INDIANAPOLIS — What makes the NTT IndyCar Series unique is the opportunity for two drivers to have something to celebrate at the end of the season.
For the series champion, it’s an accomplishment that came by fending off the competition for an entire season and scoring more points than any other driver. The other driver that gets to celebrate something big is the winner of the Indianapolis 500, the biggest race in the world. That driver gets to celebrate that victory for a lifetime.
The winner of the Indianapolis 500 becomes a part of the long and prestigious history of the famed race that began on May 30, 1911.
The winner of the 106th Indianapolis 500 on May 29 was Marcus Ericsson of Sweden. His face is now a permanent part of the Borg-Warner Trophy, along with the faces of the other drivers who have won the Indianapolis 500.
“It’s the biggest single race in the world with the best trophy in the world,” Ericsson told SPEED SPORT. “I’m so proud to be on the trophy and so proud to be a winner.”
Although Ericsson is just 32, he came to IndyCar after competing in 97 Formula One contests in his career from 2014 to 2018. In 97 starts, Ericsson was never able to achieve a podium finish in Formula One and finished 17th in points in 2018 and 18th in 2015.
“I’ve been fighting and trying to prove what I could do,” Ericsson said. “In Formula One, my five seasons there was tough because I didn’t get a chance to show what I could do with the cars I was driving. Coming to America, I put a lot of emphasis in American racing and achieving success.”
The chance to compete at a very high level in IndyCar, lured Ericsson to the United States in 2019 when he competed for Arrow McLaren SP Racing. In just his eighth IndyCar start, Ericsson finished second in the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix at Belle Isle when he finished just 1.942 seconds behind race winner Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing.
Ericsson became one of Dixon’s teammates the following season when he joined Chip Ganassi Racing as the driver of the No. 8 Huski Chocolate Chevrolet. He finished 12th in the standings during the 14-race COVID-schedule in 2020 but burst onto the scene in 2021 with two victories, including Detroit and Nashville as he finished sixth in the standings.
This past season, Ericsson won the 106th Indianapolis 500 in dramatic fashion, fending off a charging Pato O’Ward and zig-zagging his way down the long front and back straights to break the draft.
His victory in the 500 catapulted him into the NTT IndyCar Championship Series lead and into history.
“I was close to winning the championship this year,” Ericsson said. “I was leading it for a long time and dropped off a bit at the end. That is something I am disappointed about.”
Although he finished sixth in the standings, Ericsson entered the final race of the fourth in the standings and had a mathematical, although difficult chance to win the title. Ericsson gives team owner Chip Ganassi another top-notch driver that also includes six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Dixon, 2021 IndyCar champion Alex Palou and talented rookie from New Zealand, Marcus Armstrong.
In many ways, Ericsson has developed into one of the biggest stars in IndyCar.
“I believed based on what Marcus has done here at Chip Ganassi Racing, if he were in Lewis Hamilton’s car, his career path would have been totally different in Formula One,” Chip Ganassi Racing Managing Director Mike Hull told SPEED SPORT. “He has the ability. He has the mindset. He has the mental acuity to understand how to chase the race track with the resource. He doesn’t carry it all by himself. He understands the team ethic very, very conclusively.
“He is proving that. He has proven what he should have probably been able to demonstrate in Formula One. If you ask him, he’ll tell you if he had been on a different team that had an equal resource to the teams that are winning the championships, he would have been there.”
Ericsson has proven his skill as a racing driver, especially with his win in the Indianapolis 500. His next goal is to become a back-to-back winner in 2023. That hasn’t been accomplished since Helio Castroneves at Team Penske in 2001-2002.
“It’s about time that we have a back-to-back winner and I think we will have a good shot,” Ericsson said. “I’m very confident in my team. We will have great cars there. But as we all know, it’s such a difficult race to win with a lot happening. We will definitely go out and try to defend the title, no doubt about that. We are going to have a strong team and driver lineup and that feels very well.
“Big goals for next year. Try to win that first championship and defend the victory in the Indianapolis 500.
“That’s high goals, for sure, but you need to dream big to achieve something.”