Marcus Ericsson, the 2022 Indianapolis 500 winner, fought back tears after finishing second in Sunday’s race, tormented by the decisive late-race pass by eventual winner Alex Palou.
“It’s going to keep me up at night how I played that last stint with those lapped cars,” the driver of Andretti Global’s No. 28 Allegra Honda said. “What could I have done different? What should I have done different?”
With 13 laps remaining, Ericsson held the lead over his former Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Palou, with more fuel in reserve. However, as Ericsson approached Turn 1 while trailing the nearly lapped cars of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Devlin DeFrancesco and rookie Louis Foster, Palou seized the opportunity to make what turned out to be the winning move.
“I gave it everything, and I tried my everything – I tried my best, of course,” Ericsson said, his voice crackling with emotion. “But I had that lead. If I had been second after that last (pit) stop and was (still) running second, then fine. But I had that lead! I had that race! And I lost it.”
Ericsson said he never had a clear chance to regain the lead, as the dirty air flowing behind DeFrancesco and Foster made handling difficult for the trailing cars. He recalled one “half-opportunity” to split the RLL cars when they exited the pits for their final stop but opted not to take it, partly due to his seven-lap fuel advantage over Palou and the fact that there were still 15 laps to go.
Since 2020, six drivers have held the lead at Indy with less than 10 laps remaining but failed to win, including Ericsson in 2023 when Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden passed him on the final lap. Ericsson thought he’d add Palou to that list in this race.
“I had those lap cars ahead, and I was struggling a little bit in the dirty air,” he said. “Alex got kind of a run on me, but I thought he wasn’t going to go for it, and that’s the thing that’s going to keep me up at night for a while – that moment and what I did and didn’t do.”
Ericsson expects to replay the moment “a million times” in his head. Despite starting ninth and facing setbacks, including a slow second pit stop that dropped him to 24th, Ericsson delivered his fastest lap of the race on Lap 67 and joined the contending conversation once he stretched his fuel to his final stop on Lap 175.
With his second runner-up finish in the past three “500s,” Ericsson knows he was close to joining the exclusive group of 10 drivers who have won the race three or more times.
“I’m that close to being a three-time winner, and I have (only) one win,” he said. “It’s a small margin. But it also shows I’m pretty good around this place. I’m proud of that, and it shows I show up here every year.”
