IndyCar: 5 reasons Alexander Rossi’s move was completely acceptable

Robert Wickens moved in reaction to Alexander Rossi

As painful as it is for a lot of people to admit it, by looking at the overhead view of the replay of the incident, it is overwhelmingly clear that Robert Wickens moved in reaction to Alexander Rossi attempting to make the pass on him coming down the front straightaway.

Again, watch the video of the accident — Wickens actually may have moved in reaction to Rossi twice.

Rossi defended Wickens’ movement to defend his position, but at the same time, he acknowledged the fact that Wickens moved in reaction to Rossi, thus forcing Rossi into the marbles — and the slippery track surface, which will be discussed in a more in-depth manner on the next slide of this article.

While he didn’t come right out and blame Wickens for the incident, suffice it to say that Rossi believes that had Wickens not moved in reaction to him, he would have taken the lead, and it would have been Wickens in the position to try to pass him for the win over the final two laps of the race instead of the other way around.

While this may not seem logical since Wickens led 69 of the race’s first 108 laps and Rossi only led five of them, that’s literally what was set to happen after the jump Rossi got on Wickens on the race’s final restart.

Of course, Wickens, like Rossi, has every right to go for the race win — he is allowed to defend his position, and as referenced above, Rossi admitted that.

But at the same time, Wickens looked like he was going to get passed by Rossi had he not moved in reaction to him, so a wreck seemed inevitable given the fact that he did move in reaction to him. Instead of settling for 2nd place with two laps to go and still a solid shot to win the race, he ended up securing 18th place and a DNF.