Alexander Rossi is hopeful that “monumental” Chevrolet IndyCar gains in recent years can lead him back into the victory hunt at his home race in Long Beach.
Rossi is the only active driver to win the Long Beach Grand Prix back-to-back, claiming honours in 2018 and 2019 during a period where he was a regular title contender.
He won one race in the three seasons that followed but a switch to Arrow McLaren for 2023 has already produced a level of positivity that perhaps hasn’t been seen for some time.
He was fourth in the St Petersburg opener and qualified third at Texas before being taken out in the pits.
This season is Rossi’s first with Chevrolet power after seven seasons as one of Honda’s star IndyCar athletes.
With all of the changes going on, Rossi was bombarded in the pre-season with questions about his new team that he couldn’t really answer until he drove the car in anger. But now two races are in the books, The Race asked Rossi to reassess how he feels with his new team.
“[We’ve had] two races, but also only two races, right? It’s still early days,” he replied with a trademark wry smile.
“I think the entire atmosphere and the positivity within the team is obvious from the outside.
“I think the cohesiveness that they were able to keep and also the continuity of adding a third car, the people we’ve talked about many times, it’s a testament to everyone there from the top all the way to the bottom.
“It’s a real privilege and joy to be part of that team every single week. I think we’re only going to get stronger as time goes on.”
Heading into Long Beach, Rossi’s fourth place in St Petersburg should be encouraging as both are street courses.
But the two circuits are so different that an almost different package is needed in terms of set-up to take advantage of the different surfaces.
It was here, when asked about the differing car set-ups required, that Rossi played up Chevrolet’s gains.
“St Pete’s borderline getting to the point where it’s almost a road course, it’s so smooth and the grip level is what it is,” he said.
“You definitely take a little bit of a different approach there than you do other street courses.
“There are obviously some similarities.
“Obviously I didn’t drive the car last year, but I think the team has taken a step forward in terms of the street course programme.
“I think Chevrolet has made monumental steps, especially coming from 2021, their evolution of ’22, then again a step this year.
“I think it’s going to be the normal competitive qualifying and race. Your normal participants are going to be fighting for pole.
“It’s going to take perfect execution from everyone and [it will be] exciting to see how it shakes out.”
On the differences between the two engine manufacturers, he added: “I can’t speak for what it was like [before he joined McLaren].
“I think they [Chevrolet] had a huge focus on the bottom-end drivability side of things. Even when it was a challenge, they were still obviously very successful. Even when it was difficult in ’21, they were still winning races.
“Again, it’s very hard to have that big of a difference when the engine architecture is similar or the same, and the rules have been around for so long, everyone kind of follows to the same point.
“But, yes, there are still subtle differences. It’s kind of about maximising the strengths and weaknesses of each engine, right?
“Honda might go about that a different way than Chevy does.
“For us as drivers, me making the transition from one to the other, you’ve got to understand the areas that the Chevy is working in a better range, and you’ve got to focus on those areas to make sure you maximise the performance available.”
McLaren has had a remarkable start to the season with Pato O’Ward, who leads the championship with two second places that could have been wins despite misfortune.
Despite adding a third-full time entry and over 40 personnel, McLaren – under new team boss Gavin Ward – has been able to gel and perform quickly where other teams have faltered in similar circumstances in the past.
At Texas earlier this month O’Ward was fighting for the win and led the most laps before a late caution confirmed Josef Newgarden -who will be the first to match Rossi’s back-to-back record at Long Beach if he wins this weekend, following his 2022 victory – as the winner.
Rossi’s pit incident at Texas caused intrigue because Rossi blamed Kyle Kirkwood for crashing into him while trying to enter his box.
But IndyCar gave Rossi the penalty for the unsafe release because the driver entering his pitbox – in this case Kirkwood, coincidentally driving Rossi’s old Andretti entry – has priority.
That’s despite the fact that Rossi had already begun to leave his pitbox before Kirkwood turned down to pit.
Asked by The Race if, given time, Rossi had changed his opinion, he said: “No change of opinion.
“Hopefully we can, as a series, learn about communication and continuity, just take lessons from it. It’s a shame to have situations exist and not really learn anything from it.
“It’s something that we all talked about at length. At the end of the day it’s history now. We’ve just got to make sure going forward everyone is on the same page.”
There were still positives to take from his qualifying performance and the fact that two Chevy cars fought for the win for a second year in a row in the oval race that leads into the Indianapolis 500.
McLaren will unveil special liveries for the Indy 500 on April 14, which are ‘Triple Crown themed’ in honour of the racing team’s 60th anniversary and will debut on-track at next week’s Indy 500 test.
Having a shot at winning the 500 is arguably one of the key reasons McLaren signed Rossi, who won in 2016. There aren’t many drivers as young as him who have Indy 500 wins on the grid.
O’Ward ran Marcus Ericsson right to the flag in the 2022 race, with Honda praised for having an edge over Chevy in that battle, so Ganassi vs McLaren will likely be another intriguing fight this year.
Rossi was excited about the team’s chances.
“We have a lot of people, like, a significant amount of people. I don’t think that’s any concern of anyone,” he added.
“Obviously numbers aren’t everything. You’ve got to make sure that they’re the right people in the right positions.
“I think the team has done a very good job. We have access to a lot of people from the McLaren F1 side of things in terms of testing, so they’re very skilled mechanics.”
Next week will give us an idea of how McLaren stacks up for the 500 with the open test, but this weekend might give us a better idea of where Rossi is at in his growth at Arrow McLaren.
It’s only been two races and, if he struggles, it doesn’t mean he will never rekindle the form he showed pre-2020 and only in glimpses since.
But if he can turn on the Rossi Long Beach magic, the momentum that could generate could put Rossi back on the path to title challenger instead of a top-10 certainty.
And if that did happen, it would be an absolutely rapid turnaround.
