Credit to Wikimedia Commons: Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing
The day is May 29th 2022 and the 106th running of the Indianapolis is nearing its conclusion. In the box seat for the victory is Patricio O’Ward, the young prodigy spearheading McLaren’s Indycar program and is on the cusp of bringing home Indy 500 glory with only 2 laps remaining. He has had an incredibly fruitful Indycar career up to this point and is gunning for another victory in his repertoire. As the green flag drops on the penultimate lap, O’Ward is chasing and pushing his throttle pedal to the floor, almost kicking a hole through his chassis. But he is weaving back and forth down the front and back stretch and can’t make the move stick. Coming to the final lap, O’Ward braves it, moves out of the dirty air and dives for the outside but unfortunately can’t make the move stick. He backs out and sets himself up for a second move on the back straight but it’s too late. The leader escapes him and the caution flag is brought out. O’Ward despite his ability was unable to mount a challenge to the man flying away in front of him and settled for second place in racings greatest spectacle. The man who beat him to victory that day? Marcus Ericsson.
Those who remember Marcus from a completely different era in his career are probably struggling to understand how this was even possible, especially considering his woeful F1 career. He drove in Formula 1 for 5 years and, for his entire tenure there, was in deeply uncompetitive machinery. From Caterham to Sauber between 2014 and 2018, these teams were at their lowest point in car performance, financial security and morale. No matter the effort he and his team put in, Marcus couldn’t develop opportunities for both himself and his teams to progress further up the grid. He even had a tough time against his teammates being most notably trounced by future prodigy Charles Leclerc in 2018. His image took a huge toll from the outside world and placed him in a conundrum of where to go next. It creates a trap that drivers often find themselves in and can bring themselves to a moral low, consequently calling it quits on their careers. They achieved their dream in becoming an F1 driver, saw the highs and lows first hand and duly said their goodbyes with their spoils in their hands. It looked set for Marcus to follow that trend. A career spent at the rear of the field achieving nothing extraordinary. The end inevitably nigh.
So how does any of this correlate with Marcus’s race at Indianapolis? Certain drivers post F1 manage to break out and find their own place in the world of motorsport to rebuild their reputation. That was the path Marcus set himself on when in late 2018, Marcus Ericsson announced he was moving to Indycar in 2019 with Arrow Schmit Peterson racing. Suddenly the world tour stopped, the salary decreased and his status as a driver had the chance to be reset. The goal was clear; he was going to rebuild his legacy from the ground up to succeed in Indycar. He still held his own self belief in being amongst the world's best drivers and was determined to prove it. People sometimes forget the promise that he showed during his junior career basing their opinions purely from F1. A Formula BMW and Japanese F3 champion alongside a plethora of victories in GP2 before he jumped to F1. The skill was always there but it was a case of finding the right environment where he can feel most confident in extracting them.
Even with this though, his failure in F1 still dominated people's feelings when discussing his ability on arrival in Indycar. Yet he has gone against the media narrative and has only grown and progressed as a driver. Not necessarily the quickest on the grid but he possesses an understated style of speed; as seen with his moniker the ‘Sneaky Swede’. Outright one lap pace goes the way of young guns Palou, Herta and O’ward but Marcus works his magic during races with supreme fuel saving and tyre conservation skills. Most importantly though, Marcus is an extremely clean driver, very rarely getting into any accidents and keeping his car together through chaos. An introductory podium at Detroit in his rookie year cemented the potential for higher results and victories in 2021 at Detroit (his first since his 2013 GP2 season) and Nashville changed his image completely. Momentum was slowly building in Marcus’s favour after 2021 and looked set to build upon his strengths going forward into 2022 and to mount a challenge for more victories.
This brings us back to the start of this article with his absolute zenith and the moment he made his mark in motorsport. The 106th running of the Indianapolis 500. Marcus was truly rapid in qualifying, placing 5th out of the 33 strong field of drivers, a grid that includes champions from Indycar, Nascar, Aussie touring cars and endurance sports cars. It even had former F1 drivers (race winners as well) so the diversity of driver talent was on full display. Yet despite his wins in Indycar, Marcus was never really discussed as being truly competitive. Dixon, Palou, Castroneves, Kanaan, Veekay, the list could go on discussing the favourite's for victory but Marcus was still never put in the conversation for an outright win. But as the race unravelled and the drivers settled into the rhythm, Marcus was in a class of his own. It was a race full of chaos, cautions and crashes. But through it all, Marcus kept his head straight and his driving clean. He ran close to the front of the pack all race long and executed his race strategy to perfection throughout. All while this was happening, his team mates began to fall one by one. Scott Dixon suffered a speeding fine, Alex Palou suffered unfortunate luck from an early caution and Jimmie Johnson crashed out in turn 2 in the last phase of the race. Only Tony Kanaan remained and amidst it all the Huski Chocolate branded Honda was flying through it all, blasting by leaders O’ward and Rosenqvist and sailing off into the Indianapolis sun.
But Jimmie Johnson's crash on lap 194 out of 200 brought out the red flag and completely eradicated any advantage Marcus had over the Arrow McLarens, completely resetting his race. Two laps remained and the chance for a win seemed to be at risk. But in those final 2 laps, Marcus drove completely out of his skin. Suddenly we were introduced to a new Marcus, one that was more aggressive and decisive than he has ever been. He mastered the restart, weaving aggressively around the front and back stretch of the brickyard to break the draft from O’Ward and kept a mighty hold of his lead. O’Ward attempted a last lap pass at the first turn but Ericsson placed his car perfectly to prevent a passing manoeuvre leading to O’Ward backing out. And by the last corner, the yellow flag was waved and the result was official. Marcus Ericsson was the winner of the Indianapolis 500. He became only the second Swedish winner alongside his old mentor Kenny Brack, the first Chip Ganassi winner since Dario Franchitti in 2012 and simultaneously shot to the top of the standings in that year's Indycar championship for the first time in his career. He had achieved stardom and one of motor racing’s triple crown events.
But amidst this all, his Indy 500 winning drive was defining for the fact he finally shed the skin of his old F1 self and built a new legacy. The supposed mundane pay driver suddenly became an accomplished Indycar racer where everyone respected him and no one could fault his skills. It’s easy to pick apart a driver for a mediocre race in F1 which Marcus fell into far too often but here for the first time in his career, no one could criticize him. He’s now amongst Swedish racing's hall of fame alongside drivers like Kenny Brack, Ronnie Peterson and compatriot Felix Rosenqvist. He has conquered one of the three peaks of motor racing and gone was Marcus Ericsson; former driver for Sauber Formula 1. Now we have Marcus Ericsson; accomplished Indycar driver and winner of the greatest racing spectacle on earth.
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