Following a poor final restart, Ericsson was applying pressure to leader O’Ward in the closing stages of today’s race when the Mexican ace suffered what was described as a “plenum event” that briefly zapped the car’s power under acceleration from the final turn. With Ericsson just 0.6sec behind, the delay was enough to see the reigning Indy 500 champion zap past with four laps to go and come home a winner.
It was Ericsson’s fourth triumph in IndyCar, the 124th for Chip Ganassi in Indy car racing but only the second for the team in 20 races at the St. Petersburg, FL street/airport course.
“It seems whatever I do, people are thinking maybe I don't deserve it or stuff like that,” said the former Formula 1 driver who is now in his fifth season of IndyCar racing, and his fourth with Ganassi. “I’ve won a lot of races, four races now in IndyCar, and been at the top of the championship the last couple years, so I'm just going to keep to that.
“Obviously today I didn't want Pato to have a problem, but from what I heard the problem was because we were putting pressure on and they did a mistake or he did a mistake. And that's when these things can happen.
“I felt bad for Pato, but we were there to pick up on it. If I wasn't putting pressure on him and hunting him down, he would have been fine and we would have been second. But we were there right on his gearbox, and we got past.”
Ericsson, who qualified fourth – quickest of the Ganassi drivers – later added: “In the end, I did a bad restart, got out in the marbles, lost a couple seconds on Pato and had to hunt him down. But I knew our race pace was extremely good, so I could close that gap and put pressure on him. He had an issue, whatever happened there, but we were putting the pressure on, and then things can happen.
“I think we showed all weekend that we were fast, and it's obviously a perfect way to start the season for us.”
By strange coincidence, all four of Ericsson’s triumphs – Detroit and Nashville in 2021, Indy 500 in 2022 and today’s race – have come in races that have been red flagged.
“It seems when a lot of things are happening – people are making mistakes and things are happening in the races – we seem to be able to stay cool, both me in the car, and the guys on the strategy and pit stops and everything. And we seem to be able to get everything together in those situations.
“All those races are very high intensity races. It's not sort of straightforward races. You need to be ready to adjust your strategy, pitstops, restarts. There's a lot of things going on, and we seem to be very good at that. That's definitely one of our strengths.
“Not saying we cannot win without the red flag, but it's definitely been working for us.”
Ericsson emphasized that he was planning a passing attempt on O’Ward at Turn 1 or Turn 10 in the final four laps.
“I think I knew over a stint we were probably a bit stronger than McLaren,” he remarked. “He looked a bit struggling through the rears and I was catching him, and then I wanted to put pressure on him to try and see if he did a small mistake so I could get an opportunity to go for an overtake.
“Of course, second is a good start to the season but a win is perfect. I was going to put the pressure on and try and go for it. I had built up an advantage on the Push-to-Pass, as well, so I was definitely going to have a go.”
The Swede stated that targeting one-lap pace had been one of his and race engineer Brad Goldberg’s personal targets, but that Ganassi as a whole had taken big step forward on setups for temporary tracks.
“I think the whole Chip Ganassi Racing organization has done a tremendous job in the off-season to improve our street and road course package, where we thought we were lacking a bit last year,” he said. “We went to Thermal, tried some stuff there, and we were fastest. And then going here, we were pretty confident we were going to be better than last year. And I think we showed all weekend we were fast.
“Qualified fourth, one of my best qualifyings of my career in IndyCar, so that was a big area we've been focusing because we know on race day we can be really strong… We needed to qualify better. One-lap pace has been one of our weaknesses the last few years.
“I think on race day, we've been super strong on every type of track on race day, but many times our qualifying average is a bit too low to really be able to win races. So that's something we focused a lot on the off-season. On the car setup side, Brad has worked really hard there and really done some good improvements because we worked together now for a few years, and he really understands what I need in a car to get everything out of my driving.
“He's helped me and the whole Ganassi engineering crew has helped to get me a car that I'm more comfortable with over one lap, as well. And like I said, I think I showed that in Thermal being fastest and, again, qualifying fourth yesterday. We have made some improvements there, which is very positive.
“And then me personally, as well, I've been working hard on sort of how to focus mentally for a qualifying session and sort of deliver better my performance.
“We've all put in the work, and it showed off this weekend.”
