Despite crashing while in second place during the Indycar Series round in Texas, Chip Ganassi Racing driver Felix Rosenqvist has found new confidence in his real life oval perf=ormance thanks to three time Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti and iRacing!
In an interview with TheRace, Rosenqvist revealed, “Having the off-season and thinking about everything and also doing a bunch of iRacing and stuff has actually helped to understand ovals better, watching NASCAR and all those things with the team improving the car a lot.
“I think we had the best car definitely in Texas and it was just good to have that feeling for the first time, like ‘I really know how this works’ and how you go through the traffic and everything.”
“Ovals were definitely a tough fight for me last year and I never really felt I had that confidence,” Rosenqvist told The Race. I had it once in a while but in general I didn’t really have that confidence.
“We have worked a lot on our oval cars this year. I thought when we rolled out in Texas it was just something very different to the feeling of the car that gave me a lot of confidence. That’s what it’s all about in the end, an oval is all about confidence. If you have confidence in the car you will go way quicker, especially through traffic.
“It was kind of what I expected it to be, I hoped the car became better overall and also became better for my specific driving style. It did and that unlocked a very new potential in my driving.
He also credited Dario Franchitti, “I went to visit Dario in the winter to talk about ovals, and get that into my mindset. He was an epic driver, he has a good teaching ability, he knows how to put feelings into words when it comes to teaching, that’s been incredible.
“The whole team has been really supportive and that really paid dividends in Texas. Last year it was my single worst event where even after the race it was all question mark. Now, being able to fight in the front, it gave me a lot of confidence going into the rest of the season on ovals.
“I think the other ovals we are going to were way easier for me last year. I don’t see why I should have any issues on them anymore. It’s a big step taken there for sure,” added the Swede.
