Photo credit: Indycar.com/James Black
A week after finishing 1-2 at Indianapolis, Josef Newgarden and Marcus Ericsson were again right beside each other on the results at Detroit. The Indy 500 winner qualified fifth ahead of Ericsson in sixth, but both fell down the order by the end with Ericsson taking the checkers in 9th ahead of Newgarden in 10th.
Newgarden’s day was derailed by an issue with the refuelling rig on his first pit stop, and found himself being outmuscled at times on the street circuit.
“It got a little rough out there at times and we were on the receiving end of it, but you’ll have that on a street course. That stuff always comes back on you, like it did later in the race.”
The latter remark seemed to be a dig at Romain Grosjean, who made contact with Newgarden earlier in the race before the Frenchman crashed out with twenty laps to go. Despite only just making it into the top ten at Detroit, Newgarden still moved up to third in points after Pato O’Ward crashed out.
As for Ericsson, his race was also marked by contact and victimized by pit issues. In his case, it was an unexpectedly short run for the alternate tires that he had started on.
“We did a really good start, overtook a couple of cars in the start, settled in nicely in fifth. Suddenly—one lap the tires were just gone. Completely gone. Which was weird, this morning we did a long run on the green, had no tire wear. It was really, really strange, caught us off guard.”
The result was a three-stop race for Ericsson, but, helped along by late caution periods, he still managed to work his way back for a top-ten finish, and remains second in points, optimistic that he can gain ground on teammate Alex Palou.
“We’re in the hunt, we’re P2. I’m excited.”
Both drivers gave passing grades to the new circuit, with Ericsson calling it “fun” while Newgarden remarked that “[t]here will be key learnings that are taken away to make it better for the future, but everyone involved should be thrilled with how the first year came off.”
