Marcus Ericsson logged his best ever oval result last week at Texas Motor Speedway, finishing on the podium for the first time outside of road and street courses.
It wasn’t an easy drive at the front of the pack either, as the Swedish driver had to work his way up from a 14th place starting position to earn his third place finish.
After the race, Ericsson acknowledged the hard work that he and his Chip Ganassi Racing team put in during the offseason that helped him to put his four years of experience to good use.
“Ever since I came to IndyCar, I’ve enjoyed ovals,” said Ericsson. “There’s been a lot to learn coming from European racing, no oval experience. It’s been a quite steep learning curve.
“That was one of the big areas that we focused on in the off-season this year, to really analyze, for me to look at lots of data, onboards, trying to understand oval racing better so I could get some more results on the ovals.
“If you look at the championship last year on road and street, I think I was second or third in that championship, but on ovals 12th or 13th. It’s an area we’ve been focusing on this season.
“To get to the first oval of the year, get my first podium on the oval, I think shows all that work that I and my engineer and the rest of the #8 car group, Dario [Franchitti], all the work we put in is paying off.
“Last year Helio [Castroneves] winning the [Indy] 500, all these experienced guys, they are strong on the ovals. It’s not by coincidence. I think experience is very important on the ovals.
“This is my fourth year, I cannot blame inexperience too much anymore. It’s time to step it up and I think I’ve done that.”
The next oval race on the IndyCar schedule, and the next major event on Ericsson’s radar, is the Indy 500, which takes place on May 29.
