The Andretti Global driver had a handy advantage over eventual race winner Alex Palou – pitting several laps later, having newer tyres, and exiting the pits ahead.
The ultimate fly in the ointment was two cars at the tail of the lead lap, Devlin DeFranceso and Louis Foster, who jockeyed in front of the leaders.
Ericsson seemed to have the race under control until 14 laps to go when Palou lunged the Swede into Turn 1. The Spaniard never looked back.
Ericsson never looked like threatening to get the position back and ultimately settled for second.
“This race is a winner-takes-it-all kind of race,” said Ericsson.
“I had that race covered. It’s pretty painful, yeah, it is.
Secure your spot today.
“I had those lapped cars ahead and I was just struggling a little bit in the dirty air.
“Alex got a run on me but I thought he wasn’t going to go for it.
“That’s the thing that’s going to keep me up at night for while – the moment, what I did, what I didn’t do. I need to look back at that. Like I said, it’s going to keep me up at night.
“Right now, I’m just disappointed. This race means everything to me and I know how much it means to win this race, so to finish second again is pretty painful.”
Alex Palou to the lead as the #Indy500 on FOX winds down! pic.twitter.com/OUQr7Igqvk
— INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) May 25, 2025
Ericsson won the 2022 edition before finishing second to Josef Newgarden in 2023. It’s the second time the ex-Formula 1 driver has played second-fiddle.
Ericsson said his car was tricky to drive in traffic, but he regretted not putting a buffer between himself and Palou.
“I think the tough thing was those two lapped cars, whatever they were, back markers, and they were sort of creating this dirty air that made it really hard to overtake there in the end – and that’s the frustrating thing, was that I had position on Alex and I lost that,” said Ericsson.
“When that happened, he was definitely at an advantage. That’s what I need to sort of look back at and then try and see what I could have done differently.
“When they [the lapped cars] came out, I had sort of a half chance to get by one of them and that would have put a buffer between me and Alex and when he takes me he can have a run, but not a super run and I sort of opened the door.
“It’s just those things that’s just… you play it in your head a million times already after the finish, what you could have done differently.
“It was tough with those lapped cars to play it, but I had the best seat in the house there to lead the last 15 laps. Again, I need to look at it. It’s pretty painful.”
Asked by Speedcafe about whether he could have passed the lapped cars and why he chose not to, Ericsson said that was a misjudgement.
“That’s the thing that I’m playing in my head quite a lot to figure out what I could have done differently,” he explained.
“Because if I got one of the cars in between us, that would have been a huge buffer to Alex, so things like that that I’m going to have to… I don’t know. Again, it’s going to keep me up at night thinking about that, what I could have done differently.”
IndyCar has a quick turnaround to Detroit where the series will race downtown on June 2 (AEST).
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