We may have already seen this year’s Oscars pass, but there’s a new shoo-in for best camerawork of 2022: Whoever was behind the camera that caught Marcus Ericsson’s horrible, terrible, no good race end at IndyCar’s Grand Prix of Long Beach this past weekend.
If you didn’t watch the race, there was a little bit of late-race chaos. Chip Ganassi Racing driver Marcus Ericsson lost the rear of his car during a restart with 19 laps to go. He tagged the wall and moved to get his car off the track and into a pull-off zone; during that process, he was clipped by his fellow teammate Scott Dixon. Ericsson was finally able to pull off safely and park his car.
But it was during the closing laps of the race that Ericsson struck again:
With five laps to go — and as the battle for the lead was really heating up between Josef Newgarden and Romain Grosjean — the camera operator panned to Ericsson’s dead car... with Ericsson still standing next to it, arms crossed, watching the race. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this brief moment of video footage is worthy of novels.
It was easily one of the most hilarious moments of the race, which was a truly impressive feat because Long Beach also featured Simon Pagenaud losing control of his car and driving directly into the flower garden surrounding the track’s fountain section.
Oh, Marcus — why were you still standing there? Did you just want to watch the end of the race? Were you terrified to return to the pits to face Chip “I like winners” Ganassi? Or was it just a terrible part of the track? After all, many street circuits feature those little nooks and crannies where there just isn’t space for a driver to safely walk back to the garage area.