Ericsson rebuilding reputation as an IndyCar rookie

It’s a slightly strange situation when you see the ‘R’ for ‘Rookie’ next to the name of a driver who has started nearly 100 grands prix, but then IndyCar is a unique series.

Road course, street tracks, short ovals and superspeedways -- the variety of circuits that are raced on means a different skill set is required to Formula 1. That explains why a rookie to the category needs marking out, and for someone with F1 experience but not in race-winning machinery, having the chance to start over again is attractive.

“Formula 1 has a big risk of hurting your reputation,” Marcus Ericsson told RACER. “It’s very easy in Formula 1 to be put in a folder, like ‘He’s s**t, or he’s not good enough,’ or he’s this or that. I love Formula 1 -- Formula 1 is Formula 1 and it always will be for me -- but I think one of the problems with Formula 1 is that it is clearly a manufacturer’s championship.

“For drivers, if you’re in a good team it’s a great championship, but if you’re not in a top team then it is a difficult championship and it’s easy to be put in folders and then it’s difficult to show what you can do. So I think that’s one of the problems Formula 1 has, especially now when it’s so spread out between the top and the rest.

“For sure I feel like I’m rebuilding my reputation here, 100%. If you only look at the results my first five weekends have not been a success. But if you look a bit deeper into it, especially the, first three weekends I was one of the quickest in all three races and was going from back of the grid to top eight in all three of them.

“Obviously Long Beach I had the start incident and in the GP here crashed out after 10 laps, so the last few weekends haven’t been very good for us, but definitely I’m showing what I can do. And I’ve also shown that I can fight with all these guys in this series, so that’s been really good.”

Ericsson truly showed what he can do when it came to qualifying for the Indianapolis 500. On his first visit to the Brickyard, he qualified an impressive 13th for Sunday’s race to be the lead Schmidt Peterson Motorsport car. As proud as he is about that result, one of the more satisfying aspects of racing in IndyCar he has found so far is the knowledge that you have a shot -- even with discrepancies between teams -- at fighting for first place.

“To be honest I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about it, if I was going to feel a big difference from it, because I was so used to that F1 mindset that I had for five years. But then when I came here and started testing and started looking at who is fastest and how far we are from P1, you start thinking like that again and remember that’s why we’re doing it.

“That’s what you want to do -- you want to win. You want to be fighting for P1 or the top three and be on the podium, and that really got me going, so already in testing I was finding it really fun to be looking at P1 again and aiming for that spot.”

While Ericsson has been quietly impressing Stateside -- without the results to fully convince so far -- he knows it will take more to start changing the minds of those who watched him in F1. To that end, the Swede is aware there’s no better time or place to start than with the 500.

“This is the big one and the whole world is watching. But at the same time I’m lowering my expectations a bit for this one, because it’s my first oval race. Especially with the ovals this season my approach is to learn and try to do the maximum amount of laps and finish every race. I think that’s a healthy mindset to have at the ovals.

“We know we have a good car on the ovals, I have a great teammate in Hinch (James Hinchcliffe) who is a very strong oval racer, so I’m leaning on him and trying to learn as much as possible from him. That’s going to help me.

“If I’m out there doing everything step-by-step then we’re going to be mixing it up on ovals as well, I’m 100% sure of that. But in my very brief experience I think oval racing is all about building up that feeling and that’s how I’ll try and approach it. It’s a big one this month.”

Hinchcliffe didn’t enjoy a smooth weekend of qualifying, but he at least made the show as McLaren and Fernando Alonso failed to qualify. Far from using such a result as a stick to beat the two-time champion with, Ericsson says it just shows how unique oval racing is.

“I think having Fernando coming here in general is great for the series and interest, but then in the end oval racing is such a different thing to road and street courses. It’s almost like a different sport in a way. So I think it’s difficult to say beating him would help my reputation so much.

“That’s what I think is great about IndyCar, that you have to be such a complete driver and learn how to drive in different types of racing. I haven’t really experienced it yet so I don’t really know how the racing is on ovals, but from the testing I’ve done it feels like such a different thing.

“So I don’t think you can say, ‘Oh, he beat Alonso on an oval, he’s better than Alonso!’ It’s difficult to put it like that -- it’s a very different type of thing. But it doesn’t hurt, 100%!”

As he prepares to tackle his first Indy 500, Ericsson has an appreciation for the importance of experience in order to be successful both in Indianapolis and on ovals in general. While a return to F1 in future is an avenue he’d like to explore, it’s only one the 28-year-old would consider after giving himself the best opportunity of fighting for the biggest prizes in IndyCar.

“I haven’t closed off any doors in any direction, but I said when I came over here that I want to do it properly and not just be here for a year and go back. So I see it as a minimum two-year project, that’s how I feel it. At the moment I’m loving it -- I’m having so much fun, so I wouldn’t mind staying here for a lot more than that.

“But at the same time, having my F1 connections still with Alfa Romeo, I think that’s important and I value that a lot. So let’s see what happens in the future. I don’t want to close any doors either way, but at the moment I’m super glad to be here.

“This year is about learning, so I would be very keen to give it a shot next year when I have the experience of all the tracks and all the racing here to really see what I can do in terms of a championship challenge.”