Marcus Ericsson wonders how many wins he has to earn before people will take him seriously.
Last year’s Indianapolis 500 winner came from Formula 1 where he spent five seasons between Caterham (2014) and Alfa Romeo (2015-2018) through its various guises.
In that time, he never took a win or a podium. However, his shift to the IndyCar Series – where all cars theoretically have equal opportunity to win – has borne fruit.
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From his four seasons to date, Ericsson has won four races and been a podium finisher on seven occasions.
After winning the 2022 Indianapolis 500, the Swede took the lead of the IndyCar Series and held that spot until late in the season before falling just short of the title.
His latest victory, the season-opener on the streets of St Petersburg, has him atop the pile again.
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There are, however, still some doubters.
“I’m here to win, I want to win a championship, I want to win another 500, that’s our goals, and what other people say doesn’t really matter,” said Ericsson.
“But I think we’ve proven last year and the year before that we can be up the front and run, fighting for a championship.
“We just need to keep doing that, and what people say, I don’t really mind too much.”
Ericsson’s win in the first race came after Pato O’Ward suffered an engine issue with just a few laps remaining that forced him to surrender the lead.
All but his Indianapolis 500 win came in circumstances where others around him crashed out – but as the saying goes; to finish first, first you have to finish.
“It seems whatever I do, people are thinking maybe I don’t deserve it or stuff like that,” he added.
“I don’t know, I won a lot of races, four races now in IndyCar, and been at the top of the championship the last couple years, so I’m just going to keep to that.
“Obviously I didn’t want Pato to have a problem, but from what I heard the problem was because we were putting pressure on and they did a mistake or he did a mistake.
“That’s when these things can happen. I felt bad for Pato, but we were there to pick up on it.
“If I wasn’t putting pressure on him and hunt him down, he would have been fine and we would have been second, but we were there right on his gearbox, and we got past.
“I think we deserved to win,” he added.
“We did a great weekend. We were there when they had an issue, did a mistake or whatever that was to happen.
“Like I said, if he had that two-second gap that he got after the restart, he could have had that issue and he would have won anyway because he only lost half a second or something.
“But we were right on his gearbox and that’s why we could get by. That’s racing. Things happen. That’s why you need to be there until the end.
“I feel a bit bad for him, but I still think we deserved that win.”
The 2023 IndyCar Series continues on April 2-3 at Texas Motor Speedway, with practice, qualifying, and the 250-lap race all live, ad-free, and exclusively on Stan Sport.
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