Marcus Ericsson made good on his contract extension with Andretti Global, winning the inaugural NTT IndyCar Series Ontario Honda Dealers Indy at Markham on Sunday (Aug. 16) taking the lead with five laps to go from Romain Grosjean, pulling to a 7.62 second gap in the run to the finish line.
Ericsson earned his fifth career win in IndyCar and his first in 63 starts since the 2023 season opener at St. Petersburg, capturing his first with Andretti since joining the team in 2024 and after signing a contract extension over a week ago.
“It’s been long enough,” Ericsson told FOX Sports. “We worked so hard in the 28 crew. It doesn’t come as a surprise. We’ve had such a good year, and we’ve been working every weekend getting stronger and stronger qualifying up front every weekend. I felt like we deserved it, and we had to work for it today.”
Grosjean, who looked poised for his first career win, couldn’t utilize his 94 seconds of push-to-pass in the closing stages due to conserving fuel. Instead, he had to settle for his sixth runner-up finish in IndyCar and his first since Barber Motorsports Park in 2023.
Despite the runner-up finish, Grosjean carried Dale Coyne Racing’s No. 18 Honda to it’s second consecutive runner-up in Canada, following up Rinus VeeKay who earned the result in Toronto at Exhibition Place.
“It’s been a rough season,” Grosjean said. “Yesterday, we didn’t get lucky in qualifying. In the race, we did everything we could. When you have the 10 behind and you open up a gap, you think your safe. Then the 28 came, and they’re my ex-guys, so happy for them. I thought today was the day, but onto the next one.
Grosjean benefited from pitting at the same time as the third Andretti driver Kyle Kirkwood hitting the turn 3 wall while running third, cycling him to the front.
Will Power was plowed into by Ericsson in the turn 5 hairpin as both Andretti Hondas pursued Grosjean. Despite the contact, Power was able to recover and pass Alex Palou for the final podium place after starting last after taking a six-place engine penalty and wrecking on Saturday.
“I didn’t realize [Ericsson] was going to go for it, but I told the team I’ll let him go on the straight,” Power said. “Apart from that, it was very solid. I was so mad at myself for qualifying. The team did such a good job. They worked overnight. They fixed a car. They did an engine change. They worked until 12:30 a.m. Most of them got two hours of sleep. I’m glad I could repay them with a podium.”
Palou and Pato O’Ward completed the top five. Palou’s championship lead increases to 133 over Kirkwood.
Christian Lundgaard finished sixth while VeeKay held onto a broken front wing for a majority of the second half of the race to finish seventh. Scott McLaughlin, Graham Rahal and Santino Ferrucci rounded out the top 10.
The strongest car of the day ended up wrecked out early, and that was Louis Foster. He led for the majority of the first half of the race, but the Brit crashed when trying to climb back up through the field.
“We hit the wall,” Foster said. “Simple as that. There’s not much else to it. Just super annoying because we had a shot to win today 100%. We got completely screwed by the yellow and drove our asses off to get up to P2 for half a second until we were in the wall, and we had pace on everyone.
“I want another shot at this because today we blew it.”
Mick Schumacher crashed out of the race from the top 10 on lap 15, affecting some of the strategy early in the race and kicking off competitive racing throughout the field.
“It’s never in any weekend nice to end it by not finishing the race.” Schumacher said. “One of the most important parts of racing is finish the race, especially today where we had such a good car. I think we could’ve scored some decent points. To end it in the wall is definitely not ideal, and we just got to look forward to Washington.”
The first restart of the race proved chaotic as Dennis Hauger went wide in the turn 5 hairpin and parachuted to the back of the field and David Malukas showed frustration with brake issues as he bled positions. Hauger would finish 15th.
Malukas ended up running in the wall in the final run of the race, needing to pit from the top 10 and finished 17th.
2026 Ontario Honda Dealers Indy at Markham Results
IndyCar’s next race will be another inaugural event in capital of the United States, Washington D.C. around the national mall. Coverage from FOX begins at 11:30 a.m. ET on August 23.
Wyatt Watson has followed motorsports closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretch as a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt is one of Frontstretch's primary IndyCar correspondents, providing exclusive video content on site. He hosts Frontstretch's Through the Gears podcast and occasionally The Pit Straight.You can find Wyatt's written work in columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monsteras well as exclusive IndyCar features. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media team, posting unique and engaging content for Frontstretch.
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Possibly the best drive I’ve ever seen from Ericsson. Well deserved win. Foster was the only other one that seemed able to move forward at will, until he made that mistake that put him in the wall. Power was moving through the field well too, just seemed like his car faded a bit more at the end while Ericsson’s didn’t.