Marcus Ericsson doesn’t give up. He has a knack for getting back into contention after misfortune strikes during a race. Last year he won the Music City Grand Prix in Nashville despite an early incident which saw his car become airborne. In last Saturday’s GMR Grand Prix at IMS the Chip Ganassi racing driver came back to finish fourth after an off road adventure.

Ericsson talked about his knack for overcoming adversity.

“I’d like to be you know, running up front all day and having a steady race, leading the race and winning the race but yeah, it seems to be when there’s chaos we thrive so it’s just I don’t know, I think I have a you know, really good fit well, they’re, you know, good guys that are very smart and make good decisions and that helps us put us in good positions. And also for me, I you know, a driver can make a difference as well when it’s you know, harsh conditions and a lot of things happening and then it seemed to work in my favor.”

Passing was tricky on Tuesday, Ericsson said.

“It was pretty busy at times. There were some b ig packs running. And it’s always hard in practice because people are trying to blend out and drop back into field and it sort of gets- a few times where it gets tricky because of it but I thought our car especially towards the end of the day was really, really good, really happy in traffic. So that was promising. So looking forward to building on that again today and see if we can learn more.”

Today the Ganassi team may try some running as a group to get a sense of the draft and how difficult passing may be

“Yeah, I think since we are five cars, we’re gonna try and get out and do some, you know, some profit group brands. So that that is a plan, but as always, you know, we have to see how the day goes. But yeah, I think it’s one of our advantages for us being five cars that we can go out at a specific time together.”

Looking ahead to the weekend, Ericsson is wary of the weather changes and its effect on qualifying.

“It’s tough for me I find because especially around here that the weather and the temperatures really can make a car really good or really bad very quickly. So I think that’s something looking at the forecast for this week. Now. It was raining all day yesterday. I think the track is going to be pretty green to today, but it’s gonna warm up in the afternoon. So let’s see how that is. And even tomorrow is supposed to be really hot and windy. And then you look at Saturday and Sunday and it seems like it’s a cold front coming there. So I think it’s going to be quite tricky for all the teams and drivers to sort of try and get the get the car in the sort of sweet spots because around this place, you know, small changes makes a big difference. So yeah, it’s definitely a challenge and I think the experienced guys probably have a bit of upper hand there on starting you know, it’s my fourth year so I’m getting there but compared to hell, you and these guys I have a few years ago.”

I think Ericsson is a driver to watch in qualifying and the race. I have him as a dark horse to win.