typically the more exclusive stuff – which isn't really that exclusive – but the bigger stuff, like the Titanic, is pretty cool to have hanging on a shelf. The Eiffel Tower is just filling up my space right now. Also, when I moved from the apartment to the house, it broke, and I never got around to fixing it. Then I bought some LED lights for it, and they're just lying on the floor waiting for it to be rebuilt. But there's no time, because of golf.

“The Eiffel Tower is probably the biggest Lego project I've done. It ended up being four people that were building it, and obviously there's four legs on the tower. So it got built really fast, because we just built a leg each. The Titanic took me 46 hours, because I remember I timed it just for the fun of it. I actually also got the LED lights for that, which I have put it in because I put that on the middle of my dining table. So that's pretty cool.

“But I'm now in the process of moving again. So that's all a disaster. Moving Lego is such a pain. The Eiffel Tower... it's a case of tearing it apart and building it again, really. I mean, it's split in three sections, so you have the legs, then you have the middle part, and then you have the top. And the middle and the top are very fragile. So, even if you just touch it, it will collapse.

He’s on a mission to make race merch that people actually want to wear

“I have a new merchandise line. Me and my management and family in general, the first couple of years we were in IndyCar, it was all just focused on driving. We didn't really want any distraction from the outside. And then the move to McLaren was like, 'OK, let's focus on the first year, focus on getting results,' and then that kind of creates the baseline from an audience perspective.

“So our idea was, was built the platform (of fan support), and then extend it from there. And then me and my brother were on a training camp in December, and we basically spent 50% of our entire trip training, and the other 50% (on merchandise), which was kind of funny. We created it as a separate brand, because we have a bunch of different ideas long-term that we want to merge with inside the same brand, which is why it kind of became separate.

“But I'm not really the biggest fashion guy. I just kind of wear what I'm given. So this is pretty much race merchandise, but we made the designs the most 'lifestyle' we could. So, a little more neutral color than (McLaren's) bright papaya, for example. That wouldn't necessarily be something you would wear every day. And that was the idea: How do we make this more wearable on a day-to-day basis? I think the hoodies are definitely... the T-shirts are great, but the hoodies are very much everyday style. There are a few different colors, but the designs are pretty standard. The 500 designs are a little different. They're a lot more racy. I actually don't think we will sell that online – from my understanding, I think they will only be available at the track.

If you’re making coffee, he’ll take a flat white. But he’s not addicted.

“Do you know of Max Fewtrell? He won the Formula Renault Eurocup the year that I raced [ED: 2018. Lundgaard finished second in the championship]. We were both a part of Renault’s Academy, and he now runs (streetwear brand) Quadrant with Lando Norris. He's one of Lando's really good mates. He introduced me to coffee when we were in the Alpine Academy, and he introduced me to a flat white. And then, pretty much ever since, it's just been flat white. I am the only one in my family that actually drinks coffee. My dad doesn't really drink coffee because he can't sleep, so he drinks decaf. My mom prefers tea. And so does my brother.

“I go through phases where I can drink four cups of coffee a day, and then I won't touch a cup of coffee for two weeks just because I don't feel like I need it, or there isn't really anything happening. Like, if I don't need a wake-up, then it's like, 'OK, why do I need to drink a cup of coffee right now?'

“I mean, I can definitely drink a cup of coffee just to enjoy it. I can drink it and still fall asleep, which is both a good and a bad thing. I've heard some stories about people that get addicted to coffee; I don't feel like I'm addicted, because I can go through two weeks without touching it. But if you if you want to talk coffee with anyone, speak to Felix Rosenqvist. He spends, I don't know, $600 on coffee a month, just on his machine. He has a double espresso before getting in the car.”