Marcus Ericsson Stats: 5 Wins, an Indy 500 and a Comeback
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Driver Spotlight - where we pull one driver into the garage, look under the hood at their career, and tell you what makes them tick. This week: the Swede who left Formula 1 with zero podiums and became an Indianapolis 500 winner.
The Short Version
The Marcus Ericsson stats tell a second-act story: 132 IndyCar starts, 5 wins, 13 podiums, 1 pole and the 2022 Indianapolis 500. He came over from Formula 1 in 2019 after five seasons and 97 grand prix starts without a podium. In IndyCar he won within three years. Then came a 63-race dry spell, and in 2026 he finally broke it at Markham, finished seventh in points and earned a fourth season with Andretti Global.
From Kumla to Formula 1
Marcus Ericsson was born on September 2, 1990, in Kumla, Sweden. He started karting at nine, and in 2006 he picked up a famous backer: Kenny Bräck, the 1999 Indianapolis 500 winner, who saw him race in Gothenburg and helped get him a seat in British Formula BMW. Ericsson won that title in 2007, then won the Japanese Formula 3 championship in 2009.
He climbed through GP2, winning at Spa in 2012 and in Germany in 2013, and reached Formula 1 with Caterham in 2014. The team went into administration before the season ended. He moved to Sauber for 2015 and scored points in his first race with them, an eighth place in Australia. Over five seasons he made 97 grand prix starts, mostly in cars that were fighting at the back. When Sauber replaced him for 2019, he went looking for a place where he could actually win.
A Second Career in IndyCar
That place was IndyCar. Ericsson signed with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports for 2019 and finished second in a Detroit race as a rookie. He was 17th in points, a fair first year for a driver who had never raced on an oval.
The move to Chip Ganassi Racing in 2020 changed everything. After a quiet first year there, 2021 was the breakout. He won the first race of the Detroit doubleheader after leader Will Power's car would not restart following a late red flag, then won again at the first-ever Nashville street race. He finished sixth in the championship with 435 points. After a decade of chasing midfield results, he was a race winner.
Marcus Ericsson Stats by Season
Here is the whole IndyCar career on one card. The three straight sixth-place finishes at Ganassi stand out, and so does how far the numbers fell in 2024 and 2025 before the bounce back this year.
The 2022 Indianapolis 500
Ericsson started fifth in the 2022 Indy 500, wearing a helmet painted to honor Swedish Formula 1 legend Ronnie Peterson. He took control late and then had to survive a red flag and one last restart with Pato O'Ward right behind him. He held O'Ward off and won under caution.
That made him only the second Swede to win the 500, after Bräck in 1999, the same man who had backed him as a teenager. The win also put him in the championship lead for the first time. He finished the year sixth with 506 points, the best total of his career.
So Close at Indy, Twice More
He opened 2023 by winning the season opener at St. Petersburg. Then he came within one lap of back-to-back Indy 500 wins, losing the lead to Josef Newgarden on the final lap and finishing second. He was sixth in points for the third year in a row.
For 2024 he moved to Andretti and the numbers dropped hard. He was 15th in points in 2024 and 20th in 2025. The 2025 Indy 500 summed it up. He crossed the line second behind Alex Palou, but his car failed post-race technical inspection, and INDYCAR moved him to the back of the order. He was credited with 31st. By then he had gone more than two full seasons without a win.
2026: The Drought Ends
This season was the comeback. At the first-ever race in Arlington in March, Ericsson won his first career IndyCar pole in his 117th start, then finished fourth. In June he took second at World Wide Technology Raceway, his first podium of the year.
On August 16 at the first race on the new Markham street circuit in Ontario, the team gambled on staying out longer than everyone else, then pitted him on lap 69 of 90. He came out seventh on the faster car, carved back through the field and passed Romain Grosjean late to win going away. It was his fifth IndyCar win, his first with Andretti and his first in 63 races. It came ten days after the team confirmed him for a fourth season.
The drought is OVER pic.twitter.com/dZge0w7dMA
- NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) August 16, 2026
He finished the year seventh with 429 points, 4 top-five finishes, 12 top 10s and 153 laps led. That is his best championship finish since 2023.
The Bottom Line
Marcus Ericsson left Formula 1 without a podium and has since won the Indianapolis 500, four other IndyCar races and a pole. The two bad years at Andretti made people wonder if his best days were gone. 2026 answered that, and he heads into 2027 as a winner again.
Shop IndyCar Gear
Ericsson has started the Indianapolis 500 eight times and won it once. Celebrate the biggest race in the world with real Indy 500 gear, in stock right now:
- 109th Indianapolis 500 Back Home Again Tee - from the 2025 race, where Ericsson crossed the line second.
- 109th Indianapolis 500 Car Flag Tee
- Indianapolis 500 Snake Pit Tee
- Indianapolis 500 Race Logo Long Sleeve Tee - for the cold months before May.
Browse the full IndyCar collection, or read our recap of Ericsson's Markham win.
