It Was a Matter of Time, Not a Matter of If for Ericsson

By Dennis Krause

Marcus Ericsson put on a late race charge and was not to be denied in Sunday’s Ontario Honda Dealers Indy at Markham, Ontario, Canada, scoring his fifth career NTT INDYCAR SERIES win and his first since joining Andretti Global.

The driver of the No. 28 Andretti Global Honda charged from seventh place with 21 laps remaining following his final spit stop of the day to take a convincing win on the new 12-turn, 2.10-mile street circuit north of Toronto.

“It's a really fun track here, but it's really challenging, especially with the pavement being very high grip in the racing line, but off line it's quite slick,” said Ericsson. “Expected to have a lot of things happening. There were a lot of curve balls thrown at us.

“I felt all the way through, especially in the race, that I had a really fast car. There were key decisions there where we decided to stay out. I was pushing really hard to stay out. I know it was not ideal because I needed a ton of pace to be able to pull out the gap needed to come out in a decent place. But I really felt like the car was just so fast that I wanted to try and stay out and use that to my advantage.

“It was fun, that middle stint when I was doing quallie laps, two, two and a half seconds faster than the rest of the field. That was a good time.

“It was still tough to make our way back to the lead coming back in seventh. Had to work for it today.”

Ericsson took the lead for good on lap 86, passing his former Formula 1 rival Romain Grosjean in the No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda, who lead 28 laps of the race and came home second. Ericsson’s Andretti Global teammate, Will Power rounded out the podium finishers.

The 35-year-old Swede has been driving well this season, but Ericsson admits having his contract extended just ten days ago was a weight that had been lifted from his shoulders.

“Yeah, I mean, it feels great to have the confidence from the team to continue. But I feel like this year, it's been a trend all season that we've been strong. I think I'm the fourth best qualifier in the field on average.

“I feel like we've had quite a few big results and podiums taken away from us from I hate saying bad luck, but things not really going our way, where we've been looking to be on our way to a podium for a long time of the race, but few things hasn't gone our way.

“All the year, on every type of track, we've been fast. I think that says a lot about the Andretti Global organization, the work that [team principal] Ron [Ruzewski] and everybody else has done, stepping it up on all types of tracks.

“I feel like my three years at Andretti, the first two years we had our specialty in street courses. Every now and then we could be good on other tracks as well.

“This year that's the big thing,” Ericsson continued. “I feel like we don't have any real weakness. We're very strong on all tracks. Not saying we're going to stop. We need to keep pushing. That's been a big difference.

“For me, the 28 crew has been working really well together. I have a couple of new people on my car this year. We've been gelling really well.

“I don't see this as sort of a surprise that we're sitting here winning. I feel like that's been trending that way. I've been telling my guys the last couple of races, We keep doing what we're doing now, it's going to be a matter of time, not a matter of if or not, because we've really been strong every race here for a long time.”

Photo: Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment

It’s been three-and-a-half years since Ericsson last won in the INDYCAR series at the season-opening race at St. Petersburg in 2023 while he was with Chip Ganassi Racing. Was there ever a time during that 63-race period when he thought he might never win again?

“That's the thing in racing,” Ericsson replied, “you have to believe in yourself, right? I went eight years without a win when I went from F2, went in F1, then came to INDYCAR. It's easy to give up and do something else.

“I always feel like mental strength and that ability to push myself, even when things don't go your way, it's been one of my biggest strengths as a driver.

“Even last year with the year we had, I don't think there was any scenario last year where I would have won a race because I just wasn't fast and I wasn't happy with the way the car felt. It was no one's fault. Things didn't work out, we were in a bad spiral.

“Again, it comes from working hard, putting the work in. There's nothing like coming for free. You can't after a season like last year sit around and think hopefully next year will be better. You have to put in hours with the team, with the personnel, with yourself. That's where I really did that over the winter and that's been paying off.

“So yeah, no, I knew I could do it. I just needed the right sort of scenario around me really to get back into that space.

“I think now I'm driving better than I've ever been in INDYCAR. I had three years with Ganassi where I finished at the top of the championship and won races. I think the pace we've had this year every weekend, with every track, I think it's better than that.”

As far as how Sunday’s victory compared to his other wins, Ericsson said it was up there, but…

“There's nothing like winning the 500,” said the 2022 Indianapolis 500 champion, “so that's always going to be on its own. Changed my life.

“But I think apart from that, this was my strongest win where I really showed pure pace all the way through and had to fight my way back. I really had to work for this one. I really felt like yeah, I put in the work to deserve to win today. I felt really good.

“But every win is valuable in this series. There's no easy wins. There's always so many good cars and teams out there. I appreciate each one of them. I felt like today was a great way to win the way we did it.”

And that faith Andretti Global has in Ericsson?

“It means a ton, of course. But I felt ever since being in Andretti really at home in the team. I think it's a great atmosphere within the team. We have a great group on the 28 car.

“Like I said, I feel like this has been coming. It's been a matter of time. This race was fun. Especially the second half of the race was fun to get everything out of the car and just push maximum.

“When you are in that zone where like you feel at one with the car, it's just not happens that often. Today it really happened. I really felt super confident to just push.

"Yeah, it's a good feeling.”

Dennis Krause has spent decades covering all forms of motorsports, including over 40 Indianapolis 500s, with stints at WIBA Radio, PIT PASS - Radio’s Premier Motorsports Magazine and Motorsports Minute.

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