INDYCAR: Fresh off contract extension, Felix Rosenqvist cuts tire at Nashville
by William Soquet / LASTCAR.info Staff Writer
PHOTO: Felix Rosenqvist / Instagram (@frosenqvist)
Felix Rosenqvist finished last for the 6th time in his NTT IndyCar Series career in Sunday’s Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway when his #60 Sirius XM / Diplo’s Revolution Radio Honda crashed after completing 55 of the race’s 207 laps.
The finish came in Rosenqvist’s 96th career start and was his first since last year’s summer Indianapolis Grand Prix, 20 races ago. Across NTT IndyCar Series history, it was the third for the #60, the 120th for Honda and the 236th because of a crash.
Rosenqvist and team Arrow McLaren parted ways at the end of 2023, concluding a three-year relationship where it felt like driver and team never meshed. The driver’s destination for 2024 was Meyer Shank Racing, which itself was coming off a miserable year where one of its drivers, Simon Pagenaud, was injured midyear and its other driver, Helio Castroneves, didn’t show enough pace to make anyone happy. It was certainly an interesting pairing on the surface – either driver and team would give each other the stability they both desired, or both may continue to spiral.
Early in the season, it looked like it would be the former. Known as a good qualifier, Rosenqvist nabbed four poles during his three years with McLaren and immediately applied that to his Meyer Shank entry. He started second in the season opener at St. Petersburg and put the car on pole at Long Beach. The results were there as well. The season started with four straight top-ten finishes - a welcome sight for both driver and team. While things came back down to earth with three mechanical failures in the midseason, including one at the Indianapolis 500, Rosenqvist was on the fringes of the Top 10 in points heading into the season finale, a step ahead of where he was last year. His old entry, the #6, ironically had one of the most tumultuous years in all of IndyCar. Its original driver, David Malukas, didn’t make a start in the car. The entry then cycled through Callum Ilott and Theo Pourchaire before finally settling on Nolan Siegel as its long-term(ish) driver.
The season finale at Nashville brought a little something extra for Meyer Shank Racing, whose primary backer is Sirius XM Radio. Electronic music producer and disc jockey Diplo was announced as a guest of IndyCar’s two-seater before the race and the grand marshal of driver introductions. Additionally, Diplo’s Revolution channel on Sirius adorned the sidepods of Rosenqvist’s machine.
After a year of seemingly perpetual shifts in the entry list, it was a fitting juxtaposition that there were no surprise driver swaps for the season finale. Both the points championship and the LASTCAR championship entered the weekend with similar scenarios: one driver basically in control, and another with an outside shot at it. On the LASTCAR side, Christian Rasmussen was the only driver coming in to accumulate three last-place finishes over the course of 2024. He also tallied five bottom-five finishes and eight bottom-ten finishes. Marcus Ericsson was the only other driver with a shot at it. Entering Nasvhille, he had two last-place finishes, five bottom-five finishes, and seven bottom-ten finishes. To win, Ericsson needed a last-place finish plus Rasmussen finishing outside of the Bottom Five.
Coming into the weekend, the big story seemingly was that Firestone brought an alternate compound tire to Nashville, similar to what they did at Gateway last year. The changed in practice, when the big story became the bump in Turns 3 and 4. Nolan Siegel found himself at the bottom of the charts for practice, as he backed his #6 car into the wall after losing control on the bump. He didn’t take a time in qualifying, but was handed a nine-place grid penalty anyways for using an extra engine.
Rosenqvist was 18th in practice, but his qualifying acumen showed through once again, securing him the third spot on the grid. MSR teammate David Malukas was 12th in practice and fifth in qualifying, signaling a potential strong race day for the team.
On the morning of the race, the NBC broadcast noted that Meyer Shank Racing picked up a two-year extension on Rosenqvist’s contract, keeping him in the #60 car through 2026. That bit of good news was compounded by the fact that Rosenqvist is set to be married the weekend following Nashville. Vibes were good in the MSR camp in the leadup to the race.
At the start of the race, one driver was noticeably behind the field. It wasn’t Siegel, but another driver with ties to McLaren – Christian Lundgaard, who was finishing his time with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing before he joins McLaren next year. Despite qualifying 22nd, Lundgaard moved to the tail of the field when the green flag dropped and was 10 seconds back of leader Kyle Kirkwood by the end of Lap 3. That gap steadily increased to 17 seconds back after 10 laps. It had all the hallmarks of the first Milwaukee race, where the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team as a whole was out to lunch and struggled for pace.
Will Power was running in the top-five, desperately clinging onto any championship hope that he had left after the race started and Alex Palou made up positions quickly. On Lap 12, he made a dive down to pit road under green, ending his championship hopes. The reason? A lap belt that became unsecured inside the car. Even working with one of the best pit crews in the business, he lost five laps in the pits, and came out a distant last place to the field.
That’s the way last place was for a while. Lundgaard was the first car to be lapped on track, falling behind on Lap 21. Teammate Graham Rahal faced the same fate one lap later. Katherine Legge was the driver that kicked off the first round of pit stops, coming in for service on Lap 32.
Rosenqvist had settled into third place after fighting with Malukas and Power in the opening laps. His team did not elect to do the undercut and was instead trying to hold out to be one of the last to pit in the cycle. In Turns 1 and 2 on Lap 56, the car suddenly shot up into the outside wall, breaking a right-rear axle and ending the race for Rosenqvist. Initially, the television broadcast speculated that he just got high in the turn, but a replay soon unearthed that the right-front tire blew, sending him straight into the wall.
After crashing three times in 2023, the fact that this was Rosenqvist’s first crash of the year is an encouraging sign for a driver looking for career revitalization. Legge was 26th, done after she brushed the outside wall in turn four just before halfway. Ericsson was 25th, also a victim of the turn four wall. His bid for a LASTCAR drivers championship came up just short. Neither crash was directly attributed to the bump, a good sign after multiple incidents in practice. The last two cars running were Power in 24th, eight laps down by the end of the race, and Graham Rahal in 23rd, four down.
Rasmussen essentially clinched the championship as soon as Rosenqvist crashed out of the race; when Ericsson crashed out, greatly diminishing the chance of his car being otherwise disqualified, it was pretty much officially his. However, Raz’s rookie season ended on a high note. Despite starting 25th, he wheeled his way up to 14th, clinching a spot in the Leaders Circle for the Ed Carpenter Racing #20. Carpenter’s faith was rewarded by finishes of 11th, 16th, and 14th in the three races that Carpenter gave up his seat. Carpenter’s last three races prior to stepping out were 19th, 22nd and 17th, so perhaps it was a prudent choice. There’s no guarantee that Rasmussen will be back with Carpenter for 2025, but if the money lines up, it seems like a good pairing for both sides.
On the other side of the Leaders Circle battle was 2023’s LASTCAR champion, Sting Ray Robb. Robb actually came down with food poisoning the night before the race and gutted through the race to finish 20th. Despite being one position ahead of Pietro Fittipaldi, another car in the Leaders Circle battle, it was not enough to give A.J. Foyt Racing an extra $1 million (although if the rumored Hy-Vee sponsorship goes to Foyt, it would be a smaller matter than it is now). Robb did not record any last-place finishes in 2024, improving his consistency. Regardless, he is out at Foyt and does not have a drive lined up for 2025, although if he brings anywhere close to the budget that he did for 2024, there should be a spot somewhere on the grid for him.
LASTCAR STATISTICS
*Crashes/damage determined the final six last-place finishers of the 2024 season. That’s the longest streak to end a season for a single DNF reason since the final six last-place finishers of 2019 season crashed out.
*This is the first oval last-place finish for the #60 in IndyCar Series history.
*Rosenqvist’s 55 laps completed is the second-most of all IndyCar last-place finishers at Nashville Superspeedway. Ed Carpenter completed 60 laps before crashing on July 17, 2004.
*Of the 43 different drivers that started an IndyCar race in 2024, 39 recorded at least one Bottom Ten finish. The four who didn’t? Callum Ilott (a pair of 11ths in his two starts), Takuma Sato (14th at Indianapolis), Kyle Larson (18th at Indianapolis), and—Toby Sowery. Sowery’s three starts with Dale Coyne Racing yielded finishes of 13th, 15th and 17th, respectively. Driving out of the Bottom Ten in a DCR car this year three separate times shows that while he may have flown under the radar, Sowery did a fantastic job piloting that machine.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
27) #60-Felix Rosenqvist / 55 laps / crash
26) #51-Katherine Legge / 85 laps / crash
25) #28-Marcus Ericsson / 137 laps / crash
24) #12-Will Power / 198 laps / running
23) #15-Graham Rahal / 202 laps / running
2024 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES MANUFACTURERS CHAMPIONSHIP - FINAL
1st) Honda (10)
2nd) Chevrolet (7)
2024 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES OWNERS CHAMPIONSHIP - FINAL
1st) Chip Ganassi Racing, Dale Coyne Racing, Ed Carpenter Racing (3)
2nd) Andretti Global, Team Penske (2)
3rd) A.J. Foyt Racing, Juncos Hollinger Racing, Meyer Shank Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (1)
2024 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP - FINAL
