Whirlwind week for Chip Ganassi Racing NTT IndyCar Series driver is ending up right back on track at Belle Isle in Detroit.
Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson is learning a lot about himself this week.
The biggest thing just might be that sleep can be a little overrated. Ericsson won the Indy 500 on Sunday. Then it was a series of photo shoots, press conferences, and the Indy 500 banquet on Monday, followed up the next day by a whirlwind media tour to New York City.
Ericsson’s victory tour was in Detroit on Thursday, as he began prepping for another weekend of NTT IndyCar Series racing. This time, it’s the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix Presented by Lear on Sunday.
“I’m still trying to sort of figure out what happened last weekend,” Ericsson told Autoweek during yet another press function on Thursday, this one on Belle Isle. “It’s been such a crazy time after the checkered flag, really. I haven’t really had time to sort of sit back and take a breath and realize what actually happened and that I won the biggest race in the world.”
Marcus Ericsson led just 13 laps in the Indy 500, but that was enough to score the win.
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Ericsson, a 31-year-old Swedish driver for Chip Ganassi Racing with Honda power, is now the points leader for 2022. He’s also a three-time winner on the NTT IndyCar Series circuit, having won last year on the streets of Nashville and at Belle Isle. The 500, however, is the one win that will change his life.
Or so he’s been told.
“It’s been completely crazy, been doing some really cool stuff the last week,” said Ericsson, who won the 500 on his fourth try after a previous best finish of 11th at the Brickyard in 2021. “Everyone says it’s life-changing, and I’m sure it will be, but so far it’s still so fresh. Sleep has not been the priority the last few days.
“I’m definitely a bit tired still, but I love to go racing and Detroit is one of my favorite places to go to on the calendar. I had my first podium here in 2019. I had my first win here in 2021. It’s a place where I have a lot of really good memories. If there’s any place that I wanted to go straight after the 500 and go race, I would pick Detroit. I’m excited to be here, excited to be the championship leader and looking forward to trying to defend that lead.”
Team owner Chip Ganassi, left, and Marcus Ericsson kiss the bricks at Indy after the Indy 500 triumph.
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Ericsson says that one of his first life-changing moments in IndyCar came in Detroit last year when he finally broke through for his first win in the series. It came in his 37th career start.
“I feel like ever since I won last year in Detroit, I’ve been a different driver,” he said.
“I had so much confidence from that. Actually, from Detroit until now, I’ve been the one that’s scored the most points in the championship out of everyone.
“I feel that I’ve stepped it up, I’m there challenging, and I’ve won the biggest race in the world so hopefully that means I will be around for a long time. That’s my goal, and that’s what I want to do.”
Of course, that’s what Alexander Rossi probably said after winning the Indy 500 in 2016. It was announced on Wednesday that Rossi was losing his ride at Andretti Autosport at season’s end. Rossi, too, had an impressive run before falling on hard times in a winless past two-and-a-half years.
“This sport is so brutal and you never know what’s going to happen next,” Ericsson said. “But whatever happens next, I will always be an Indy 500 champion, so that’s something I’m very proud of. Indy 500 winners is an amazing club to be a part of. I’m still struggling, sort of, to take it all in and understand it actually happened. I’m still pinching myself. It feels amazing.”
He added that the three days after the 500 were admittedly a blur with all hoopla surrounding being the newest member of racing’s greatest club.
“It’s so difficult to pick one thing,” Ericsson said when asked about the coolest part of three-day celebration. “The banquet, hearing my amazing competitors talk about the race at the banquet, celebrating with my team, kissing the bricks, the cold milk, going to New York, opening NASDAQ, throwing the first pitch at the Yankees game. There’s been so many cool things happening the last few days. It’s almost impossible to pick one moment.”
The Indianapolis 500 win was also affirmation for Ericsson that he could indeed be successful on an oval. His two previous wins in the series came on street courses, and he was determined to add an oval to that list this season.
“For sure,” he said. “I felt like that was one of the big areas in the offseason that me and my engineer Brad Goldberg focused on was the ovals. We put a lot of time and energy trying to analyze and understand how to improve on the ovals.
“I spoke a lot with (three-time Indy 500 winner) Dario Franchitti over the winter. I watched a lot of on-board videos from races on ovals to really prepare myself because I felt that last year—it was a breakthrough year for me with two wins—but on the ovals, I was struggling a little bit. I didn’t get the big results there. To be fair, that’s the reason I wasn’t in the championship hunt going into the last race last year, because I didn’t have enough points on the ovals.”
Ericsson, who finished a career-best sixth in the points last year, has patched that ovals hole in his resume’ in a big way this season, winning at Indianapolis and finishing third earlier this season at Texas.
Winning the Indy 500 means you get to throw out the first pitch for a New York Yankees game.
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“We went to Texas for the first oval of this year and finished on the podium there, in P3,”he said. “That gave me a boost, and it showed that the work was paying off. And because of that, I went into the month of May with a lot of confidence that we could challenge for the win at the 500.
“From Day 1 at Indy, the Ganassi team, we had such good cars. All five of us were so fast every session, so I knew that I would be in the mix. But we all know the 500 is such a special and long race, anything can happen. But I knew I had a chance.”
Ericsson said that he couldn’t have scripted the 500 any better. He led just 13 laps, but that included the final 11.
Marcus Ericsson isn’t sure where he’s going to store his Indy 500 ring.
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“That was the cool thing,” he said. “We had a plan all month. We worked on the race car, did a very good qualifying, qualified fifth, which was exactly what our goal was—to qualify on the first two rows. Then for the race, I had a very clear plan going in that the first 150 laps I’m just going to run in the top five, take care of my race car, my tires and fuel and just follow along.
“And then the last 50 laps, we unleash the car and see what we’ve got. That’s exactly what we did, and I think we surprised a few people with the speed we had at the end.”
Ericsson knows he won’t be surprising people next time.
“I feel like we’ve been really strong the last year, but still a little under the radar,” he said. “Now, I think that will probably change.”
Keyword: On Top of the World: Indy 500 Winner Marcus Ericsson Is Still Pinching Himself