Andretti's Marcus Ericsson leaves Long Beach with mixed feelings as teammate Kyle Kirkwood dominates

Andretti Global's Marcus Ericsson, Kyle Kirkwood and Colton Herta, all qualified for the Fast 6 session and started the race inside the Top 5. The team has a history of strong performances around the 1.9-mile circuit, yet Ericsson failed to capitalize on the strong pace during the race. The Swedish driver came out and shared his mixed feelings about the race.

Ericsson started the race in P5 on the alternate tires with teammate Kirkwood starting on the same strategy on the pole position. While the Prefab Honda was able to hold onto the lead, Ericsson fell down the grid after the first round of pit stops.

A poor race start, coupled with wrongly timed pit stops and then being stuck behind the traffic meant Marcus Ericsson finished the race in P12. The Swedish driver spoke with Frontstretch after the race and said:

“A bad day for us, but we were sort of spiraling in the wrong direction all the way through, to be honest. Disappointing. We had a lot of speed in the 28 car, but it's just stuck behind slower cars all day and it's frustrating.”

However, Marcus Ericsson did hint at the strong performance of the Andretti Global Honda car and detailed how Kyle Kirkwood was able to use it and push for the race win while he and teammate Colton Herta fell down the order. He added:

“You know, I'm super happy for that group and you know, we're making progress as a team and that's really good and yeah, really happy with them. But yeah, we've got some work to do on our side.”

Running the alternate tire as the starting tire strategy only worked for those who overcut and maintained track position while the ones who pitted early were stuck behind traffic.

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Marcus Ericsson detailed the “big question mark” about tires going into the Long Beach race

Firestone introduced a new range of tires for the 2025 IndyCar season which includes a softer, higher degradation alternate tire. Many drivers struggled with these earlier in the season. Marcus Ericsson, going into the Long Beach race, had doubts over the green sidewall tire as he said (via RACER):

“I think the primary, the hard compound, is pretty solid. I think the question mark is the greens (softer alternates). I only did a couple laps on them, so it was not enough to learn much for Sunday. We tried to focus on just trying to get them optimized for tomorrow, for qualifying. But definitely the big question mark is how they're gonna last on Sunday.”

The alternate tire was indeed the least preferred tire for the race on Sunday. Josef Newgarden got rid of the tire in just a couple of laps while others used it for not more than 5-6 laps.