RACING LINES
Damien Smith
Marcus Ericsson looked sick and ashen. There’s nothing much worse in motorsport than finishing second in the Indianapolis 500, and the Swede had just done so for the second time in three years.
The ex-Formula 1 driver at least has an Indy 500 win to his name, scored in 2022 for Chip Ganassi. But this time, now with Andretti, he looked odds-on to become a two-time winner of the so-called ‘greatest spectacle in racing’ as the race entered its final stages. He would have finished first on the road, too, had he been up against just about anyone other than the guy who beat him: Álex Palou, the Spanish king of Indycar.
PALOU WINS CLEVER
A rain delay and a seemingly endless string of incidents made this a chaotic Indy 500, especially in its first half. Then in the final quarter, offset fuel strategies were converging – and it was all looking good for Ericsson. He returned to the lead from his final pitstop ahead of Palou with fresher Firestones and without a need to worry about fuel consumption. In contrast, Palou was given a strict target number to hit by his engineer over the radio if he wanted to make the finish. “No problem,” he replied, with a cool confidence that carried eerie echoes of Michael Schumacher in his pomp.