After winning the Indianapolis 500, Chip Ganassi Racing driver Ericsson was well in the hunt for the championship and sat at the top of the points table for six races, before being overhauled by eventual champion Will Power and sliding back to an eventual sixth in the points.
The Swede topped IndyCar's official pre-season test at Thermal Club in Palm Springs on Friday, but speaking ahead of the track running revealed that he's still frustrated by how his 2022 campaign concluded.
“I had a chance going into the final, but I also was leading the championship for a long time last year,” reflected the former F1 driver, who is about to start his fifth season in IndyCar.
“I'm still a bit pissed off about the ending of last year because I felt we were having a really strong year, then the last three races or so we just fell off a little bit. That was disappointing.
“But it's given me a lot of motivation to work hard in the off-season to try and be better this year. It's definitely our goal to try and get that championship this year.”
Team-mate Scott Dixon said he felt “definitely something was missing” from Ganassi's package in qualifying, and uncovered“two pretty big things in the off-season that we saw that we were probably doing wrong and then also not emphasising enough on”.
Asked if he felt improvements needed to come from himself or the Ganassi team, Ericsson responded: “I think a combination. I think us as a team, it's been one of our weaknesses the last couple years in that we're not qualifying as high as we should.
“Race day, I'm not scared of anyone. I think on the #8 car we're always going forward in the races; we're always very strong in the races.
“It's no secret that we need to improve on qualifying day. That is us in the #8 car, but also Chip Ganassi Racing as a whole.
“I think if we can all improve, it's going to help us. These days, IndyCar is becoming more and more competitive, so many good drivers and teams.
“If you start mid pack, yeah it might be long races, but to win a race from mid-pack is getting harder and harder.
“It's been one of the big focus areas in the off-season, to try to find things in the set-up, in the way to understand the tyres, stuff like that, to mainly improve our qualifying performance.”
