Marcus Ericsson won’t let Saturday’s qualifying disappointment ruin his great season.
He still heads into Sunday’s race at Toronto atop the IndyCar standings and with a chance to increase his lead. You can also avoid the traditional mid-season fanfare, and truth be told, Ericsson prefers it that way.
The quiet and unassuming Indianapolis 500 champion would rather produce consistent results than idle talk.
“I think in all the practice sessions we were up to it, so we had more speed” than ninth place, Ericsson said of his starting position, “so that was a little disappointing… We’ll work on that (Sunday) in to warm up and then go out there and see what we can do in the race.
Ericsson posted the second fastest time in Saturday’s 45-minute morning practice session. But on a bumpy 1,786-mile, 11-turn temporary street circuit, the 31-year-old Swede struggled to find the right balance in the second qualifying round.
The silver lining is that Will Power, the Team Penske Australian who sits second in the standings, starts 16th. Defending series champion Alex Palou of Spain, Ericsson’s teammate with Chip Ganassi Racing, fourth in qualifying, qualified 22nd when his car stalled during the first round of qualifying.
Ericsson is also unlikely to get involved in the other big issues this weekend, with much of the focus on Palou’s future plans due to CGR and McLaren announcing this week that Palou would race for them next season, as well as complaints between Andretti Autosport teammates Alexander Rossi and Romain Grosjean talk about each other.
Ericsson has stayed away by thinking about his own work.
“We’re in good shape,” Ericsson said before qualifying. “We’re in the mix.”
Since joining the Ganassi team last season, his three wins are tied for third behind Team Penske’s two-time series champion Josef Newgarden and Pato O’Ward, last year’s series runner-up. Newgarden has won five times in that span and could move from third to second if he can capitalize on his third-place finish on Saturday. O’Ward has four wins.
But no one has been more consistent this season than Ericsson, who has led the No. 8 Honda to five straight top-10 finishes. He had seven top-10 finishes in the first nine races and has completed 984 of the 1,003 laps run this season.
Ericsson also has a car that it believes is “consistent”.
“You get confidence as a driver and then you can drive it to the limit,” said Ericsson, who finished 20th in his only other start at Toronto. “Sometimes you have a car that’s super fast but you can’t use that speed because it’s hard to extract. I feel like we’re in a good place.”
And he is in position to extend his lead over Power, a victim of bad luck when Kyle Kirkwood spun near the finish line as Power was about to finish his best lap of the day.
“He should know that you have to stay in the top six every time because this can happen,” Power said. “I had a really fast car again and it’s crazy. It’s been like three races in a row where we were like (position two) in practice and then we started 19th, 15th, 16th or whatever. Frustrating, man.”
THE STRIPES
Dixon nearly ended a streak on Saturday, narrowly missing his first pole outside of Indy since 2016. He hopes to end another streak on Sunday, 22 winless races.
The New Zealand star’s last win came in early May 2021. The next one would tie Mario Andretti for second on the all-time IndyCar wins list with 52.
Dixon, another Ericsson teammate, has been one of the most consistent and unflappable drivers in the series for two decades. He has won at least one race in a series-record 17 consecutive seasons and if the six-time series champion wants to tie AJ Foyt’s career record seven IndyCar titles this weekend, he needs a strong result on Sunday. .
“We can win from here, that’s the main thing,” said Dixon, who will try to close the 67-point gap after qualifying second.
CHANGING DYNAMICS
Colton Herta had the fastest car in practice, and in qualifying, despite dealing with difficult transitions between concrete and tarmac.
For the Californian, it felt similar to his last race at Toronto in 2019, although he did spot a significant difference.
“Some of the corners are a little different with the aeroscreen and how quickly you can get through them,” he said. “Overall the feel, the bumps, it feels like it’s been maintained. In places up north, like Detroit or here, where they have brutal winters, sometimes you come back and the track is completely different. But it seems to be well maintained.”
Herta finished seventh in his first start at Toronto in 2019 and captured his only victory this season at the Indy Speedway.