Marcus Ericsson said he found it “cool”
to witness
Lewis
Hamilton‘s dominance in
Formula 1 during the turbo-hybrid era with
Mercedes.
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Present in F1 between 2014 and 2018
before joining the IndyCar
Series in 2019, the Swede was speaking during a media
session before the opening of the
saison 2026 in St Petersburg this weekend. He discussed the
lessons learned from his indirect confrontation with some
of the sport’s greatest figures.
Direct witness
Asked what he took away
from Hamilton’s success between 2014 and 2018, as well as the
recent dominance of Álex
Palou in IndyCar, Ericsson explained that seeing Hamilton
operate up close had been a source of inspiration, even if
interactions in F1 remain limited outside of teammates.
“It was cool to see that
with my own eyes. In F1, if you’re not teammates, you don’t
really work closely with your competitors,”
he observes. “It was mostly a source of inspiration to see
what he was doing, how he managed to perform week after
week and win so many championships. It was really cool to
see. Clearly an inspiration.”
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Another world
Ericsson then drew a
parallel with the success of Palou, his former teammate at
Chip Ganassi Racing between 2021 and 2023, before his departure
for
Andretti Global.
“With Alex, I got to
know him well,” he says. “He’s still a good
friend. What he’s doing is super impressive because IndyCar is
a spec series, a completely different environment than F1. To be
as dominant as Alex has been in recent years is extremely
difficult. It’s really impressive to see.”
By highlighting both
Hamilton’s consistency in a technologically
complex environment and Palou’s dominance in a championship with
equal equipment, Ericsson highlights two distinct —
but equally demanding — forms of excellence in
modern motorsport.