Swede Victory in Nashville: “Air-icsson” goes Above and Beyond

The NTT IndyCar series made its maiden appearance on the streets of Nashville, and Marcus Ericsson took the win in the inaugural Music City Grand Prix. Ericsson made an incredible recovery drive from last on the track, 10 seconds off the field after flying up and over Sebastian Bourdais and serving a stop and go penalty, to leading the race and fending off Colton Herta for 15 laps while the pole sitter pressured him.

Saturday saw a wild qualifying session, in which multiple incidents, including a red flag for Jimmie Johnson and a yellow for Josef Newgarden, created a wild sequence of events, leading to Colton Herta taking a shocking pole in the Firestone Fast Six. It was quite the introduction to IndyCar’s newest track, which showed through Saturday’s sessions that it could create drama and hand out some damage to drivers.

The green flag dropped and Colton Herta got a massive jump, while Rossi made an aggressive move up the inside of Dixon, snagging second from the six-time champion. Graham Rahal made contact with Josef Newgarden as well, with Newgarden reporting toe damage. The field made it through the first turn clean, but a full course yellow was brought out on lap 2 by Dalton Kellett after a stall. Massive crash on lap 4 on the restart for Marcus Ericsson and Sebastian Bourdais, as Bourdais was unable to get up to speed on the restart and Ericsson simply ran up over the back of Bourdais’ car. Bourdais was forced to exit the race, while Ericsson was able to replace a wing and get a new set of tires, and was later given a stop and go penalty. On lap 10, the race restarted, and Herta took off, pulling out a gap of a second in the first lap. The race fell into a rhythm, with most of the craziness in the past as Herta began to show his control over the race, but on lap 16 Ed Jones made contact with Scott McLaughlin, spinning him around to bring out the full course yellow. Palou pitted on the caution, joined by Newgarden, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Hinchcliffe, Daly, McLaughlin, and Castroneves. With so much of the race under caution in the early part as there were 13 caution laps in the first 20 laps, pit strategy and fuel consumption were scrambled. 

The wrecks didn’t stop, because immediately at the restart, Will Power sent a move up the inside of Simon Pagenaud, and contact between the two sent Pagenaud into the outside wall, and the packed up field had nowhere to go. Multiple cars, including Johnson, Veekay, Palou, Ericsson, and Sato were caught up in the traffic jam, with Johnson and later Sato out of the race entirely. 

The red flag was finally lifted at 5:45 pm local time, and the green flag flew again on lap 24. Herta immediately flew away, opening a massive 2.6 second lead in the first lap. By lap 31, Herta’s massive lead and potential to cover off a pitstop was blown by a caution caused by Rinus Veekay. The leaders came into pit under caution, and due to the pace car slowing up, Colton Herta restarted in fourth, an incredible job salvaging the situation considering the amount of cars that did not pit. The race restarted on lap 37, and Herta and Rossi wasted no time getting by James Hinchcliffe, and getting to work on Ryan Hunter-Reay, passing him on lap 38, almost immediately followed by Rossi at the end of the bridge. 

On lap 41, continuing his pattern of punting his teammates, Will Power sent a move on Scott McLaughlin, making contact and sending him spinning into the wall, where Dalton Kellett was collected in the wreck. The pits started on lap 45, where most of the field came in. The top 6 cars remaining who didn’t pit still needed to, but the field from P7 on back was good until the end. Herta needed to open a gap big enough to pit into.

The race restarted at lap 51, with Newgarden in P2, and as the field crossed the bridge, O’Ward made a big move on Rossi, which did not work. The two made contact,  forcing Rossi to back up as he lost a lot of position and O’Ward stalled, bringing out yet another caution, not even a full lap after the restart. Under caution, both Herta and Newgarden pitted, leaving Grosjean to lead the field to green on lap 54. Herta restarted in P7, as Dixon found his way up to P3. Cody Ware also found his way into the top 10, shortly before he spun and stalled, bringing out the eighth caution period. The race then restarted on lap 58, with Ericsson back in the lead. It took five laps for Colton Herta to pass Hunter-Reay, Hinchcliffe, and Dixon, but Ericsson kept Herta behind. Herta was unable to catch Ericsson on the straights, but kept glued to his bumper through the corners. A huge move by Herta into the braking zone off the bridge with 11 to go locked up the wheels and nearly sent him into the wall, losing him valuable time to Ericsson. With 6 to go, Herta locked up the front tires coming off the bridge, and went into the wall, ending his race. The race was briefly red-flagged, restarting with two to go, with Marcus Ericsson shockingly in the lead and in position to win after jumping over Bourdais and serving a penalty. The race restarted with two to go, and Marcus Ericsson held off Scott Dixon to bring home a miraculous win, his second of the year and his IndyCar career.

Alex Palou retains his championship lead, as Dixon draws closer thanks to Palou finishing in 7th. A poor perfomance from Josef Newgarden sets him back almost 80 points in the championship hunt, as Ericsson draws to within four points of fourth. IndyCar returns on Saturday, August 14 at the Brickyard for the second Indy GP.