Yahoo Autos Rosenqvist stars in stark contrast to Blomqvist’s troubled Friday
Talk about a great first day on the job. Felix Rosenqvist was signed by the Meyer Shank Racing team many months ago, but the part that matters most—the on-track performance side—is where the real work starts.
And in that capacity, MSR’s new leader sprung a welcome surprise to start the new season by running towards the front of the 75-minute opening practice session at St. Petersburg and sealing his debut with a lap that was massively faster than anyone else in the 27-car field. For a team that suffered through a rough 2023 season, it was a long overdue shot of adrenaline for the Honda-powered squad.
“I’m really happy about that,” Rosenqvist said. “The team has just been super, super nice. And you know, it’s obviously a smaller group, which is good, I think, because it’s just so much easier to get to know everyone and get up to speed quickly. A super good start.”
The 32-year-old from Sweden spent the last three years with the high-profile Arrow McLaren team, and while he had some success there, expectations from both sides weren’t met as the team’s direction on chassis setup did not match Rosenqvist’s needs until the latter stages of their relationship.
With MSR tied to Andretti Technologies for race engineering, chassis setup info, and dampers for both cars, Rosenqvist has found himself quite pleased with the MSR-Andretti IndyCar package.
“I think it’s also no secret when I went to McLaren, there was a big learning curve with a car and obviously I was a bit worried that it was going to be the same here,” he said. “But it’s been a direct opposite. Like, it clicked from lap one and with the [limited] amount of testing we have, that is super important because you really don’t have time to learn the car.”
On the flip side of the MSR garage… Marshall Pruett
Rosenqvist’s shot to P1 was countered by a problematic start to the event for his rookie teammate Tom Blomqvist who spent a long stretch of time at the start of the session parked on pit lane. With a leak in the gearbox spotted by the team, the 30-year-old Briton sat in the car while the No. 66 crew pulled the gear cluster out of the transmission, inspected everything, and then reinstalled and resealed the unit.
It left him playing from behind, and where Rosenqvist was able to turn 24 laps, Blomqvist was limited to 14 and placed 25th as a result of the issue.
