What a difference a week makes. Now, can Sunday’s strong result at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear resurrect Marcus Ericsson’s disappointing start to the NTT INDYCAR SERIES season?
The driver of the No. 28 Delaware Life Honda certainly hopes so. A week after hitting the Turn 1 SAFER Barrier hard in the first round of the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge, the veteran driver in his first season with Andretti Global took an important first step toward returning to relevance in this series.
Ericsson’s second-place finish at the nine-turn, 1,645-mile downtown road course was not only his best finish of the season, it was his first chance to win a race since losing the 2023 “500” to Josef Newgarden in the final lap. . Another lap at the Motor City event may have given Ericsson a chance to pass Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon for the win.
Ericsson’s last race win in the series was at the Firestone Grand Prix of St Petersburg by RP Funding at the start of the 2023 season. But his spirits were lifted on Sunday simply because he was in the lead when it mattered most. He had just one fifth-place finish in the first five races of the year, averaging a 19.0 finish.
“It was very big,” Ericsson said of that result. βAfter the May we had, it was really, really tough β tough mentally. I am new to this team and want to show myself as a top driver. That’s why they hired me.”
The month of May could not have gone worse for the No. 28 group. Ericsson crashed at Turn 4 during practice, hitting the outside SAFER barrier before sliding into the inside wall and the attenuator that immediately separates pit road from the front. The team opted to return to action with a spare car and Ericsson just found enough speed to grab one of the 33 starting positions.
Seconds into the race, rookie Tom Blomqvist spun his Meyer Shank Racing machine in Turn 1, leaving Ericsson with no chance to make the necessary evasive action. Ericsson’s impact with the outside wall was nose first, ending his day as quickly as it began.
“This month of May was tiring because we had to work so hard and we had so little (of it),” he said. “I felt like I probably aged five years this month.”
Ericsson arrived in Detroit with a team determined to repeat the efforts. He finished the previous three seasons with Chip Ganassi’s team sixth in the standings, so 19th after Indy was new and unwelcome territory for the 33-year-old Swedish driver. This is not Andretti Global’s standard either.
“We just had to reset,” Ericsson said. “We had to believe in what we were doing.
βYou can either lie down and feel sorry for yourself, or you can get up and work hard and prepare and try to dig deep and go and deliver. I think that’s what we decided for the (No. 28) group. We were going to Detroit, had a good weekend, got our season back on track. Yes, that was the conversation.
βWe had a lot of work this week before this match. I’m glad it worked.”
As Ericsson described on the NBC Sports show, this is now “2024 2.0” for the team.
So far so good. Ericsson qualified ninth, avoided the issues of the eight-caution, 100-lap race, made the right decision to stay away from rain tires and made his final pit stop on Lap 65. In the final third of the race, he never fell from the top five, passing teammate Kyle Kirkwood and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong for the spot in the final 13 laps for his first podium finish since last year’s “500.”
“I think we were strong all weekend,” he said. βThe 28 (crew) and the whole (Andretti Global) team gave us really, really good cars, so I’m really grateful for that.
βThe Delaware Life car was very strong out there today. We had so much pace. One more round and we might have managed to get this victory.”
Ericsson gained five places in the standings, rising to 14th. He is only 20 points away from 10th place. It’s not where he wants to be, but Sunday was a start to getting there.