Marcus Ericsson Tag

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer The season opener of the NTT IndyCar Series saw a lot of action that resulted in six retirements, notably in the first 30 laps that took out some of the heavy favorites in the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in Florida. One of the major storylines heading into the 110-lap contest was the struggles of two-time St. Pete winner Sebastien Bourdais, who was eyeing on a three-peat at the 1.8-mile circuit. His bid for a three-peat was already facing multiple roadblocks. Not only he hadRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG — With only a 10 race window to maximize his opportunities, Jack Harvey put himself right in qualifying for the 2019 NTT IndyCar Series season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg by going seventh quickest in knockout qualifying. The No. 60 SiriusXM/AutoNation Honda advanced out of the first round of qualifying with the sixth fastest time. In the second round of qualifying, Harvey tried as he might but his best lap of 1 minute, 0.9531 seconds was not enough to get him to theRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG — Friday for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg had many interesting happenings across all the INDYCAR system so let’s take a look from the top down. In the NTT IndyCar Series practice sessions, Felix Rosenqvist led the first session in his first race for Chip Ganassi Racing in the No. 10 NTT Data Honda. The Swede was ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay in the first session but Hunter-Reay’s No. 28 Andretti Autosports DHL Honda led the second session. What’s more odd is thatRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Editor’s note: Motorsports Tribune will be previewing the NTT IndyCar Series season for the full-time drivers in the series leading into the 2019 season opener at St. Petersburg on March 10. Age: 28 Team: ARROW Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Years in IndyCar: Rookie Previous Series: Formula One (2014-18) “I wanted to stay in the highest possible category of racing and for me outside of Formula One, that’s IndyCar,” Marcus Ericsson on making the leap across the pond to run the NTT IndyCar Series in 2019. After five seasonsRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer What’s already been a dynamic off-season in the NTT IndyCar Series, one storyline that’s going to be quite the tale is the Rookie of the Year battle, consisting of five full-time drivers, two more from last season, all with something to prove. Each have their own tales, with some coming out of the world of Formula One, a re-branded squad featuring Indy Lights alumnus and another that’s given the biggest opportunity of his racing career. This crop of rookies have the potential of providing an intenseRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer Eight months ago today, James Hinchcliffe climbed from his No. 5 Arrow Electronics Honda, dejected after failing to qualify for the 102nd Running of the Indianapolis 500. With crew members, photographers and television cameras nearby, the Canadian had to come to terms with what must’ve been a completely alien concept to him heading into the month of May. After all, Hinchcliffe won the pole for the 2016 Indianapolis 500 and was fifth in points following the INDYCAR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.Read More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton took the 82nd pole position of his career with fastest lap in qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix, the Mercedes driver edging Sebastian Vettel by just under a tenths of a second. Vettel hit trouble during the session, however, being summoned to the stewards’ room following an mid session incident at the weighbridge. Race officials called the Ferrari driver to the weighbridge during Q2 but according to FIA Technical Delegate Jo Bauer’s report “the driver of car number 05, when called for weighing, refused to turn offRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer Schmidt Peterson Motorsports today confirmed that Alfa Romeo Sauber Formula One driver Marcus Ericsson will join the team in the No. 7 Honda entry for the 2019 IndyCar season. Ericsson will partner James Hinchcliffe at SPM while Robert Wickens is recovering from his August incident at Pocono Raceway. Ericsson has 95 Formula One starts, recently finishing ninth at the Mexican Grand Prix. The 28-year-old Swedish driver will leave Sauber’s racing efforts after the 2018 Formula One season, with team deciding to use Antonio Giovinazzi and KimiRead More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes one-two in the opening practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix finishing half a second clear of team-mate Valtteri Bottas and almost seven tenths of a second ahead of the third-placed Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo. Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen and championship challenger Sebastian Vettel finished the session in fourth and fifth places, but both set their best times using the supersoft Pirelli compound, while Hamilton session-best time of 1:28.691s was delivered on soft tyres. Vettel ended the session just under a second offRead More

By FIA Hamilton, who comes into this weekend carrying a 40-point championship lead over chief rival Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari, posted a time of 1:33.584 a third of the way through the session after bolting on a set of hypersoft compound tyres as the field set about qualifying simulations. The Briton’s time saw him finish 0.199s ahead of Bottas. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was third fastest at the Sochi Autodrom, with the Dutch driver recording a best time of 1:33.827. That left him just under two hundredths of a secondRead More