Oilpressure

In early July, it was announced that Alexander Rossi and Arrow McLaren would be parting ways. I immediately came to the conclusion that the 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner had been fired – another casualty of being employed by Zak Brown. As it turned out, it actually was a mutual parting. Rossi’s contract was up at the end of the 2024 season, and they had offered him just a one-year extension to return. Rossi decided he deserved more than a one-year contract, so he opted to leave. Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s (RLL) Christian Lundgaard was hired to drive Rossi’s No. 7 beginning in 2025.

At the time, I surmised that Rossi obviously had a deal somewhere else. In this crazy world we know as the IndyCar Silly Season, it’s pretty risky to turn down an offer from one of the top teams – even if it is for only one year.

My guess back in early July was that Chip Ganassi was going to part ways with Linus Lundqvist at the end of the season, and the Rossi would drive the No. 8 Ganassi car that had won the Indianapolis 500 in 2022. Of course, that was before I realized that Ganassi would be scaling back to three cars due to the charter system that was finalized this past Monday.

Rossi going to Ganassi made sense to me. If I thought I had the inside track to a fulltime ride at Ganassi, especially after a disappointing season and a half at McLaren – I would leave McLaren for a Ganassi ride. I incorrectly figured that Rossi already had Ganassi lined up as a Plan A, if McLaren did not offer up a sizeable long-term contract. When we learned that Ganassi was going to scale down from five cars to three, I figured chances were slim that Rossi would be going to Ganassi.

The destination of Alexander Rossi became the number one question of fans and even the IndyCar paddock. Some speculated Rossi would be headed to AJ Foyt Enterprises, Ed Carpenter Racing or Dale Coyne Racing. I couldn’t see him going to any of those teams. This was an Indianapolis 500 winner that had been fighting for championships not that many seasons ago. Surely he could do better. The fact that he walked away from a one-year deal at McLaren kept hanging in my mind. Surely he already had something lined up for a prime ride that would be a bombshell whenever it would be announced.

When David Malukas made the surprise move to Foyt, many assumed he would be going to Meyer Shank Racing to replace Malukas in the No. 66. It wasn’t quite the bombshell I expected, but it made sense. This would be a quasi-Ganassi ride, given the new technical alliance between the two. It wasn’t the No. 8 car, but it seemed like a sensible Plan B.

That possibility dried up when it was announced that Marcus Armstrong would be sliding over from Ganassi into the No. 66. Plan B was gone, and it didn’t look like Plan A would materialize. Alex Palou and Scott Dixon were obviously not going anywhere. Even if Lundqvist was to vacate the No. 8, Ganassi will be saving a seat for Kyffin Simpson, because he brings all-important funding to the team.

The smart money was saying that Rossi would most likely be headed to RLL. They had the cash (assuming Hy-Vee was staying with them) and he could elevate their oval program. I never bought into that (even though I had already completely misread the Rossi situation). While they have been occasionally fast on road and street courses, RLL has been a train wreck on ovals. At 33, Rossi has x-amount of chances left to win another Indianapolis 500. I don’t think he wants to be sweating out the Last Row Shootout on the Sunday of Qualifying weekend – potentially battling with his teammates for the last spot in the Indianapolis 500.

If Rossi was possibly leaning that way, the FBI showing up at RLL Headquarters may have squashed that. Just a couple of days after the FBI raid, it was announced that Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR) was parting ways with Rinus VeeKay, who had driven for them for the past five seasons. It didn’t take long even for someone as thick-headed as me to connect the dots. VeeKay was being jettisoned to make room for Rossi, who had just made his decision.

The picture came more into focus on Tuesday, when ECR announced that they were taking on a co-owning partner in the team – Ted Gelov, owner of Indiana-based Heartland Food Products Group; whose products include Splenda and Java House. Everyone was wondering how ECR could pay Rossi the fee he was wanting. This answered that question. On Wednesday, it was confirmed that Alexander Rossi would step into the No. 20 car, and Christian Rasmussen would slide over into the No. 21 car. Ed Carpenter will drive a third entry (presumably No. 33) in the Indianapolis 500.

Is this what Rossi envisioned when he decided he would walk away from Arrow McLaren? I have to think not. This sounds to me like Plan C, at best. I know Rossi and Ed Carpenter both own an airplane together, but I don’t think being co-owners of an airplane outside of racing automatically puts you together on the same racing team.

I am on a group text with some racing friends. I am the only one in the group that still thinks highly of Alexander Rossi. The others think that Rossi had an over-inflated value of his worth. Granted, he has only won one race since 2019 and has not finished higher than ninth in the championship since then – but I don’t think Rossi forgot how to drive a race car in 2020. I think Andretti was in a down period in his last few years there, and I’m not sure he ever gelled with Arrow McLaren. He seemed extremely annoyed whenever he had to appear in a social media video there. I think he probably realized that he would never reach what he saw as his full potential if he stayed with McLaren.

But I’m not sure he will reach his potential at ECR, either. There is no doubt that they know how to prepare cars for the Indianapolis 500. Maybe that is what Ross cares most about. If so, he went to the right place. If he wanted to make sure he got paid handsomely, he probably also went to the right place with the infusion of cash that the new co-owner relationship with Ted Gelov brings. But if he cares about contending for championships – did he make the right choice?

It takes money to go fast, but there are a lot of team owners in the past that have thrown tons of cash at racing that saw few results. There is so much more that goes into developing a successful team than spending more money. You needn’t look any further than Rossi’s old team – Arrow McLaren – to see a clear example of that. They have more resources than almost any team in the paddock, yet they went winless in 2023 – with three cars on the grid.

ECR has a history of having fast cars at Indianapolis. But they also have a recent history of running behind the pack on random short ovals and non-ovals.

Don’t get me wrong, the cash that Gelov brings will be a huge help. Alexander Rossi is also a significant upgrade over Rinus VeeKay. But lots of money to get a better driver does not guarantee instant success. But it can’t hurt.

Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps Alexander Rossi was targeting ECR all along, but I kind of doubt it. I think they were at least Plan B – maybe even possibly Plan C. I’m wondering if he knew what he knows now, would he have signed the one-year deal with McLaren? I guess we’ll never know.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on September 27, 2024 at 4:04 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.