LEEDS, Ala. — Alexander Rossi has never noted Barber Motorsports Park as one of his favorite tracks in the NTT IndyCar Series, but the California native was able to climb through much of the midfield to finish eighth in Sunday’s (May 4) Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix.
The No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet started 15th but scythed through several cars to end the first lap in 10th place.
“We were on the preferred softer tire and that’s one of the advantages you have, I guess, of not making it out of round one of qualifying,” Rossi told Frontstretch. “But we knew we had to get track position at the start, and we were able to do that.”
Rossi started on the softer Firestone Alternate compound tires and was able to get around Louis Foster, Kyffin Simpson, Josef Newgarden, Santino Ferrucci and Felix Rosenqvist to get up to 10th place. The 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner moved to ninth place on the third lap and then stayed steady in that spot for much of the race.
Despite moving up to seventh after the second cycle of pit stops, Rossi fell to eighth place during the final pit stop sequence when Colton Herta leapfrogged his former teammate.
Rossi’s team decided to run their mandated stint on the harder Primary compound tire at the end of the race while the rest of the drivers in the top 10 were all on the faster Alternate compound.
“It was horrible,” Rossi told FOX pit reporter Georgia Henneberry with a light chuckle on pit road after the race. “Like, we knew it was going to be bad at some point, but with where we started we were just trying to get as much track position as we could on the alternate tire and build a big enough gap to the cars we were racing to be able to put them on the end and it was a lot of work to keep Nolan [Siegel] and Josef behind there.”
Nolan Siegel tried as hard as he could at the end, but just couldn’t quite get by his former Arrow McLaren teammate as Rossi finished just a half second ahead of Siegel and just over two seconds ahead of Newgarden. IndyCar points leader Alex Palou won the race ahead of Christian Lundgaard and two-time Barber winner Scott McLaughlin.
The next NTT IndyCar Series race will be this coming Saturday (May 10) at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. That road course was the site of Rossi’s last IndyCar victory.
“I’m looking forward to it, I mean it’s the month of May now, it’s the greatest month in racing at the greatest track in the world,” Rossi said. “I’m excited to get out there and ECR’s always had fantastic cars, obviously on the oval but also the road course. Looking forward to the two events out there.”
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.