IndyCar: 5 possible landing spots for Marcus Ericsson in 2024
By Asher Fair
Marcus Ericsson IndyCar landing spots: No. 3 – Andretti Autosport
Andretti Autosport have made a driver change after each of the last four seasons, and that streak is set to extend to five this offseason. Devlin DeFrancesco is undoubtedly in his final season behind the wheel of the No. 29 Honda for Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport.
The Andretti team’s sponsors and partners have recently made clear that they are willing to sacrifice a pay driver for one who is capable of earning good results.
There were even rumors of DeFrancesco being ousted before this year’s Indy 500. He has just three career finishes in the top half of the field and has never finished higher than 12th place.
Here’s an interesting statistic. The Steinbrenner car scored as many top 11 finishes in the 2020 season finale alone as it has in every race since. Read that twice. Marcus Ericsson, on the other hand, has a single finish lower than 11th place in the last 15 races and just two in the last 25.
Andretti Autosport obviously have a lot of confidence in the Road to Indy ladder, with Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood both being race winners whom the team can build around, and signing Ericsson wouldn’t necessarily be reflective of that approach.
But it wouldn’t necessarily contradict their overall approach either, given the fact that they signed Romain Grosjean last year.
Like Grosjean, who himself could still be replaced for 2024 (by Ericsson, perhaps?), Ericsson is a former Formula 1 driver, and he is a few years younger — with quite a bit more success in IndyCar since coming over to North America to his name.
What this team is currently lacking is stability. This is still a top-tier team with top-tier speed. What they don’t have is top-tier execution. If anybody can change that, it’s the driver who has been arguably the most consistent driver on the grid since securing his first career win on Belle Isle two years ago.