'It's a relief': Alexander Rossi breaks 3-year IndyCar drought with win at IMS road course

INDIANAPOLIS -- At a track he’s historically struggled at over his seven-year IndyCar career and during a race weekend he was less than enthused over, Alexander Rossi broke a three-year IndyCar race winless streak Saturday afternoon.

To do so, he watched Andretti Autosport teammate Colton Herta drift out of the race from the lead on Lap 42 with gearing issues that appeared to have come from running over a curb just past the halfway point. Later on Twitter, the team called Herta’s race-ending issue a “terminal mechanical failure.”

So one week after what he called on his podcast the most uncompetitive racing weekend he’s had during his tenure at Andretti Autosport (13^th and 18^th during the Iowa doubleheader), Rossi finally made his way back to Victory Lane.

Here’s how he did it:

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Pole-sitter Felix Rosenqvist falls behind quickly

Felix Rosenqvist led the field to green, having grabbed his third career IndyCar pole, second of this season, Friday afternoon. What started as a strong opportunity for Arrow McLaren SP to build off Pato O’Ward’s second win of the year July 24 at Iowa turned bleak quickly. By Lap 8, following a short caution from Laps 3-6, Rosenqvist had fallen back to 3^rd-place, passed by both Rossi and Herta while complaining over the radio for his mysterious lack of power.

By the end of Saturday’s 85-lap race, Rosenqvist was fighting just to stick in the top-10 and eventually finished 9^th.

O’Ward, who started 3rd Saturday, saw his day go even worse – spun on Lap 1 by Will Power in the midst of some multi-car jockeying heading into Turn 3 sent him into an alternate pitstop strategy. Slowly but surely, O’Ward worked his way up from 25th and managed to finish 12th, but a driver who said even top-5s weren’t good enough for his championship hopes suffered another blow Saturday. Having come into the weekend 5th in the title hunt, 36 points back, the young Mexican driver fell further back. With four races left, he’s still in 5th but 46 points out now.

Alexander Rossi on win: 'It's a relief'

After taking control of the lead from Herta, Rossi led the final 44 laps of the race without incident. His initial race lead stood around 2.5 seconds over 2^nd-place finisher Christian Lundgaard when Herta bowed out. It grew to just over four seconds at times, and after falling back to just 2.5 seconds following the leaders’ final pitstop on Lap 62, Rossi pushed it back up to 3.9 seconds by Lap 70, and the 2016 Indy 500 winner never looked back.

“It’s a relief, man,” Rossi said post-race on NBC. “There’s been support for me for so long, and I do feel for Colton, I do. But I’m thankful something finally came our way. Shoutout to Andretti Autosport in their continued belief.

“I think Colton was definitely strong, and we had pretty much the same race car, and that (battle) would’ve been interesting. But it was the 27’s turn. And that’s awesome.”

The drought-breaking win, though, comes with just four races left before Rossi heads off to Arrow McLaren SP at the end of this season.

“We’ve still got some more to go, but this was a really great track for us to do it at – back at home in Indianapolis. That was really amazing.”

Will Power moves into points lead

Though he finished a ways back from the other two podium finishers, Power wowed with his work back up to 3^rd by the checkered flag after losing 12 spots over the first two laps due to the early contact typical of the starting stretch of an IndyCar race on the IMS road course. His 3^rd-place finish stands as his seventh podium of the year, his third-straight and his second of the two races on the IMS road course this year.

With it, after incumbent points leader Marcus Ericsson started last (25^th) on Saturday after stalling during Round 1 of qualifying and only worked up to 11th by the checkered flag, Power now leads the title chase by 9 points. Coming into Saturday, this year’s Indy 500 winner led Power by eight points and held a 34-point pad on Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden tied in 3^rd-place.

After Saturday’s race, Newgarden took over 3^rd-place in points, 32 points back from his Team Penske teammate after a run to 5^th Saturday. Newgarden touched down in Indianapolis on Thursday afternoon uncertain if he’d even race Saturday, having lost consciousness, collapsed and hit his head post-race in the drivers’ bus lot at Iowa Speedway last Sunday evening. Newgarden was airlifted to a Des Moines hospital Sunday night, was held there overnight for observation and released the next day. Thursday, he was evaluated and cleared for Friday morning’s practice, and minutes after that practice, IndyCar’s medical team gave Newgarden the ‘OK’ for the rest of the weekend.

After starting a disappointing 20^th and working up to 8^th, Dixon sits 4^th in points, 38 behind Power. Trailing O’Ward, Alex Palou drifted further back in 6^th in the title race. After starting 7^th Saturday, the driver in the midst of a civil lawsuit from his own team dropped back to 10^th in Saturday’s race and is now 52 points out of being able to defend his 2021 championship.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: Alexander Rossi ends 3-year drought, wins at IMS road course