After a rough first season with Andretti Global following a high-profile move from Chip Ganassi Racing after the 2023 IndyCar season, the year in which a contingent of fans still insist he won his second consecutive Indy 500, Marcus Ericsson entered 2025 aiming to turn things around.
He dedicated extra time over the offseason to the mental side of the sport, ever-so-crucial with how competitive the series has become, and it appeared to be paying off right from the get-go, with a sixth place finish in the season opener on the streets of St. Petersburg.
Though Ericsson is said to be signed to drive the No. 28 Honda through at least next year, the fact that he hasn't finished in the top 10 in the four-and-a-half months that have followed has led to speculation that he may be replaced. We all know how much the words "under contract" mean in this sport.
On some level, you can understand the criticism. Andretti Global, even with no championships since 2012, are still undoubtedly one of the sport's top four teams, teams that have at least a podium shot on any given weekend.
They are second this season with three wins, trailing only Ganassi's eight, and Kyle Kirkwood has won three times just one year after Colton Herta quietly finished second in points with two wins of his own.
But ever since Ericsson came over from Formula 1, won the Indy 500 in his fourth attempt in 2022, and nearly won it again in 2023 following a controversial never-before-seen pit-to-restart sequence on the white flag lap, there has been a growing sense of criticism when he hasn't performed.
He hasn't won a race since the 2023 opener in St. Pete, when a fluke plenum fire event hampered a seemingly surefire win for Pato O'Ward, the same driver he held off to win the 2022 edition of the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing".
His career win tally has been stuck at four, ironically all in races that were red-flagged late, and he is sitting 20th in the point standings while teammates Kirkwood and Herta are fourth and ninth, respectively.
There are several elements to this equation, however, that are being ignored.
Ericsson is still one of the best, if not the best, top-to-bottom driver at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and though it might not be convenient to admit at times, the Indy 500 itself is bigger than IndyCar. His month of May last year was disastrous from start to finish, yet he reminded everybody of what he is capable of this time around.
He was in position to win this year's Indy 500 before Alex Palou did what Alex Palou does and made the move of his career with 14 laps remaining. Ericsson had wasted no time working his way to the front early and battling back following a bad pit sequence to position himself for his third (sorry; second) Indy 500 win in four years.
Then after another heartbreaking runner-up finish, IndyCar dodged a major bullet. Had Ericsson won, it wouldn't have counted, and Mario Andretti may have had company in terms of wearing an Indy 500 ring in a year he didn't officially win.
On Monday after the race, Ericsson was effectively disqualified, as was Kirkwood (Prema Racing's Callum Ilott as well) following the discovery of violations in post-race technical inspection. He was classified in 31st place instead of second, and he was scored accordingly.
Ericsson is indeed having a miserable season. But considering the fact that, had he not been removed from the Indy 500 results, he'd only be five points behind Josef Newgarden for 14th in the standings, it helps to keep things in perspective, for those willing to listen.
Is anyone calling for Newgarden's seat to be vacated?
Sure, Team Penske have had a disastrous year, and Newgarden has been snakebitten on more than one occasion. But aside from his Indy 500 victories in 2023 (controversy aside; in and of himself, he did absolutely nothing wrong), he has been trending downward for the last several seasons.
His only non-Indy 500 win since the 2023 Iowa doubleheader came after he spun out and nearly wrecked himself at Gateway last summer. And while Penske's 2025 season hasn't gone according to plan, they've still had contending speed at more venues than not.
They are still, on paper, a superior team to Andretti. A string of missed opportunities, no matter how bizarre in nature (and boy, have they ever been...) doesn't change that.
And as ludicrous as it sounds, Penske have replaced drivers for much less. One year after Juan Pablo Montoya won the Indy 500 and lost out on the championship to the great Scott Dixon on a tiebreaker, he added another win and finished in eighth in the standings, only to be replaced (by Newgarden). That, mind you, was when Team Penske still ran four cars, not three.
Yet Newgarden, unless he decides to abruptly retire, isn't at risk of losing his ride. And nobody is suggesting he should be.
So why all the calls for Ericsson to be replaced?
Even when you note his incredible track record at Indy, some IndyCar fans will suggest that it's "not good for the sport" for someone like Ericsson, who has not had much success elsewhere in recent years, to be contending for Indy 500 wins, so the fact that he is only 20th in points for a top team should be writing on the wall.
As much as I'm firmly in the camp that any top IndyCar driver can compete with any top F1 driver any day of the week (and quite frankly, this isn't even the debate that certain F1 elitists think it is), let's not kid ourselves: another way of framing that criticism is "we can't stand ex-F1 drivers having success in America", especially those who couldn't cut it overseas.
That's the reality of it, whether you want to admit it or not. Think about it; there are plenty of other drivers, Conor Daly for one, who are always contenders at Indy, but rarely run top 10 elsewhere, and yet you never hear a peep from anybody about how their Indy 500 success is supposedly not good for the Indy 500 or IndyCar as a whole.
In IndyCar, you're judged on how you perform on a "what have you done for me lately?" basis. It's no secret that Ericsson's performance lately hasn't been the best.
But Andretti Global have kept far weaker drivers around for far longer than they should have, even lately. And if they cut ties with Ericsson, they are effectively gifting a rival team a massive boost to win an Indy 500, and seeing as how Andretti themselves haven't won the race since winning three of four from 2014 to 2017 (with two F1 castoffs, by the way), this would be massively ill-advised.
Speaking of those F1 castoffs, a similar scenario played out with Takuma Sato. Sato, knowing the team were considering a switch to Chevrolet from Honda, left for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing after winning the 2017 Indy 500. Within three years, he made Andretti pay for their mistake, registering a third place finish and another Indy 500 win in the process.
But I guess with only four career wins outside of Indy and multiple multi-year win droughts, his success at Indy "isn't good for the sport".
Maybe Andretti Global will decide it's time to move on from Ericsson after 2025. Maybe they'll go after one of the many pending free agents, or perhaps promote standout Dennis Hauger from their Indy NXT team. Or maybe they will dig a little bit deeper, beyond Ericsson's current position in the point standings, to determine that that decision, after just two years, could come back to haunt them.