Photo Credit: IndyCar
Alexander Rossi, driver of the No. 98 Napa Autoparts Honda, won the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He also won Rookie of the Indy 500 as well. Rossi said it has been a crazy 30 hours for him.
“A lot of pictures,” Rossi said. “It was the most pictures I’ve ever taken in my entire life. No, I think when I pulled into victory lane, I was blown away with the fact that I had won, but I had no idea, even remotely, what was then around the corner from that. It’s just been — this entire month has been something that I’m blown away every single day, and that hasn’t ceased to stop. I’m enjoying it and just trying to embrace it as much as I can, all the while appreciate what happened yesterday. It’s a lot of different things going through my mind at the moment.”
Even though he says its been a crazy few hours, he actually did get some sleep.
“Our friends at IndyCar decided to schedule a race right after this,” Rossi added “So I decided to have an early night, and it’s going to be a busy couple days ahead of Detroit, so I want to go to Detroit at 100 percent.”
Rossi during the race had a bad pit stop and it put him in the back of the pack, but with the help of his strategist (co-owner Bryan Herta) and his driving ability he was able to get back to the front.
“Yeah. I mean, we had pace, and we were comfortable running on the leader strategy when we were in the top 10,” Rossi added. “The leaders were never out of touch, and we knew that our pace was the same if not a little bit better. We were happy to run around from eighth to tenth and kind of just wait for the race to unfold and see what happened. But when we had a bad yellow-flag pit stop that dropped us from eighth to 28th or something silly like that, it forced our hand because it’s one thing to overtake six or seven cars, but to overtake 27 cars is going to be pretty tricky.
“We went for it, and we knew it was going to be quite a big risk, and what a lot of people think when they hear I was running out of fuel, they think it was something that I had to adjust for on the last like two or three laps, but this was a decision that was made 90 laps prior. I was in fuel conserve mode from that point, all the while trying to maintain and advance my position. It was a pretty tricky end to the race.”
The rookie had never experienced IMS during the month of May nor had he raced on the famous track. In fact, he never raced on any ovals until he raced at Phoenix International Raceway in April. So ovals are pretty new to him yet somehow he managed to figure Indianapolis Motor Speedway out pretty quickly.
“My initial impressions when I first came here was how large the place was,” Rossi stated. “The only other oval I had been to was Phoenix, and obviously a one-mile short oval is vastly different than this. When I drove the first few laps in ROP, I had kind of two emotions. One was, holy shit, that’s fast, and the other one this is actually a lot more relaxing than Phoenix because you actually have a straightaway to recompose yourself because every single time you go into Turn 1 and Turn 3 you’re questioning whether or not you’re still going to continue to do this.
“So it was crazy in the beginning, and then as each day went on, I settled in more, and it became more natural to me. In terms of transferring things over from Formula 1, yes, you can, to IndyCar in general, but nothing transfers to an oval race or the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”
The Nevada City, California native was racing in the Formula 1 Series before he landed the ride in the IndyCar Series said he knew about the Indy 500 and watched it on TV every year.
“I mean, this is obviously a race you don’t miss for a variety of different reasons,” Rossi quoted. “And my first memory was 2006 and Marco and what he came so close to accomplishing in his rookie year, and it was something that really stood out to me. And ever since then, I have very good memories of this race and watching it on TV, but this is the first time that I’ve actually ever attended it. It was pretty mindblowing Sunday morning on the grid, and just people tell you how big it’s going to be and what you’re going to feel, but you can’t truly be prepared for what existed and what is there, and it’s just — it makes a lot of sense why it’s the greatest race in the world.”
The American driver will have a busy few days a head of him as he will go on the Indy 500 Media tour before he reports to Detroit on Wednesday evening for the double header there.
“Well, I’m going to New York a little bit unexpectedly, so that’ll be fun, tomorrow, tonight,” Rossi added. “Tonight. Wow, I need to pack. And then I’ll go to Texas on Tuesday, and that’s all short-term stuff. What’s happening in the long-term, I don’t know, and I’m frankly not that interested at the moment. I’m focused on Detroit and still enjoying the fact that we won the Indy 500.”
Like the other tracks this year, Rossi has yet to race on the streets of Michigan
“I don’t know anything about it, but I will start watching videos in the next couple days, but I am very much looking forward to going there,” Rossi added “I’ve heard it’s bumpy.
“Great, that means my hands will get torn up a little bit. I was starting to like the ovals because your hands don’t get shredded, but I guess that’s going to go out the window.”
