IndyCar: How Alexander Rossi joined a group of racing legends

IndyCar driver Alexander Rossi made history when he became the first driver to win three legendary races with reputations for challenging the endurance of drivers.

Alexander Rossi completed his second straight winless IndyCar season for Andretti Autosport, but he could hardly call the year a disappointment.

In fact, he made history when he added this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona and Baja 1000 titles to his 2016 Indianapolis 500 victory and became the only driver to ever hold those three trophies.

Rossi, who called the Baja race “chaotic, awesome, and terrifying,” was the sixth Indy 500 winner to take on the grueling off-road course from Ensenada to La Paz.

Of those, Parnelli Jones probably came closest to matching Rossi’s feat – with wins at Indianapolis and Baja – but didn’t finish his only appearance in Daytona’s 24-hour race. Buddy Rice won both U.S.-based races but couldn’t conquer the desert and mountains of Mexico’s coastal peninsula.

Rossi shows historic versatility

Baja, Indy, and Daytona each test the limits of driver endurance, skill, and judgment in unique ways. Success requires a constant balance of patience and aggressiveness and the ability to relax and rest the body for long stretches without losing concentration for a nanosecond.

And while every race from local karting to Formula 1 requires these adjustments to some degree, these three races might be the toughest tests of a driver’s concentration: Indy and Daytona for their repetition and Baja for its unpredictability.

With this legendary accomplishment, Rossi should be regarded as one of racing’s multi-disciplinary greats. If we were to carve out a Mount Rushmore for such accomplishments, who should join him?

The most prominent head should belong to Mario Andretti. His list of accomplishments reads like a young driver’s fever dream: four IndyCar titles, a Formula 1 world championship, two IROC series championships, one dirt track title, and three wins in the 12 Hours of Sebring to go along with an Indy 500 win and a Daytona 500 win.

Andretti and Dan Gurney are the only drivers to win races in Formula 1, IndyCar, NASCAR, and the WSSC, but Gurney never won a championship in any format.

Gurney did join A.J. Foyt in the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans, racing for Carroll Shelby. But Gurney left most of the driving to Foyt after sleeping through a late-night shift change, and Foyt would go on to add wins in the 1985 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring to his four Indy 500 victories, single Daytona 500 win, 12 USAC championships, and two IROC championships.

We may have to move Mount Racemore to international waters, but the fourth head belongs to British legend Graham Hill. Hill is the only driver to win the Indy 500, 24 Hours of Le Mans, and a Formula 1 championship. Hill and his son Damon, the 1996 champion, are also the only father-son title winners in F1 history.

In an era when fatal and career-ending crashes were commonplace, Hill avoided serious injury until the 1969 United States Grand Prix. And while his performance in Formula 1 declined after that wreck, his Le Mans victory came three years later.

There are dozens of accomplished and talented drivers who didn’t make the mountain but deserve a place in the gift shop below.

Phil Hill won Le Mans three times and was the only American born driver to ever win a Formula 1 title. Emerson Fittipaldi won two F1 crowns and two Indy 500s. Fernando Alonso has two victories at Le Mans and two F1 championships, and he may still have another chance to chase an Indy 500 win.

With McLaren’s increased investment in its IndyCar efforts, Andretti Autosport’s attempted foray into Formula 1, and Penske’s interest in racing anything with wheels, we could see more drivers attempting multi-format crossovers in the future.

That means nothing but wins for race drivers, who not only get compelling racing that brings the most talented drivers to the top, but never-ending arguments about who is the best at doing it all.