Barhorst and Ericsson partnership off to a promising start for Andretti

Andretti Global has earned IndyCar championships and Indy 500 wins with an array of high-profile race engineers, and on Saturday at Arlington, one of the team’s longstanding engineers earned his day in the sun as Ron Barhorst and Marcus Ericsson combined to take pole position with the No. 28 Honda.

Barhorst has been with Andretti for many years and gone back and forth between deployments. He spent quality seasons in engineering support roles on the IndyCar side, was promoted to race engineer for the team in Indy NXT, called up to IndyCar as race engineer for former driver Devlin DeFrancesco in 2024, and returned to NXT in 2025.

With his shift back to the big team as Ericsson’s new race engineer for 2026, Barhorst got his first real shot with an elite veteran, and he and the Swede have made a swift connection that’s produced a second-place start at St. Petersburg and now pole at the Java House Grand Prix of Arlington.

It’s only three events in for the pairing, but so far, two front-row starts say that Barhorst is unlocking something in his driver that hasn’t been seen since Ericsson’s finer days at Chip Ganassi Racing. For Ericsson, the collaboration has clearly shown the rest of the paddock that Barhorst was ready to shine and just needed a partner who could make full use of his technical talents.

Ericsson and Barhorst (background) have quickly formed a strong partnership. Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment

“Ron has come in and done a really good job,” Ericsson said. “I got the feeling straight away with Ron that he's got a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He's been in IndyCar and then last year he was in Indy NXT and now he gets this opportunity to be back in IndyCar, and he really has been putting a lot of work in. We've hit it off really well. Testing went really well, and St. Pete we were really strong all weekend, and I think we should have been on the podium there. I think today was a good showing on how good Ron has been.”

The four-time race winner, who owns three street course victories along with the grand triumph at the 2022 Indy 500, loved Barhorst’s aggressive approach to the run for pole.

“We started off qualifying, the car was really loose,” Ericsson said. “I was struggling. I was just barely through to the Fast 12. Then Ron did quite a few changes, and from my feedback he did quite a few big changes that you normally don't do in a qualifying session, and it really put the car in the window for me. So I was a lot more happy in Fast 12.

“Then we did a couple more tweaks for Fast Six and then off we went and got the pole. Huge shout out to Ron and also the other people on the 28 stand and everyone else that's on the 28 crew.”

Ericsson’s No. 28 team has been the one to beat for fastest average pit stop times this season, which speaks to the vast year-to-year improvement being demonstrated across the car.

“They've done a really good job,” he continued. “And when we're walking about the crew, my pit crew is No. 1 so far after two weekends, so they've done a ton of work, as well, in the off-season. Again, that shows it's a team effort. It's not one guy that goes out and puts a pole up. It's a team effort, and I think the 28 crew and everyone in it has done a really good job to start off the season.”