Marcus Ericsson Wins Inaugural Race at Markham

Marcus Ericsson and the No. 28 group for Andretti Global took the checkered flag in the inaugural Ontario Honda Dealers Indy at Markham, scoring his fifth career win in the NTT IndyCar Series and ending a 63-race winless streak.

“It’s been long enough,” Ericsson said, smiling. “It doesn’t come as a surprise, we’ve had such a good year, we’ve been working hard every single week getting stronger and stronger and qualifying up front every weekend.”

Ericsson took the lead late from the Dale Coyne Racing Honda of Romain Grosjean who finished second for his first podium of 2026. Grosjean led the second most laps at 28, making for a monumental day amidst a difficult year. “It’s been a tough season,” Grosjean said. “I thought today was the day, but onto the next one.”

The 14th race of the season came with its fair share of action. The No. 45 of Louis Foster won his first career pole at the track and led the first 32 laps of the event in what looked like a career drive for the Englishman before a hard-hit in Turn 3 just after a restart ended a promising day on Lap 43. 

Foster, on fresher tires, at one point tried to dive-bomb to the inside of Ericsson and appeared to over-step the limit before hitting the outside wall. “I’ll survive, I’ll be alright.” Foster said. “Just frustrating, it was so fast. I thought I left enough room for the wall, so I got halfway around it.”

Later in the event, fellow Andretti driver Kyle Kirkwood mde contact with that very same section of wall 11 laps after Foster’s crash. Kirkwood ended the day in the 21st position, now 133 points behind championship leader Alex Palou.

“Yeah, that was on me, we had everything thrown at us from the beginning part of the race to the middle part of the race,” Kirkwood said. “I just turned in and I thought I was fine just wrapping around the wall, there’s no radius wall here and a bunch of points in it like gator teeth that are sticking out, and I just clipped one of those.”

The Turn 5 hairpin corner also served as a unique challenge for the drivers. Multiple spins occurred from cars such as the No. 66 of Marcus Armstrong, and the No. 2 of Josef Newgarden. In the last green flag run of the race, Palou seemed to have his car coming to life while catching Grosjean but was later pounced by Ericsson and the No. 26 of Will Power to set up the podium. Palou setteld for a fourth place finish.

Race Results