By alley - Jul 25, 2017, 9:06 AM ET

Rosenqvist keen to join IndyCar's young guns

Felix Rosenqvist grew up watching IndyCar racing in Sweden when his countryman and 1999 Indy 500 winner Kenny Brack served as a crossover star in the IRL and CART. Given the chance, he'd welcome an opportunity to fly his native yellow and blue colors on a full-time basis in America as the next great Scandinavian export.

Rosenqvist made waves last year when he won three times during a partial Indy Lights season with Belardi Racing, and

with a glowing endorsement from Chip Ganassi Racing

after a pair of successful Mid-Ohio tests – one in July 2016 and another last week – he's keen on the idea of making it his new home.

"It's always been a dream to drive in IndyCar, and now I know that I can do well," he told RACER. "We will have to see a bit further how it goes with all the talks."

First, he'll complete his debut season in the FIA Formula E series with the Mahindra team this weekend in Montreal, where one win and four podiums has Rosenqvist holding third in the standings. After the Formula E finale, Rosenqvist will return to Japan, where he sits fifth in the Super Formula championship. Fresh off a second-place results at the most recent event, Rosenqvist is well ahead of fellow first-timer Pierre Gasly, the 2016 GP2 champion, who lies 10th in the standings.

Considering his past and present experience, which includes a pair of wins at the prestigious Macau Grand Prix, his FIA European Formula 3 title in 2015, a seventh-place in the 2016 Blancpain GT Sprint series, a half-season of DTM with Mercedes, and 2017 LMP2 runs at the Rolex 24 at Daytona and 24 Hours of Le Mans, it's entirely possible Rosenqvist has logged more miles of competitive driving by the age of 25 than any of his contemporaries.

The fact that he's compiled so much experience in so many championships across the globe could go a long way toward explaining why Rosenqvist has looked like an old pro in his two CGR IndyCar outings.

"It's been a few good years for me," he said. "I put myself on the market a bit everywhere all over the world, and that was the plan. When I stopped doing Formula 3, I wanted to take every chance I could get and see how well I could do. It's coming to the point soon where I have to figure out what I want to do full-time.

"I said after I did Lights last year that I want to come back to America at some point. Obviously, now I cannot really say what will happen next year or in the next years, but it would be good to be there."

With some of IndyCar's older guard ready to step out of their full-time drives to take new opportunities in sports cars, Rosenqvist says he and Johansson will be targeting those seats in 2018 and beyond.

"Yeah, absolutely; it's really the right time for us young guns to make a move in IndyCar," he added. "I guess that's a good thing and a bad thing. It's nice to have big names but it's a good opportunity to grow some new big names as well."

Rosenqvist is in an enviable position for a young driver. Compared to those who are on the sidelines searching for rides, the Swede is juggling two full-time drives and a steady stream of invitations to test and race in other championships. Unless the door to Formula 1 opens unexpectedly, it appears Rosenqvist will keep his sights set on IndyCar.

"It's the right time now and we just hope that there will be some spots opening up," he continued. "It's quite nice to at least see a realistic chance that you could be there in the future. It wasn't that way when we started talking about it a few years ago."