Marcus Ericsson: “A lot more work for the driver”

It is on the Florida track of Sebring that Marcus Ericsson was able to test the Dallara DW12 – Honda of Schmidt Peterson Motorsports for the first time, car with which he will officiate on the other side of the Atlantic in 2019.

A ride which allowed the Swede, now a former resident ofAlfa Romeo Clean F1 Team, to judge the major differences with the current F1 single-seaters. “As a driver you have to take care of the car a lot more, indicates Ericsson on the discipline's website.

F1 always starts from perfection, whereas here you have to work with the car you have and then perfect it. It's a lot more work on the driver's part. That's the biggest difference. »

According to SPM management, Ericsson demonstrates a real capacity to adapt to the constraints of the DW12, far from the technological standards currently in use in F1. "To the layman, this car looks like an F1, but it's such a different animal, says Taylor Kiel, general director of the SPM.

There is no power steering, there is much less downforce and the brake-downforce torque is less good in a IndyCar. So he has to get used to a lot of the things he's working on today. So far, so good. The learning curve is going to be serious, but he is very well prepared mentally to tackle it. »

For his part, Marcus Ericsson does not seem to have regretted his departure from F1, even launching a little dig at the premier discipline of motorsport. “F1 will always be F1. But it's a bit artificial in some ways. You always go to these perfect places, and it's not racing, I would say. Here, it brings me back to the passion of racing »

Ericsson will take the place of the unfortunate Robert Wickens in 2019, the Canadian having been seriously injured in an accident at Pocono this year, with serious spinal injuries. Wickens has since continued his rehabilitation to regain maximum mobility.