Former Formula One driver Marcus Ericcson won the 2022 Indianapolis 500 – the first-ever Indy 500 victory for the 31-year-old Swede.
The race began with Alex Palou and Scott Dixon tagging teaming dominating the early stages of the race and when Dutch competitor Rinus Veekay crashed out on Lap 38, the race appeared to belong to either Palou or Dixon. But after a crash on Lap 70, Palou was forced to make a pit stop during a closed pit lane to take on fuel – resulting in a penalty that pushed him to the back of the field.
That cleared the decks for the New Zealand native, Dixon, but the Kiwi suffered similar bad luck on Lap 176 of the 200-lap race when he entered the pit lane for what was to be his final pit stop of the race only to incur a speeding penalty that was enforced as a drive-through penalty on the ensuing lap and knocked Dixon out of contention for the top spot.
That left Ericsson to contend with Mexican Pato O’Ward and Brazilian Tony Kanaan but Ericcson was five seconds ahead of O’Ward and seemingly on his way to a comfortable victory when NASCAR driver competing in his first Indy 500 race, Jimmie Johnson, crashed and brought out a red flag halting the race with just four laps to go – setting up a sprint to the finish that saw Ericsson fend off a mighty charge from O’Ward to win.
Ericsson drove for Caterham and Sauber from 2014-18 in Formula 1 – recording nine points in the 2015 season for Sauber [which has now become Alfa Romeo] – and was one of several former F1 drivers in the race.
