Simon Pagenaud will miss his 7th straight race this weekend as Linus Lundqvist is back in the No. 60 Dallara-Honda for Meyer Shank Racing in Sunday’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network) at the World Wide Technology Raceway.

The team announced the move on Monday morning with Lundqvist set to make his third straight start in the car. The previous two were on a street course (Nashville) and road course (Indianapolis). This will mark his first-ever NTT INDYCAR SERIES start on an oval. However, WWTR is a place that he’s visited on three occasions during his two years in the INDY NXT by Firestone series, winning the pole in 2022.

“I’m extremely happy to be joining MSR again in St. Louis this weekend,” Lundqvist said. “The last few weekends in Nashville and at Indy have been the time of my life and I can’t wait to continue to work with this team.

“We’ve been through some challenging race formats – Nashville a street course, Indy a road course, and now St. Louis, an oval. I will be learning once again.

“I know that it is going to be tough and tricky, but I know the team is going to give me a good car to have a solid result like we had at Indy. I’m also very much looking forward to working with Helio as a teammate. Working with him on an oval is something that every driver would want to do and I’m just going to learn from it as much as I can this weekend.”

This has to throw up warning signs for Pagenaud who’s still struggling to get cleared. I applaud him for standing up for what he’s going through but wonder if it’s best to shelve him for the remainder of the season at this point.

With 3 straight weeks to close the season, if he’s missed this much, is it worth coming back? He’s 27th now in points and not in a position to do much more. I mean what more does he have to prove anyways.

The problem is, there’s a seat open at MSR for 2024 and Pagenaud is a free agent. Does he come back? Does he want to?

Is Lundqvist the lead driver to take over the 60 as Tom Blomqvist we know is in 1 of the rides for 2024. Who joins him? Lundqvist could be courted elsewhere which is why this is another big weekend for him. He was fast in Nashville and finished 12th in Indy.

Lundqvist is getting a ton of seat time and it makes me wonder if RLL’s announcement last week of signing Conor Daly for Sunday’s race was a move in anticipation of this happening on MSR’s side.

Daly is a top driver on the 1.25-mile St. Louis area race track and can get the job done by getting a good enough finish to get them back on the plus side. Ironically enough, he’s now chasing the 60 car that he drove at both Iowa races as well as Mid-Ohio too. By getting Daly locked in early for RLL, they didn’t have to worry about the risk of him going to MSR for Gateway.

The 78 at Juncos is only five points up on the 30 car too so in theory, if all goes well, Daly could at least put the 30 car back up to 21st in the leaders circle standings leaving the track this weekend. Heck, the ride is only eight points back of his old ride at ECR too.

Which is why these moves are being made now and that’s for that Leaders Circle funding.

The 60 car is +2 on the 30 car that Daly is now racing in. It’s +3 on the 29 seat at Andretti Autosport.

Daly raced this MSR car in Mid-Ohio (20th) and in both Iowa races (21st, 17th) too.

Blomqvist ran it in Toronto (25th).