IndyCar: Alexander Rossi is now in last place in points

By Asher Fair | Jul 12, 2020

Alexander Rossi, Andretti Autosport, Road America, IndyCar (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images) /

Among the 21 full-time IndyCar drivers, perennial championship contender Alexander Rossi now sits last in the standings after a disastrous start to the 2020 season.

Three races into the 2020 IndyCar season, the lone driver who has finished no lower than third place in the championship standings in each of the last two seasons is still seeking his first top 14 finish — and his first lead-lap finish — of the year.

Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi, my preseason pick to win the title, got his season off to a decent start by qualifying in eighth place for the opener at Texas Motor Speedway. Last year, he qualified 11th and challenged Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden for the win at the track before ending up in second.

But technical issues before the race derailed his chances for a good result even before the green flag flew. He was sent to the rear of the field and then given a drive-through penalty for unapproved adjustments to his #27 Honda.

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He battled back from two laps off the lead lap to finish just one lap down, but he had to settle for 15th place. Meanwhile, teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay, who had similar issues, bounced back to finish on the lead lap in eighth.

Things got worse at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, when a fuel pressure issue caused Rossi to retire with a 25th place finish just 41 laps into the 80-lap race.

Rossi entered the current weekend in a 23rd place tie in the championship standings, but although there are only 21 full-time drivers, he still sat ahead of full-time rookie Alex Palou of Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh, as several part-time drivers had either competed in the first two races or done well in one of those two events.

Rossi had scored 20 points through the first two races while Palou had scored only 18 with finishes of 23rd place (crash) at Texas Motor Speedway and 19th at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

Now Rossi sits in dead last in the points among the 21 full-time drivers, as Road America, a track where he led 54 of 55 laps and won by a different time zone (officially 28.439 seconds), kept his string of misfortune rolling.

The 28-year-old Nevada City, California native has still not led a single lap in IndyCar since last June’s race at the 14-turn, 4.048-mile (6.515-kilometer) natural terrain road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin (11 races ago), and things did not look all that great for him from the start of this weekend.

He qualified in a mediocre 11th place, and on the opening lap, he went off course and ran into an advertisement sign, causing him to make an early pit stop to remove a piece of that sign from his front wing.

He battled back to challenge for a top 10 position late in the race thanks to three consecutive caution flag periods, but he tangled with Carlin’s Max Chilton in the closing laps and had to settle for a 19th place finish, one lap off the lead lap.

Rossi has scored just 31 points this season, the equivalent of one fifth place finish with a lap led. He sits a whopping 124 points (more than two flag to flag wins) behind Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, who leads the championship standings with three consecutive wins to open up the season.

Meanwhile, Palou finished in a career-high third place at Road America and launched himself up into 14th in the championship standings with 53 points.

Rossi’s closest competitor in the standings is teammate Marco Andretti, who has also had a terrible start to the season. Andretti has scored 32 points on finished of 14th, 22nd and 22nd place.

Perhaps even more depressingly, Rossi is now tied with part-time teammate James Hinchcliffe, who competed in the season’s first two races but served as a reporter for NBC Sports Network during the race at Road America.

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Can Rossi turn his season around in the second race of the doubleheader at Road America this weekend? This race is set to be broadcast live on NBC this afternoon beginning at 12:00 p.m. ET.