INDIANAPOLIS — The second day of testing the 2024 Hybrid power units took place on Friday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Honda had 2 cars on track with Chevrolet also utilizing this testing period to have 2 cars themselves. The last two NTT INDYCAR SERIES champions were mainstays as Alex Palou (2021, 2023 champion) was in a Honda ride both days and Will Power (2022 champion) in the No. 22 Dallara-Chevrolet.

On Thursday however, Colton Herta was in the other Honda with Alexander Rossi in the second Chevy. A day later, Rossi had to jet off for his upcoming wedding this weekend which paved the way for David Malukas to take over the reigns of the Arrow McLaren Racing machine. Andretti Autosport also elected to have their newest addition to the team in Marcus Ericsson pilot their car.

For both Malukas and Ericsson, Friday wasn’t just about the Hybrid test, it was also another day for them to get acclimated to their new teams.

Malukas moves to McLaren from Dale Coyne Racing. While he’s tested with this team this offseason, it’s not been on an oval.

“I’ve feel like we’ve been doing a pretty good job getting to know everybody and getting connections and the way we’ve been doing the structures, you know, it’s been different engineers and performance engineers going to each test,” said Malukas on Friday afternoon from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “So kind of getting a feel for everybody and making relationships building chemistry. But the main thing is just trying to get used to all the new tools and resources that I have in hand. And McLaren gives a lot and I’m just trying to make sure I can use all of it to you know, help on my side of things.”

Malukas says it’s an honor to even be able to take part in this test because this was something that he’s not had the luxury of doing before. He’s coming off of a sophomore year and typically, they chose more veteran drivers to do these types of tests.

“Yes, it does feel good,” Malukas told me. “Like they’ve asked me, ‘Have you ever done Firestone testing before? I’m like, no, they don’t like me.’

“But no Yeah, it’s good now. It feels good. You know, they’re trusting me I can get the feedback and from my side I just get to do laps and do more and more laps and at the end of the day, the more practice the better.”

For Ericsson, while they already announced this past August that he would be shifting over from Chip Ganassi Racing to Andretti Autosport next season, contractually, he was still technically a Ganassi employee until recently. He wasn’t able to get over to Andretti just yet.

Until this week. That’s why this test was for him more about familiarizing himself with the team and the guys and gals working on it too.

“Yeah it’s different for sure,” Ericsson said while donning a plain black driver suit. “No, but it’s exciting to be here you know first day as the new guy so it’s yeah a lot of feelings and started to get started.

“It’s all very new but the team has welcomed me super well. You know, everyone is really nice and very excited. So it feels like there’s a lot of optimism in the organization. And you know, they have a lot of things going now and a lot of big ambitions and you know, the potential is really big, I think in the team. So yeah, so far it’s been really good.”

Testing days are crucial at this point for Ericsson and with the new hybrid power, it allows for more of them. That’s why he’s excited to take part in as many as he can which on the flipside means he has to maximize them to not only learn Andretti Global, but for Andretti Global to learn him as well.

“I think you know, first off, it was just for me to get comfortable in the car and to get a read on the car,” Ericsson told me. “I felt happy with that pretty much straight away. So I think the car was feeling nice to drive. And then you know, of course we’re focusing mainly on the hybrid stuff today and then sort of helping Honda to really get on top of those things and trying whatever they want. So that’s the main priority.

“But of course, for me being in a new team with new people is a great way to also start interacting and sort of building that relationship with the Olivier and the other people in the team. So, you know, that’s obviously what I’m you know, already working on and you know, my way of saying feedback you know, every driver is different they’re how they talk about the car and that process is obviously great that we can get started from today onwards.”

Ericsson coming to Andretti at this stage of his life is far different than the driver coming to Ganassi.

When he went from a rookie with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in 2019 to Ganassi in 2020, he brought with him 1 top 5 result and 3 top 10’s. With coming to Andretti, he brings 4 wins including the 106th Running of the Indianapolis 500, 10 podium finishes, 16 top 5’s and 50 top 10’s.

“You know, when I came to Ganassi, I think there wasn’t maybe as much excitement in the building,” he admits. “You know, I hadn’t really shown what I can do and then now you know, coming from being a ‘500 winner and you know, winning multiple races I think, you know, you can definitely feel that excitement from the organization and from the team for me to get there. I think, like I said, the potential is really big in the team and they are ready to really push hard to, you know, be at the top. So I’m excited to be part of that journey that we’re going do together.”

For Malukas, he feels the way Ericsson felt when he joined Ganassi. The shear size of the McLaren brand and their resources is a lot to take in initially. Especially from where he’s coming from to now.

“I walked in and every corner I look around on my wall obviously you know it’s, it’s shining gold,” Malukas said. “I’m like my so much stuff. And you know coming in I don’t even know how to use it all but thankfully they have they have a good crew. Everybody has been super friendly and introducing everything to me and making me get comfortable and specifically Tony cannot you know Tony Kanaan has been, you know, showing me the ropes and saying like, hey, so this is how you use this resource. This is what I think you should do. And it’s really getting me comfortable on getting used to all these resources.”

One thing that Malukas brings with him outside of talent is donuts. That’s something that he took pride in while racing for HMD in Indy NXT and DCR in INDYCAR. He’d reward the team with boxes of donuts. Sometimes it was a reward for a good car, other times it was an apology for something he did during the race weekend.

Now though, the donut tab is going to be exponentially larger.

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to wait for my paycheck because there’s a lot of people,” Malukas joked with me. “Once I get that paycheck, then the doughnuts are gonna start arriving.”

Speaking on arriving, both drivers have shown a lot of promise on this high-speed oval. Malukas should have been Rookie of the Year for the 2022 Indy 500 but some guy named Jimmie Johnson won instead even though Malukas was in the top 10 of the speed charts for most of the month and was the highest placed rookie driver in the finishing order.

Ericsson won that race and if not for a late race red flag this past May, was on his way to becoming the first repeat Indy 500 champion since Helio Castroneves did it in 2001 and again in 2002. Still, it was a close runner-up for the Swede who comes to Andretti after finishes of 1st, 2nd in his last two Indy 500 tries.