DETROIT — A whirlwind of a week after winning the Indianapolis 500 would give Felix Rosenqvist ample reason not to have a good performance in Sunday’s (May 31) Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.
However, the Swede impressed many with a sixth-place finish, the best for an Indianapolis 500 winner in the NTT IndyCar Series race weekend following Indianapolis since Will Power’s second-place finish at the second race of the Belle Isle doubleheader in 2018.
“I thought it was kind of a calm Detroit to start, but then towards the end, actually, the marbles kept building, and it’s like every restart, everyone’s on ice,” Rosenqvist said. “I thought I was the only one first. I’m like, ‘Oh, I have a big problem,’ and then I just saw that everyone was sliding around and, you know, going off.Â
“We were able to capitalize on that. I thought we were still better than most, but it’s difficult, man. It’s one of those races, you’re happy when it’s done because you make one little slip up on the marbles and you’re in the wall, straight away.”
Rosenqvist qualified 16th for the 100-lap race around the nine-turn, 1.645-mile street circuit around General Motors’ old headquarters at the Renaissance Center. The No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda pitted under the race’s first full-course caution for Christian Rasmussen‘s wall contact in the No. 21 ECR Chevrolet.
When Race Control called a full-course yellow for Graham Rahal‘s stalled car at the hairpin following contact with Kyffin Simpson, Rosenqvist was one of the handful of drivers who stopped under that caution. With 59 laps to go in the race by that point, Rosenqvist could complete the race with one more pit stop, which he and his team completed underneath the yellow for Rinus VeeKay and Santino Ferrucci‘s accident.
Rosenqvist’s race changed completely late in the going after several cars had contact with each other. After ending the race’s 76th lap in 12th place, Rosenqvist was in ninth by lap 78 and was sixth the following lap after passing Louis Foster and Scott McLaughlin on track when the pair of them had contact in turn 7 and Will Power‘s retirement from the race shortly thereafter due to contact between him and McLaughlin.
From then on, it was a race of survival as Rosenqvist remained in sixth place, finishing 8.1928 seconds behind race winner Alex Palou.
For Rosenqvist, the result was perhaps unexpected by most. Because of the post-race winner duties on Monday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway after winning the 110th Indianapolis 500 and then the whirlwind media tour around New York City on Tuesday and Wednesday, preparation was, to put it mildly, limited for the Swede.
“Nothing. Zero time,” he said of his rest between the 500 and Detroit. “I mean, I came over here on Thursday evening and we did like [the] track walk and just went through everything engineering-wise. Like I didn’t do a simulator and the normal pre-week and stuff, but I mean at the end of the day, we’re all pros here and that we’ve done it before, so it’s kind of a muscle memory thing.”
Rosenqvist realized he hadn’t been to the gym in a while after the first session at Detroit because he had done so many laps at Indianapolis that he felt tired after Friday’s practice.
But don’t expect Rosenqvist to take it easy after such a grueling week. He’s back in the gym at 8:45 on Monday morning.
“You can rest when you’re retired!”
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.