Felix Rosenqvist has started off his time with Meyer Shank Racing on a strong note, and looks set to be on the way to his best year in IndyCar so far.
Rosenqvist is entering his sixth year as a driver in IndyCar, and moved away from Arrow McLaren following three up and down seasons with the team.
He joined MSR alongside fellow Swede Tom Blomqvist, and has immediately given the team better results than it has had in over a year.
The very first practice session of the year in St. Petersburg saw Rosenqvist top the timing charts, followed by a front row qualifying effort and a seventh place finish in the race.
He then proceeded to earn one of the two pole positions awarded for the exhibition round from the Thermal Club, and finished the main race in third place, earning a cool $250,000 in the process.
One has to look back nearly two years to see MSR logging those kinds of results, and Rosenqvist has a feeling he can exploit his new relationship to earn even better finishes over the course of this season.
“I think it means a lot for the guys to see our car in P1,” said Rosenqvist referencing his pole for qualifying at the Thermal Club. “Tom [Blomqvist] did a really good job, as well, P5 in his group.
“Yeah, it’s definitely a change for the team I think. You can tell the confidence is growing every time. I think that’s what you want to see. They had a tough year last year.
“[There has been] a little bit of a rethink. I brought some ideas. Yeah, kind of just a clean sheet.
“Obviously we lean a lot on Andretti Global, as well. We do all the engineering stuff with them. That’s been huge actually to just kind of dig for info, talk to those guys, like Marcus [Ericsson] and Kyle [Kirkwood] often comes over to our truck to talk to us. It’s very open.
“The guys are happy. When you’re having fun and you’re happy, that’s normally when you perform. We’re going to try to copy that as long as we can.
“Super proud of Meyer Shank Racing. We’re enjoying. We think there’s more to come.”
MSR has often been on the cusp of earning finishes in the top portion of the field, but has never quite been able to stay up front with regularity.
The team has rearranged some of their operations this year including, as RACER reported, team co-owner Mike Shank stepping back from his long-held strategy role.
Whichever change has made the biggest difference, the team, and Rosenqvist’s #60 in particular, look poised to potentially have their best year ever in the series.
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