By David Morgan, Associate Editor
INDIANAPOLIS – A journeyman of the NTT IndyCar Series, Felix Rosenqvist has found himself at home with Meyer Shank Racing and the relationship they have built together reached a new peak on Sunday as they won the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500.
Now in his third season driving the No. 60 MSR Honda, Rosenqvist and his team have been methodically working their way forward and now appear on the precipice of a breakout year beyond Sunday’s career-defining win in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
“This is all we needed,” said team co-owner Mike Shank. “I told these guys literally last night I felt like this group is pushing the door open and it’s getting ready to snap, we just need one thing. And I hope this is it. He deserves it. He’s had some tough luck in the past in situations like this. And he closed it today, and I couldn’t be more happy.”
Shank continued, explaining that when the team signed Rosenqvist, they just needed someone that was fast and could get the most out of their cars, even if the cars didn’t necessarily have the outright performance at that time in the team’s history.
Fast forward, three years and the decision to bring him on board is delivering in spades.
“We hired him for a very specific reason,” Shank explained. “I thought — he got pole at Laguna that year after we had hired him. I watched that in-car lap, and I told Jim we did the right thing here. He was within an inch of his life on that qually lap at Laguna that year. And that’s when I knew we had the right guy.
“Now, you just never know how relationships goes and how everyone gels or doesn’t gel, and we have a technical arrangement with another team, how that comes together. There’s so many different personalities in this. But we got everything we asked for. Everything.”
Rosenqvist said as much as he explained that MSR has become a second family to him in his time with the team and the bond they have formed together gets stronger every day.
“It’s been an incredible journey together,” said Rosenqvist. “Mike kind of touched on it before, that when he signed me, he needed someone with speed: That’s literally all I require from you is to be fast, and the rest we’ll figure out along the road. That’s kind of what it’s been.
“…honestly never, ever have they put pressure on me, which is probably the first time in any team I’ve been where let’s say you have a crash or you have a bad day, you’re almost expecting them to be — you have a bad call with your team boss or added pressure.
“But Mike and Jim, they’ve never, ever done that. I’ve had some pretty rough days with them and some really good days, but they never — every time I talk to them, they’re like, you got this, you’re great, you’re as good as any of these drivers.
“That’s what — you feel very welcomed and like inside a family when you have that relationship.”
Fast forward to Sunday and the drive that Rosenqvist was able to put on over the final lap to win only solidified the thinking that MSR and Rosenqvist are in the midst of something special.
“Just think about that, hanging on the outside here on last lap of the last turn of the Indianapolis 500, right? It just blows me — he was pushing every button on that steering wheel to get every bit of Honda power out of that thing, all the hybrid, all the — everything we have was on the track,” Shank said as he dissected Rosenqvist’s charge to the finish.
“But he was still thinking the whole time. It wasn’t just like I’m hanging on to the outside and we’ll see what happens. He knew where he was in space. He knew he had a good run on the 12 car, and it worked. And he deserves this win. He really does.”
Rosenqvist added his perspective of the move, noting that it’s still a bit of a blur to him how it all happened, but how it all happened was like something out of the movies.
“I had that momentum going, and I was kind of like, I’m going to go on the high line, and I’m not going to ruin this momentum. If someone comes in the way, that’s it,” said Rosenqvist.
“But no one did, and I was able to stay on the high lane through the whole thing, and I was getting a side draft at the same time from the other guys.
“But I thought I was second, to be honest. I was like, this is — this sucks, now we’re second in the 500. I guess it was a good day; we did what we could.
“Then it just kind of pulled, like the big Honda motor just — yeah, I thought I didn’t have it, and then I shifted up, and it was just kind of sucking up to David, and it was just enough to get me over the finish line half a foot ahead of him.
“You can’t even dream up that stuff. It was just so cool. I’ll watch it a million times.”
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