St. Pete victor Marcus Ericsson: 'I'm here to win ... What others say doesn't really matter'

As the old racing adage goes “to finish first, you must first finish”.

That's absolutely what Marcus Ericsson did in Sunday's 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season-opening race on Florida's Streets of St. Petersburg temporary street course layout.

While other contenders crashed or experienced mechanical issues, Ericsson managed to stay clear of trouble and score the fourth victory of his career.

Starting fourth, the Swedish driver was already in an excellent position to win before the green flag even waved. But thanks in part to the misfortunes of others, he had somewhat of an easier path to victory.

Polesitter Romain Grosjean and 2022 St. Petersburg winner Scott McLaughlin combined to lead the majority of the race. However, the two drivers would make contact on lap 74 while dueling for the lead, ending Grosjean's day and preventing McLaughlin, who was able to continue on, from taking the checkered flag at St. Pete for the second year in a row.

Pato O’Ward took the lead as a result of the Grosjean-McLaughlin dust-up and was able to build a 2.8-second gap over Ericsson. It almost began to look like O’Ward was going to be able to easily bring it home for his first win of the year.

But O’Ward will have to wait for his day to come. Near the end of lap 97, his car suddenly slowed with a plenum problem, giving the lead - and win - to Ericsson.

“Right at the exit, we kind of lost drive and gained it back,” O’Ward said. “We were lucky not to get passed by Scott [Dixon]. I don't know what else to tell you. It's very unfortunate.”

With his win, Ericsson has now been victorious in IndyCar competition for the third straight year. His first victory came at Detroit in 2021. Later that year, he won in spectacular fashion at Nashville after going airborne in a crash-filled event. And of course, he won the 106th running of the Indy 500 last May.

One common factor that each of these races has in common is the fact that they all featured red flags due to accidents.

But make no mistake, Ericsson doesn’t just luck into wins.

“It seems whatever I do, people are thinking maybe I don't deserve it or stuff like that,” Ericsson said. “I don't know, I won a lot of races, four races now in IndyCar, and been at the top of the championship the last couple years, so I'm just going to keep to that.

“Obviously today I didn't want Pato to have a problem, but from what I heard the problem was because we were putting pressure on and they did a mistake or he did a mistake. And that's when these things can happen.

"I felt bad for Pato, but we're there to pick up on it. If I wasn't putting pressure on him and hunt him down, he would have been fine and we would have been second. But we were there right on his gearbox, and we got past.”

Despite the extra help with O’Ward’s issue, Ericsson still said he was ready to “have a go at it” with O'Ward in the closing laps. Ericsson was still catching up to O’Ward in the closing laps and had more Push-to-Pass remaining.

Ericsson acknowledged he may have naysayers believing he just keeps lucking into wins. But he’s still willing to defend his talent.

“I'm here to win,” Ericsson said. “I want to win a championship. I want to win another 500. That's our goals, and what other people say doesn't really matter.

"But I think we've proven last year and the year before that we can be upfront and run, fighting for a championship. We just need to keep doing that, and what people say, I don't really mind too much.

“Yeah, it will be an interesting year.”