Last year's failed IndyCar title fight has points leader Marcus Ericsson ready 2023

Marcus Ericsson had a lot of time to think as he globetrotted like a full-blown superstar this offseason.

Countless flights between quiet trips to Napa, the Cayman Islands and New York City; visits to friends and family in Sweden and Denmark; appearances at Supercross (Angel Stadium), F1 (COTA and Abu Dhabi), NHL (Rangers) and Indianapolis (Colts and Fuel) sporting events; and trips to his native Sweden that featured fashion magazine photo shoots, talk show appearances, award shows and his own parade in his hometown will do that to you.

So, too, will leading a major racing championship title fight for the first time in well over a decade for nearly two months, as Ericsson did last summer after winning the Indianapolis 500. Ericsson realized this offseason that leading a championship, which he’d never done in his combined 13 seasons across IndyCar, Formula 1 and GP2, caught him a little off-guard.

The demanding schedule bestowed upon the latest 500 winner? Ericsson thrived in that spotlight. Put him in a tux on a red carpet and that’s where the Swedish driver thrives. Leading the points battle in a series like IndyCar was new, and as he admitted this week in an interview with IndyStar, he didn’t always handle it the best.

“I know now that I started to look at the championship and not so much every individual race itself, and that’s something I want to do differently this year,” Ericsson said. “Of course you shouldn’t take unnecessary risks – especially if you’re leading (the title fight) – but in a series like IndyCar, you can’t race the championship. You have to race every race on its own.

“Hopefully, that’ll help me this year.”

He’ll find out Sunday. Ericsson's the early points leader after inheriting a late lead and win from Pato O’Ward on the streets of St. Pete in IndyCar’s March 5 season-opener when the Arrow McLaren driver suffered a brief mechanical hiccup. Even now, it’s an unfamiliar position for Ericsson, who’d never finished higher than 8^th in a season-opening race since before his GP2 days. He heads to Dallas-Fort Worth for IndyCar’s 250-lap race at Texas Motor Speedway, not only with a target on his back but a far more accomplished oval driver than this time a year ago – before his first oval podium he grabbed at Texas in 2022 and, of course, before his first oval win two months later.

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With an early stretch of the schedule that would seem to favor him based off of 2022 – 3^rd at Texas, running 3^rd late at Long Beach before a crash, 4^th on the IMS road course and a win in the 500 – Ericsson said he’s doing his best to channel those late-season lessons from a year ago. Succeed, and he could emerge from the chaotic Month of May – whether he defends his 500 win or not, given the lack of double-points – even better-positioned than last season. After a year in which he appeared to be a serious challenger -- until he fell off into the same 6^th-place spot he’d finished the year before -- Ericsson’s ups and downs from 2022 could prove meaningful.

“We’ve definitely had good speed at these tracks, so that gives you some confidence, but it also sets some expectations. I feel like we should be right in the mix now,” Ericsson said of his title aspirations. “Those points you can score at the beginning of the season can be so important in the end. You shouldn’t ever look back too much, but I know last year, when we were on that push for the championship, the points we lost in Long Beach, at St. Pete – those would’ve been really nice to have in the end.”

Those points Ericsson was referring to? A chunk of more than 30 that could’ve painted a far different picture as he and his No. 8 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda crew began to stagger a bit late last season. In St. Pete, Ericsson was penalized for contact with another car in pit lane – one he contends was questionable – and after having been running just behind eventual 3^rd- and 4^th-place finishers Will Power and Colton Herta, he was dropped to the back of the field on the race’s first restart, in 25^th. He managed to claw back to 9^th by the checkered flag.

In Long Beach, the 32-year-old was sitting 3^rd for a possible podium before Ericsson made an unforced error and brushed the wall, a split-second lapse in focus that ended his day and lost him easily more than 20 points alone. Give him 5^th instead of 9^th (St. Pete) and 4^th instead of 22^nd (Long Beach), and even after letdowns of 11^th and 14^th on the IMS road course and Nashville in August late last season, he’s still the front-runner with a 20-point pad on eventual champion Power with three races to go. Perhaps the No. 8 crew still finishes a somewhat disappointing 7^th, 11^th and 9^th at WWT Raceway, Portland and Laguna Seca to sink like a brick in the standings once the lead was lost.

Maybe they regroup and make a valiant charge to the end. We’ll never know.

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Ericsson also points to a four-race stretch in the middle of the summer – Mid-Ohio, Toronto and the doubleheader weekend at Iowa – as a stretch in the calendar that proved, in hindsight, that the No. 8 crew was just a hair off. With Ericsson comfortably ahead but still in his sights, Power overcame letdowns at Road America (19^th) and Toronto (15^th) to make serious dents in his deficit to his Ganassi challenger. Though Ericsson snatched the points lead back from Power at Road America for a 27-point advantage – and bumped it up to 35 after Toronto – the Penske driver had whittled it down to eight leaving Iowa.

With his 7^th of 9 podiums on the year at the IMS road course the next time out, Power assumed the lead and never looked back.

“I don’t think there’s a specific moment or situation where I should’ve done anything different (while leading the points race last year). Those results were solid. But in all of them, there was more there that could’ve been gotten for us,” Ericsson said of his 2022 summer performance. “I learned that it’s about maximizing and getting the most out of each weekend, and I think last year I was looking too much at the championship table.

“We also lost a little competitiveness at the end of the year, and that hurt us as a whole team, but I know we’re always trying to improve and be better. We saw that if everyone can find a percent or two of improvement, you put that together, and you can take some great steps.”

In looking back, too, Ericsson is reminded of a near-pole he had the last time out on an oval at WWT Raceway and realizes just how far he’s come as a European driver that grew up with a sole focus on Formula 1 and who’d never stepped into a racecar on an oval until four years ago. It was at Texas in 2022 that rumblings of the Swede being a title contender and a dark horse 500 challenger emerged, too.

As a whole, Ericsson says, 2022 was a campaign that delivered growth and just the right combination of success and letdowns that he feels has him primed to take that next step his crazed band of Swedish fans have been waiting for.

“With all of this said, that was the first time I’d ever gotten a chance to lead a championship in like 12 years,” Ericsson said. “So I’d like to think I learned some stuff along the way from that experience. It’s going to make me stronger in the end this year.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: Marcus Ericsson heads to Texas ready for 2023 title fight