IndyCar: Alexander Rossi comments on incident with Robert Wickens

Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi commented on his late incident with Robert Wickens in the 2018 IndyCar season opener at St. Petersburg.

Alexander Rossi was running in second place in his #27 Honda for Andretti Autosport in the opening race of the 2018 IndyCar season, the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, coming to the race’s final restart on lap 109 of lap 110.

The race had just gone under caution for the seventh time thanks to Max Chilton stalling his #59 Carlin Motorsport Chevrolet in turn 8. On the previous restart, which came as a result of Rene Binder crashing his #32 Juncos Racing Chevrolet into the turn 10 tire barrier, Rossi was unable to take the lead.

Robert Wickens, who had dominated the race up to that point in his first ever IndyCar race after starting from the pole position, had managed to hold off Rossi and the rest of the field after this restart with just three laps to go before Chilton spun out and stalled.

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The next restart, however, ended differently.

Rossi was right up on the back of Wickens before Wickens took off to the green flag, setting Rossi up to potentially make a pass heading into the first turn. Rossi did, indeed, attempt to make a pass, but he got loose and slid through the corner, causing him to hit Wickens.

Wickens tried to steady his car, but he ended up spinning out with under two laps to go in his first career IndyCar race despite appearing to be well on his way to having one win and one pole in just one race. He finished in 18th place.

Rossi lost a few positions as a result of the incident and finished in 3rd place, and Sebastien Bourdais ended up going on to win the race for the second year in a row. The race ended under caution.

Here is a video of the incident.

This sequence of events has inevitably caused a lot of discussion among drivers and fans. Here is what Rossi had to say about the incident, according to Motorsport.com.

"“Normally they don’t allow push-to-pass on restarts, you have to do a timed [racing] lap before you get it, but because of the late call to go green, that lap they allowed it and I got the call when I was in the middle of Turn 13/14.“So I got a big jump on Rob and he got to the push-to-pass pretty late, so the run was perfect for me. Heading down into Turn 1, I knew there wasn’t going to be many other opportunities for me because he’d had a very good car all day and they did a great job.“So I made the pop [out of the slipstream], he defended the position which he has the right to do but in doing so, by moving in reaction, he put me into the marbles pretty late into the corner. It’s difficult with theses cars with how much we’re sliding around even on the racing line, so on the marbles it’s hairy.“Super-unfortunate to see that happen – I feel bad because I think I could have won and he could have been second. Nonetheless it was a great job by the team all weekend. I think we showed we had a car that could qualify up front yesterday and we redeemed ourselves a little bit today…”“If he’d defended the inside initially out of 14 or even halfway down the straight, and I’d still continued to go to the inside, then yeah, that’s my decision to put my car in danger. But there’s no reason why I can’t pop and stay next to him. I don’t have to have all four wheels on the part of the track where nobody goes on.“My goose was totally rare until he continued to move in the braking zone and put me more into the marbles. I had no problem pulling it up, I wasn’t locked up or anything.”"

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Will there be any on-track aggression between Alexander Rossi and Robert Wickens in the near future? The series does not return to action until Saturday, April 7th when the Desert Diamond West Valley Phoenix Grand Prix is set to take place at ISM Raceway in Avondale, Arizona. That race is set to be broadcast live on NBC Sports Network at 9:00 pm ET on that day.