TORONTO – The most famous mustache in IndyCar will be no more.

Following a standout qualifying performance on the rainy streets of Toronto on Saturday to capture his second pole of the year, Christian Lundgaard weathered a chaotic caution-filled start and middle of Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto to capture the first win of his career, using a Lap 62 pass on runaway championship leader Alex Palou to do it.

And with the win, Lundgaard can now shave his famous mustache he’s sported since February, after making a pact with a good friend in the offseason that he’d sport it until his first win came.

Here’s how the 21-year-old second-year driver ended Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s nearly three-year drought.

More: Seven-car crash opens IndyCar's Streets of Toronto race

Early 7-car crash

As has often been the case in IndyCar street course races this year, the field didn’t make it through Lap 1 without a caution that seemed as if it would turn the tables on the race. Exiting Turn 1, Lundgaard’s teammate Jack Harvey sparked a three-wide accident, getting into Ryan Hunter-Reay to his left, who then hip-checked rookie Tom Blomqvist into the wall. All three of them saw their days end, as well as Benjamin Pedersen.

Graham Rahal, Alexander Rossi and Santino Ferrucci came upon the incident and suffered some minor damage, but Rahal managed to find reverse, go through the Turn 1 runoff and limp back to the end of the field still on the lead lap. After starting last Sunday, his effort to climb up to 9^th-place by the checkered flag augmented Lundgaard’s stellar day for RLL.

The caution lasted nine laps, at the time seeming to considerably aid those who started on the Firestone primary tires that schemed to run long on the first stint and try and make up a gap to the front in clean air, including Scott McLaughlin, Scott Dixon, Will Power, Colton Herta, Romain Grosjean and Palou.

Lundgaard, though, managed to carve his way through the mid-pack and held just a 16-second gap to the leaders soon after he pitted on Lap 19. By the time McLaughlin, who started on the outside of the front row, pitted from the lead on Lap 31, Lundgaard surged ahead of the Team Penske driver by 5.5 seconds, setting up a split-strategy battle heading into the final two stints.

Two quick cautions on Lap 41

Just as the full field had finally pitted, Grosjean sent strategists of cars at the front into a frenzy. The Andretti Autosport driver crashed on his own into the Turn 10 wall on Lap 41, saying on the radio the steering wheel slipped out of his hands while careening over one of the many bumps on the front stretch headed for the start-finish line.

During the ensuing caution, Palou and Herta slipped in for what would be their second and final pitstops of the day, aided by the next caution that happened just as the race attempted to go green again on Lap 46.

As the race went green, Kyle Kirkwood got into the back of Helio Castroneves just on the outside of the top-10, spinning the Meyer Shank Racing driver. During the spin, Castroneves made what at the time appeared to be minor contact with Palou’s front wing – damage that would get significantly worse over the course of the final 40 laps.

During that caution on Lap 50, Lundgaard was one of several drivers including Marcus Ericsson, Josef Newgarden and Will Power, who pitted. McLaughlin, who sat in 2^nd-place at the time, surprisingly declined to pit like those around him on a similar strategy. After starting on the front row, he'd go on to finish 6th after having to make a late pit stop and claw through a dense midfield into the top-10.

McLaughlin, Dixon and Rinus VeeKay paced the field to the Lap 52 restart, all three needing to pit before the end of the race – setting up a duel between Lundgaard, Herta and Palou. On that restart, Palou slid around Herta for 4th-place. Shortly after, Lundgaard nipped Herta for 5th and set his sights on Palou up ahead.

Lundgaard pulls away, Palou holds on for second

Moments before Dixon was the final member of that alternate-strategy trio to pit on Lap 62, Lundgaard swung around the outside in Turn 3 to grab 2^nd-place from Palou. Dixon’s stop gave the lead of the race back to Lundgaard, who stretched his gap on Palou to 11.7 seconds by the end.

In the closing laps, Palou’s front wing looked as if it was ready to buckle underneath his wheels, but somehow, some way, he both hung on and kept Herta, Dixon and Newgarden behind him. With 1 lap to go, Power and Ericsson were forced to pit from 4^th and 5^th, after making their final stop on the same lap as the race-winner, in order to not run out of fuel. Ericsson came home 11^th, with Power in 14^th.

Herta sputtered across the line only barely making it home before running out of gas for his first podium of the year.

With his runner-up finish, Palou added seven more points to his championship lead on Dixon, who finished 4^th, now 117 points back. Newgarden remained in 3^rd in the title hunt, now 126 points back with a 5^th-place finish Sunday.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: Christian Lundgaard wins in Toronto, can shave his mustache