Ericsson aiming for a drama-free finish to the IndyCar season

Marcus Ericsson had an abundantly normal Grand Prix of Portland, and he’d welcome more of the same to close his first season with Andretti Global.

The Swede arrived from Chip Ganassi Racing to replace Romain Grosjean in the No. 28 Honda with high expectations after earning three sixth-place championship finishes and four race wins, including an Indianapolis 500 victory, with his former team.

But adversity struck at this year’s first race at St. Petersburg with an engine issue while he was running in the top five, and the cartoon anvils continued to find his car at nearly half the races that followed. There have been a few bright spots, like finishing fifth at Long Beach, second at Detroit and fifth again at Mid-Ohio, but disappointment has been the underlying tone for Ericsson.

In the few races that are left, he’s hoping for a repeat of Portland, where he ran towards the front and came home sixth with zero dramas during the 110-lap contest.

“It was a clean weekend, and that was exactly what we needed,” Ericsson told RACER. “It was good. No fireworks, but I didn’t want fireworks. I wanted a clean weekend. I think four times this year we’ve been taken out of a race where it should have been good results. We have two DNFs from mechanical stuff in St. Pete and Gateway when we were running in the top five, and just a lot of things like that. We’ve lost at least 100 points this year because of these things.

“Everyone has their problems during a year, but I think we’ve definitely been a top 10 contender; it’s just been a lot of **** happening. I don’t want to call it bad luck, because I don’t believe in bad luck, but we haven’t had much good luck. So it’s been one of those years, but I think that’s why our weekend in Portland was important for everyone. It was what we needed to have a reset, and what we deserved as well.”

Ericsson and his race engineer Olivier Boisson have also been making strides in their first season working together.

“Oliver has really been great and we’re starting to click here the last few weekends,” Ericsson said. “If you look at Toronto, Gateway, and this weekend, we’ve been right in the mix all three of those weekends. At Portland, we were less than a tenth from being in the Fast Six, and then we had a very solid race, so I’m happy about that. But we want more, of course, if we can get it.”

Presently 14th in the drivers’ championship, decent outings at this weekend’s Milwaukee Mile 250s doubleheader and the Nashville Superspeedway season finale could see Ericsson join teammates Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood inside the top 10.

“I looked at that as well, and it’s super-tight there with a lot of guys there from ninth to 14th, and even a couple of ones behind me as well,” he said. “We’re, like, 18 points out from being 10th, and if we can get there and do a top 10 in the championship, I think that would be pretty impressive with the year we’ve had. So that’s definitely the goal.