'We’ve finished half the goal': Alexander Rossi ended a 3-year drought when he won the pole at Road America. Next come the race.
ELKHART LAKE – Alexander Rossi ended one disappointing and frustrating streak Saturday, when he won the pole for the Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America.
A slightly shorter but much more important one is on the line Sunday at the track where his most recent NTT IndyCar Series victory came three years ago.
“Obviously you don’t ever want to go through an experience like this, and we haven’t finished the job yet,” said Rossi, a seven-time winner in the series and 2018 championship runner-up. “We need to go win tomorrow.
“We’ve finished half the goal, I guess you could say. The whole team has been in a good space since the month of May started and is carrying that on now, and hopefully this is the trend for the rest of the year.”
Rossi turned the fastest lap in the final “fast six” qualifying session in 1 minute 44.8656 seconds, edging three-time Road America pole-sitter Josef Newgarden (1:44.9371).
The pole was Rossi’s first since Detroit in 2019, three races before the RA victory.
“Ultimately if we were to go back and do it again, maybe we could have pipped him," Newgarden said. "It was that close with how good of a lap it was. That's IndyCar, though. Sometimes you really think you have it sorted out, and someone can always put something together.
“I think Alex mustered a really good lap together today. Sometimes that's all it takes, is just really digging deep, putting it all together.”
Rossi became the eighth different pole-sitter to start the season. That’s the most since 1961, when it took until the 10th race of a 12-race season for a repeat No. 1 qualifier.
Defending winner Alex Palou and Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson will share an all-Chip Ganssi Racing second row. Colton Herta, one of Rossi's teammates, qualified fifth but will take a six-position grid penalty for an unapproved engine change related to his crash before the Indianapolis 500.
.@IndyCar confirms the @tracksideonline report that Colton Herta will have a 6-spot grid penalty tomorrow (5th to 11th).
Stems from his Carb Day crash. Honda attempted to repair the engine, but it was just recently deemed unrepairable - which is why it wasn’t served at Detroit.— Nathan Brown (@By_NathanBrown) June 12, 2022
The 55-lap race is scheduled for an 11:55 a.m. green flag Sunday.
“We definitely took (setup) pieces from the ’19 car and pieces from the past two years as well,” said Rossi, who started second when he dominated the 2019 race here. “Not just a copy/paste situation, but we certainly went back to a philosophy we had back then. This all kind of stems from the end of last year. Our road course performance really had a big uptick at the last quarter of last year and we’re carrying that into 2022.”
Rossi came into Road America with momentum, having finished a quiet fifth place in the Indianapolis 500 two weeks ago and second on Detroit’s Belle Isle street course last Sunday. He also was fastest in the practice session Friday.
“We’re doing all we can,” said Rossi, who in the midst of this run announced he was moving from Andretti Autosport to Arrow McLaren next season. “It’s hard. There’s no guarantees.
“I think we had a pretty decent margin yesterday and then everyone closed the gap overnight. That’s going to happen again tonight and going into tomorrow. We’ve got to still improve.”
More: IndyCar driver Rinus VeeKay came to Wisconsin to race and ended up with a second family
Big day for Pabst Racing
Wisconsin’s Road to Indy team, Pabst Racing of Oconomowoc, picked up a victory by Jace Denmark and a pair of runner-up finishes by Myles Rowe in the two USF2000 races.
In the opener, Denmark passed Rowe on the final lap and held him off for a Pabst 1-2. Then in the second, Rowe chased championship leader Michael d’Orlando but fell short.
Other support series
Sting Ray Robb outqualified Pabst alumnus Hunter McElrea for his first pole with a lap of 1:53.9743 for the Indy Lights race that is set for 9:40 a.m. Sunday.
Twelfth starter Louis Foster won the first Indy Pro 2000 race of the weekend by more than 3.6 seconds over Josh Green in a battle of rookies.
Big money on the line for Josef Newgarden
Newgarden is racing for an extra million dollars Sunday.
The winner on the Texas Motor Speedway and Long Beach is eligible for the PeopleReady Force for Good Challenge, which rewards the first driver to win on all three types of circuits on the IndyCar schedule, an oval, a street circuit and a permanent road course.
The $1 million would be split with half going to the team and driver and the other half to the driver’s charities of choice. Newgarden has picked Wags and Walks of Nashville and SeriousFun Children’s Network.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Alexander Rossi wins IndyCar pole at Elkhart Lake's Road America
