Chip Ganassi Racing expands to three cars with addition of Marcus Ericsson - MotorSportsTalk

Chip Ganassi Racing will become “Team Sweden” next season in the NTT IndyCar Series season as both drivers from the Scandinavian country will be part of a three-car IndyCar team in 2020. Marcus Ericsson, who showed flashes of promise as a rookie at Arrow Schmidt Peterson this past season, joins fellow Swedish driver and 2019 IndyCar Rookie of the Year Felix Rosenqvist at team owner chip Ganassi’s team.

Five-time NTT IndyCar Series champion and 2008 Indianapolis 500 winning driver Scott Dixon of New Zealand is the lead driver on that team with 46 career victories, third on the all-time list.

Ericsson, 29, is a former Formula One driver with 97 career F1 starts in his career before coming to IndyCar last season. He will drive the team’s third car, the No. 8 Honda.

“First of all, I’m extremely happy and proud to get the opportunity to join Chip Ganassi Racing. It’s a team of winners and their history speaks for itself,” Ericsson said. “I’m very thankful that they believe in me and I will do everything I can to make 2020 another successful year for the team. I’m also very excited to work with two of the best drivers in the series in Scott and Felix. I’m looking forward to putting what I’ve learned this year to use in my second year in the NTT IndyCar Series.”

Ericsson had a one-year contract with Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. That team is in the midst of a merger with McLaren to become Arrow McLaren Racing SP and indicated that Ericsson would not be part of the team’s lineup in 2020.

Team owner Chip Ganassi saw promise in the driver from Kumla, Sweden and decided to expand to a third entry in order to utilize his team and crew from the Ford GT sports car program that will conclude at the end of this season.

“I think Marcus brings a lot of unique experience with him having competed in several championships around the world,” Ganassi said. “When you have someone with that type of background, it gives him other points of reference that helps his ability to develop and add to the overall racing program. We’re looking forward to seeing what Marcus can do alongside Scott and Felix.”

In his rookie year in the NTT IndyCar Series, Ericsson scored his first-ever podium with a career-best finish of second in Detroit. He also had six laps led on the season and completed 88.5 percent of the laps run.

Prior to his rookie season in INDYCAR in 2019, Ericsson most recently completed his fifth year in Formula 1 in 2018 with a total of 97 starts. The Kumla, Sweden native is a two-time champion (Formula BMW UK, 2007; Japanese Formula Three, 2009), and has twice claimed the Swedish Junior Racer of the Year award (2007, 2009). Prior to that he competed in British Formula Three, GP2 Asia and GP2.

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500

INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports