Exclusive | Rosenqvist on the toughest teammate he’s faced: “He doesn’t really have any weaknesses”

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Photo credit: Penske Entertainment | Joe Skibinski

As highlighted in the first part of our interview with Felix Rosenqvist, he has quite the racing career so far. Starting out in Formula Renault 2.0 series he progressed to Formula 3, winning two races in the German Formula 3 Championship, before going to the European Formula 3 Championship.

In his first year (2011) he won the prestigious Masters of F3, a feat he repeated in 2013, while racking up 19 race victories and a second place in the championship in the meantime. The next two years he won the Macau Grand Prix back-to-back and bagged the FIA Formula 3 Championship with 13 victories.

In 2016 he raced in Indy Lights and several GT and touring car championships before heading to Formula E. In the electric series he collected three victories and a third place in the championship before heading to the IndyCar championship, in which he has one victory to date.

When PitDebrief.com asked the Swede what he thought was his best victory in all those years he clearly had to think about it.

“Best victory?” he replied. “That’s a good question. I have to go back into the archives. I don’t know.”

After some more internal deliberation he eventually chose his IndyCar victory from Road America in 2020.

“Maybe I’ll say Road America. Because it was a pretty cool race. I started 8th. I didn’t start at the front. I had a really good battle with Pato in the end.

“I think that’s always cool when you pass at the end of the race and it’s elbows out. You’re touching a bit. It’s kind of how you want to win it.

“Maybe I need a bit more time to think. It could be another one back in the past. But I’ll say that.”

His lengthy and diverse career has seen him pair with a lot of different teammates, with the likes of (ex) Formula 1 drivers Nick Heidfeld, Pascal Wehrlein and Lance Stroll, and of course IndyCar ace Scott Dixon during his tenure with Chip Ganassi Racing.

Photo credit: Penske Entertainment | Chris Jones

Since joining Arrow McLaren in 2021, he has teamed up with Pato O’Ward. From the beginning of this season, he’s also had Alexander Rossi as a stablemate.

Given this impressive list of teammates, it was a perhaps a bit of a surprise that Rosenqvist named his Mexican stablemate Pato O’Ward when asked who he considered to be the toughest one.

“I’d probably say Pato. I’ve been with Dixon as well. But I think Pato… Dixon is exceptionally good in the races. He’s probably the best racer I’ve had.

“But Pato is just very good. He’s extremely quick in qualifying. And he’s almost as good as Dixon in the race. He doesn’t really have any weaknesses either.

“Both of those drivers are obviously very complete. But I’d probably say Pato overall.”