The turnaround was really important for the 33-year-old Swedish racer after a tough time in May. He had a bad crash in practice and then another crash at the start of the big Indianapolis 500 race.
Moving to the small and tricky 1.645-mile street track in Detroit, Ericsson, who joined Andretti Global this year, had only managed one top 15 finish in the first five races.
“It was a really tough month of May,” Ericsson said. “We had a tough start to the season, especially in St. Pete and Long Beach. We were fast, but we didn’t get the results we deserved. So, coming into this weekend after May, it was really tough mentally. But we all talked and decided to reset and start fresh for this race.”
Starting from ninth place, Ericsson managed to avoid the chaos on the track, which led to eight caution periods during the race. He only stopped twice and was making a strong comeback in the final laps to challenge for the win.
On the last restart with 25 laps to go, he moved up to second place, passing his teammate Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Armstrong from Chip Ganassi Racing.
“I felt the car was really good with 15 laps to go,” Ericsson said. “I had no worries about fuel. I could push hard and I could see the leaders up ahead. But Scott Dixon is really good at saving fuel and keeping up the pace. It was tough to catch him. Armstrong also put up a great fight. Maybe with one more lap, things could have been different. But we’re happy with second place today. We gave it our all.”
The top four finishers, including Dixon, Ericsson, Armstrong, and Kirkwood, also gave a big win to Honda. It was a great response after Chevrolet had dominated the Indy 500 and the qualifying sessions.
“It felt good to do well here,” Ericsson said. “Honda worked hard this weekend, and we managed to get a fantastic result. This 1-2-3-4 finish couldn’t have been better for us.”
