Marcus Ericsson came within three races of reaching a century of starts in Formula 1 before the axe swung and he turned his attention Stateside. After only a year in IndyCar he has landed a coveted Ganassi seat and will form part of a three-car assault in 2020. How did all of this come about? Motorsport Week sat down for lunch with Ericsson.
Ericsson’s motorsport journey has taken him from his native Sweden to Chip Ganassi’s eponymous IndyCar outfit via a title-winning Japanese Formula 3 campaign, a moderately successful GP2 spell, and five years in Formula 1 with backmarkers Caterham and minnows Sauber. The bulk of that lengthy Sauber stint was spent towards the rear of the grid amid the team’s on- and off-track struggles, but through 2018 the squad – under the tutelage of Frédéric Vasseur and greater alignment with Ferrari – chipped away at the midfield. Star rookie Charles Leclerc was clearly the standout component but Ericsson proved a competent benchmark and foil, even if a final tally of nine points was slightly underwhelming.
Ericsson had hoped to remain in Formula 1 in 2019 with Sauber – later rebranded Alfa Romeo – but the recruitment of Kimi Raikkonen was a major coup and ultimately sealed his fate, given Ferrari’s influence on the other seat, in 2018 held by Leclerc, and for 2019 (and 2020) by Antonio Giovinazzi. Ericsson sought a new career path and landed in the United States with IndyCar outfit Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. It was a mixed season. Ericsson scored a podium in Detroit but elsewhere results were few and far between, with some promise going to waste, and other events where the pure pace was simply not unlocked.
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“I think there’s two ways to see my year,” says an honest Ericsson. “On one way the results were disappointing. I was expecting a lot more, results-wise, and hoping for a lot more, which didn’t happen, so in one way it’s disappointing.
“But in the other way if you look more at the performances, and what we actually did out there, I think there was a lot of potential, and a lot of good drives, and the way I took to ovals. I had some really good races on ovals, the Detroit podium, I showed when I was up there [towards the front] I can really compete with the best guys in the series.
“I think there were a lot of highs as well, but for some reason every time when I was on for a good result there was always something happening. So some things were my own mistakes, but other times I was unlucky. At St. Pete, in the opener, I was P7 and had to retire the car. At COTA we had the pit stop timing. Some mistakes were quite costly, such as the Indy 500 when I was on for a top eight in my first oval race, there were a lot of positives, but purely on the results it was disappointing.”
Even though Ericsson only replicated his 2018 F1 classification of 17th in the championship he was buoyed by the competitive nature of the series, meaning each weekend provided a fresh opportunity.
“I really enjoyed this year, especially after five years in F1 when I was running a lot of the time in lower end of the grid teams,” he said.
“When I got to IndyCar to get back that feeling that every weekend you have a chance to win was something that was really nice, and really gets you going.
“It’s like a big GP2 series in a way. It’s fun. Some weekends one guy would win and the next weekend he could be P15 as he doesn’t get the car right, or the driving right. You have the bumpy, tight street courses, the road courses, the superspeedways, you have the short, bumpy ovals. There’s such a big mix of different types of tracks that require different set-ups and driving styles, which makes it one of, if not the, most complex series in the world.”
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One of the biggest eye-openers for Ericsson was the Indianapolis 500. He had moved out to the city in January as part of his preparations and as a driver steeped in European-based racing was slightly cynical over its appeal. But the spectacle and grandeur of America’s principle single-seater event left him converted.
“Coming into the year everyone was talking about the 500,” he laughs. “Telling me about it, how special it was, how unique it was, how much I would enjoy it. I was getting to a point where I was like ‘come on guys it’s just another race!’
“I’ve been to Monaco, been to Monza, been to all these classic races. I was feeling it was not going to be that big a deal.
“But then the month starts. All the things that go on off-track, all the things on-track: the build-up, the practice for weeks, qualifying, then more practice! It made it a different thing to anything I’d ever done. And then race day comes and there’s 400,000 people there, people everywhere you look, and that combined with racing on an oval and that adrenalin, that speed sensation you get, the whole combination of things, the history… it just made it something I’d never experienced before. It really touched me deeply as well. It means so much to everyone here [in IndyCar], it’s so cool, I really enjoyed it a lot more than I would. For me it was something unique, and different to anything I’d ever experienced.”
The Detroit podium followed the Indianapolis 500 and as the season progressed Ericsson’s initial ambitions for the following year took a hit with an unexpected development. For 2018 and Raikkonen/Sauber, read 2019 and SPM’s alignment with McLaren. The British operation was badly burnt by its woeful Indianapolis 500 effort – in which everything that could go wrong did go wrong – and sought a fresh start for 2020. It settled on linking up with SPM. But Ericsson, who was primed to end up a loser from the fallout, instead landed a seat at an expanded Ganassi effort, alongside five-time champion Scott Dixon and compatriot and 2019 Rookie of the Year Felix Rosenqvist. IndyCar may be a fiercely competitive series with multiple winners and unpredictable results, but only Ganassi, Penske and Andretti have fielded the Drivers’ champion since 2003. No wonder Ericsson beams at his “once-in-a-lifetime” 2020 opportunity.
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“When the McLaren deal was announced, we understood there were things going on,” says Ericsson. “Actually, let’s track it back. When I signed with Schmidt, a little over a year ago, it was always a two-year plan. At the start of the year the results were maybe not fantastic, but we were still going quite well, getting on really well with the team. The talk was always that we were going to continue for a second year, it was going well, and that was the mindset from the team.
“Everything sort of changed when McLaren came in, and I understand it in some ways as they come in as a big player in the sport and they want to put their touch on it.
“Straight away when they [McLaren] came into the team we got the information… they didn’t say I was out but they said ‘we’re really not sure what we’re going to do on the driver line-up, there’s a lot of things to take into account’. When that talk started to happen we thought maybe it’s a good thing to look around, so we started to look around and work at other options.
“When the Ganassi seat came as an option I told my manager ‘all in, we need to get that’. That’s how it happened.
Ericsson acknowledges that he is “sad not to be able to continue” the journey with Schmidt but “at the same time everything turned out well, as I now get to drive for one of the best teams in IndyCar and also the sport.
“To drive for one of the best teams in the series they expect you to be up there at the top every weekend, as they’re going to give you a car to be at the top every weekend. But I’m ready for that.”
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Ericsson’s primary focus in 2019 was IndyCar but he has remained a regular face in the Formula 1 paddock through his reserve and ambassadorial role for Alfa Romeo. It also led to a run in the C38 in Austria, post-race, as part of a Pirelli tyre test. But when Raikkonen reported for duty after the summer break with a slightly painful leg an overly cautious Alfa Romeo summoned Ericsson. The problem? Ericsson was due to be racing in Portland the same weekend.
“Of course that was an unfortunate situation because obviously missing a race was not good,” says Ericsson, who, fittingly, has Portland stand-in Conor Daly sat alongside us over lunch.
“I think there were many scenarios that made it happen. The priority was always on IndyCar, the reserve driver role was second priority, but because of the thing with McLaren… and we understood I was probably not going to stay with the team… it was not my decision, but from my management they thought it was the right thing to do [to skip Portland].
“If I’d have got the chance to drive the Alfa in Belgium it would have been a good opportunity for me.
“I understood, but when I didn’t get to drive the F1 car, didn’t get to drive the IndyCar I was sat there like ‘this didn’t turn out well!’ But it’s in the past, even if it wasn’t ideal.”
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Alfa Romeo will continue with Raikkonen and Giovinazzi into 2020 and Ericsson has “made it clear to my management that I want to focus 100 per cent on IndyCar, especially now with this Ganassi opportunity. I think I’ll still have some role with Alfa Romeo, I don’t know what yet, we’ll discuss it in the next months, but the focus will be on IndyCar.”
Ericsson’s eyes are firmly fixed on a lengthy IndyCar career with Ganassi, particularly given that a second Formula 1 opportunity is highly unlikely to arise, and he insists he can reflect on his grand prix career in a positive manner.
“I’m happy and proud of what I did,” says a clearly content Ericsson.
“I reached Formula 1, the first Swedish driver since Stefan Johannsson when he stopped in 1991.
“That was the goal around me: to get a Swedish driver into Formula 1, and that started when I was 15, and we reached that goal.
“I was in F1 for five years, I scored points, I had good qualifying and races I could be proud of.
“And [last year with] Charles as well, it’s nice to see how well he does, and how special he is as a driver. For sure he’s a future World Champion and to know I beat him the first three races of last year and mixed it up with him a few times more during the season is a good thing to know!
“Of course it was frustrating that I felt like I never got a break with a really good car to show what I could do, and that’s a bit frustrating, but I’m happy and proud with what I did.”
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