Marcus Ericsson admitted he was to blame for jeopardising his place in the Indianapolis 500 by ending a qualifying run early.
The 2022 race winner only secured his place in the race with a last-gasp effort which put him 32nd on the 33-car grid.
Ericsson was one of four drivers competing for the final three places in this weekend’s race after struggling for pace following a crash earlier in the weekend.
But he slipped up during his first run in the Last Chance qualifying session on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. When his race engineer told him “white flag”, indicating he was beginning the last of his four consecutive laps, Ericsson misunderstood the message and slowed down.
Ericsson said he alone was to blame for the mistake, but the team will change its communication to him for future qualifying sessions.
“You live and learn, right,” he said. “It was all on me.
“We’ve done the same all week. We’ve done, I don’t know, 58 qualifying runs this weekend it feels like, and it’s always been the same countdown. So it’s just all me.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“I messed that up and I shouldn’t be doing that with my experience. We’re going to change the procedure going forward, for sure.”
Ericsson narrowly lost victory in last year’s Indy 500 after leading the field on a contentious last-lap restart and being passed by Josef Newgarden. But he said the experience of almost failing to qualify was “at least as hard or even harder.”
“Especially after my mistakes in my first run when we were safely in,” he said. “I can’t believe I did that.”
His Andretti team sent him out for a slow run around the track to cool his engine before the final run which secured his place in the field.
“To have to sit there and wait and think about that I had one shot to make the race and I have to hit that run because I knew that the car was hot, so it was not ideal after the first run.
“We had to trim out the car. It’s been really hard to me to drive all since my crashed. So it was a very, very tough mental challenge.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
IndyCar
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RaceFans…