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Whenever I go through a performance review at work, there is one overwhelming trait that comes through on every one regardless of who is giving them. For decades, different bosses on different jobs have always told me that I have the ability to read people very well. I have to agree with them. Very rarely has that trait of mine failed me. OK, it failed me when I met my first wife – but other than that one crucial bobble, I’m usually dead-on accurate when I either meet people or even get a first impression on television. Well, now I can count two bobbles, because it’s now apparent that I completely misread Alexander Rossi when he first came to the Verizon IndyCar Series.

I had heard the name of Alexander Rossi prior to his signing with Andretti Herta Autosport a little more than two years ago, but I really knew nothing about him. When I heard his initial interview on Trackside the same day his signing was announced, I took an immediate dislike to Rossi. He seemed distant and aloof, but worst of all he came off as very condescending towards IndyCar. He made it clear that the only reason he was here was because his ride in Formula One had been sold out from under him at the last minute. He also left no doubt that as soon as the first opportunity came open in Formula One – he was gone.

I had immediately found someone I could root against. He was technically an American, but had lived all of his adult life in Europe and Asia chasing his F1 dreams. He even sounded European.

Future interviews on television early that season did nothing to change my mind. Rossi came across as flippant and didn’t seem to have a whole lot of respect for IndyCar or the tracks they ran on. You can imagine the pleasure I took, when his struggles increased at each of the first few races of that 2016 rookie season. His last two races heading into the Month of May were a twentieth-place finish at Long Beach, and a fifteenth-place finish at Barber.

When he finished tenth at the GP of Indy, I paid no mind. But in the last few laps of the 2016 Indianapolis 500 when it became apparent he might win it, I was not happy. I didn’t boo the winner when it was over, because I think that’s just wrong. But I was not happy that he won it. I felt like he had no appreciation for what he had just walked into, while other drivers in that field would have given their right arm to win that race.

As his struggles continued after Indianapolis, I was more and more convinced that his Indianapolis win was just a fluke. But when he finished sixth at Iowa, that got my attention. I was impressed that this kid from a European background was performing well on ovals. But he struggled at the next three races, including a twentieth at Pocono. He qualified seventh, but contact with Charlie Kimball in the pits sent Rossi flying over the car of Helio Castroneves. His reaction to that was impressive. He didn’t seem rattled, nor did he assign blame. He was stoic and matter-of-fact about the situation.

After that impressive qualifying effort, he closed out the season with an eleventh at the resumption of Texas, an eighth at Watkins Glen and a fifth at Sonoma. By this time, it was occurring to me that maybe Rossi wasn’t near as distant or condescending as I had originally thought. I had decided was just reserved and maybe a little shy.

In interviews prior to the start of the 2017 season, Rossi seemed different. Not only did he seem to be a little more at ease, he seemed like he had more appreciation for the series in general. Based on what he heard from Lewis Hamilton last May, I think the prevailing thought within the Formula One paddock is that IndyCar is a joke. More than a quarter-century ago, Niki Lauda referred to Indy car racing as “lazy man’s racing”. Apparently the F1 mindset hasn’t changed much since then.

It’s easy to understand that a young man barely in his twenties would buy into that theory, when that’s all he hears overseas. I’m sure Alexander Rossi thought he was sliding way down the career ladder to go from Formula One to IndyCar in a matter of months.

It was probably also a culture shock to go from F1; to where drivers are so sheltered from fans, that the only times you see fans is when you are driving on the track and you might see them in the stands. What a shock it must’ve been to go from that to an environment where drivers are actually encouraged and expected to interact with fans and (gasp) other drivers. But after a year, Rossi seemed to be coming to grips with the idea of mingling with fans if not enjoying it.

The other big difference in Rossi last season compared to 2016 was the way he was driving. He was now seeing tracks for the second time and was showing how well he learned them the first time. Aside from his “500” win, he had no finish better than fifth in 2016 – and that was the last race of the season. Rossi finished seventh in points last season, compared to eleventh the previous year. He also had another solid run in the Indianapolis 500, where he finished seventh as the defending champion. He had a second-place finish at Toronto and a third at Pocono, before winning impressively at Watkins Glen.

By the end of last season, I was beginning to warm to Alexander Rossi. Not only was he starting to show a little more of his personality out of the car, he was showing his true talents in the car. Plus, I was impressed with how he carried himself as the defending Indianapolis 500 champion through last May. Somewhere along the way, I think the enormity of what he had done by winning it the year before suddenly hit him. He seemed to appreciate it more than when he first won it.

I am embarrassed to admit what converted me from warming up to Rossi to becoming a full-fledged fan, but it was his appearance this past winter on The Amazing Race. He and Conor Daly teamed up and went to the final episode before winding up in fourth place. But in those episodes was when I saw a whole other side of Alexander Rossi that I never had a clue even existed.

Not only was he funny, but he and Daly both got along well with the competing team members in an environment that encourages back-stabbing. He and Daly played the game with integrity and the two of them really came off as extremely likable. They were so well-liked that two of the three competing teams that made it to the final episode, showed up in Phoenix back in February to support Rossi, while the unemployed Daly showed them around.

The show really turned around my impression of Alexander Rossi and I found myself pulling for him to do well at St. Petersburg – a far cry from when I used to pull against him just two years ago.

Going into the season, Rossi had made his way onto the list of drivers I pull for. Normally I’m fairly objective and I like to think I was being objective when I saw his move on Robert Wickens on the last restart as strictly a racing incident. Before the race at Phoenix started Saturday night, I told Susan that it would not surprise me if Rossi won that race. He started strong, moving from fourth to third, but then he had his mishap on his first pit stop that resulted in a drive-through penalty that ended up with Rossi as the last car running and a lap down. At that point I figured Rossi would simply turn Saturday night into a long test session.

Instead, Rossi turned it into one of the best races I’ve seen anyone drive in a while. He passed a total of fifty-three cars and carved his way up through the field. The fifty-three cars Rossi passed accounted for almost twenty percent of all the passes that took place that night – by one driver. This wasn’t dumb luck where he got off pit sequence and caught some lucky yellows. He passed these cars in anger on the track.

The way his car was working in the latter stages of the race, I can only imagine what he would have done had he not suffered the penalty (which was rightly deserved, by the way).

Alexander Rossi trails Josef Newgarden by five points in the early championship battle. I’ve been a Newgarden fan since before he joined the series and always will be. But if the championship battle came down to Newgarden and Rossi at the end of the season, I would have a tough choice deciding who to pull for. At this point, it would probably still be Newgarden; but I’m quickly becoming a big Rossi fan as well. I think it’s safe to say that I have now jumped on the Alexander Rossi bandwagon.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on April 11, 2018 at 4:02 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.