Alexander Rossi interview: Battling through IndyCar’s toughest month

Alexander Rossi has just finished four Verizon IndyCar Series races in less than a month, and he spoke to FanSided about staying competitive under pressure.

Alexander Rossi has had a busy schedule. The Verizon IndyCar Series driver competed in the Indy 500 at the end of May, then raced twice in Detroit the next weekend and battled in the Rainguard Water Sealers 600 at Texas on Saturday. That’s four races in the span of two weeks.

How does Rossi deal with the added demands on himself and his Andretti Autosport team while still staying competitive? And now that he’s halfway through his sophomore IndyCar season, how does he see his second year in the league?

FanSided spoke to Alexander Rossi before Texas to get his opinion on the IndyCar schedule and his outlook on the rest of the season.

“As a driver your whole job outside of the race car is to stay fit and healthy, so from a physical aspect it’s not that hard,” he explained. “I think mentally, because you’re switching back and forth from such a variety of tracks, that’s challenging.

“But really the biggest challenge is on the teams and the crews. They’re on the road working such long hours away from their families and it’s just taxing on them. Once we get to Texas it calms down a little bit, so I think everyone is kind of looking forward to that.”

Rossi’s run at Texas didn’t go at all how he wanted it to; he was the first driver knocked out of a crash-heavy race when close racing with Tony Kanaan wound up with the No. 98 Andretti Honda going into the wall.

But he’s still within the top 10 of the IndyCar points standings. Does that make him feel more confident in his season overall, knowing that he’s a championship contender?

“For sure,” he said. “Last year we had an issue at the front of the year which dropped us from ninth to 11th, so I think we would have been in the top 10 last year. We’re much closer to the top this year, which is a positive thing to take from it. We’re only 50-odd points out and there’s still races left. It’s a good position to be in and we just need to focus on getting race wins at this point and everything else will come.”

The points standings are incredibly close, however, with some positions being decided by as little as a single marker between them. Given the razor-thin margin for error, does Alexander Rossi find himself keeping an eye on the big picture, or is it best to just look at each individual race?

“During the weekend you don’t pay attention,” he told us. “But you look at it afterwards for sure to kind of see where you’re at and who you’re directly competing against going into the next weekend.

“In these four weeks there’s a unbelievable amount of points available, from the double points in Indianapolis to Detroit and now Texas, so you have to really be on your game through the month of May and into June and hope that you can have a strong run to build some momentum for the second half of the year.”

It’s not as if he hasn’t been trying. Rossi has been putting himself up front throughout the season and just having issues befall him, including contending for a second Indy 500 victory, a missed podium at the Grand Prix of Long Beach due to engine issues, and the Texas wreck.

So what will he be working on to get that momentum going into Road America and beyond?

“I think we just haven’t yet pulled a weekend together,” he reflected. “We’ve had good practices and qualifying but the race hasn’t come together, or vice versa, we struggled in qualifying but did good in the races.

“It just hasn’t been a complete weekend yet, and that’s because of the competition and how one mistake can really punish you on one end or the other, so we just have to keep working at it. The car is strong so we’ll get there at some point.

“I wouldn’t say [things are] going that well yet; we’ve given away a couple potential wins. But it’s definitely a big uptick from last year and that’s a huge credit to all of Andretti Autosport. I think all four cars are a bit stronger.”

While he continues to climb the Verizon IndyCar Series ranks in the 2017 season, Rossi is further excited at what will be ahead for him in his third season during 2018.

“I think they’re making a hugely positive step in the right direction with the new aero kit that’s coming out in 2018 and I think that will really raise the competition level even more,” he enthused.

“We have the most competitive series on the planet, no doubt about it, and I think that as that continues to grow and more open manufacturers get added and the calendar gets expanded, it’s only going to be positive things.

“Right now the series is being proactive, which is something that’s rare to find in motorsports,” Rossi concluded, “and it’s a privilege to be a part of it.”

Next: 3 takeaways from IndyCar at Texas

The Verizon IndyCar Series will return at Road America on Sunday, June 25. For the latest news and notes throughout IndyCar, follow the Motor Sports category at FanSided here.