WEST ALLIS, Wis. — An aggressive undercut strategy turned a midfield starting position into a top-five for Alexander Rossi as he finished fourth in Sunday’s (August 24) Snap-On 250 at the Milwaukee Mile for the NTT IndyCar Series.
After starting 12th, the 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner made the race’s first scheduled green flag pit stop on the race’s 48th lap out of 250. Running 10th at the time of his pit stop, Rossi temporarily fell to last in the race’s remaining 26 cars.
That’s when the fresh tires started paying off as the No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet started turning faster laps than the cars that hadn’t stopped. Once the majority of the field stopped between five and 10 laps later, Rossi found himself in fourth place, having leapfrogged Will Power, Pato O’Ward, Conor Daly, Josef Newgarden, Kyle Kirkwood and Rinus VeeKay.
“You’ve got to be aggressive, especially this part of the year,” Rossi said on pit road after the race. It’s not like we’re racing for points or anything, it’s just trying to get trophies. So Woody [Harvey, Team Manager] on the 21 car and Ed [Carpenter, Team Owner] on my car called an amazing race, Christian was just a little bit better than us today but still, a good result for the team.”
Rossi remained in the top 10 for much of the rest of the race, but a late caution turned everything upside down. With just over 40 laps to go, a very small rain shower went over part of the track that was hard enough for a caution but not enough rain to warrant a red flag.
Under the ensuing yellow, 14 of the 17 cars on the lead lap pitted for fresh tires. The three drivers not to pit? Leader Alex Palou, Scott McLaughlin and Newgarden, who were running just behind Palou on track.
The California native restarted fourth. Despite getting around Newgarden, Rossi’s Ed Carpenter Racing teammate went from seventh on the restart to pass Rossi on lap 226 and then go on to snatch the lead from Palou with 15 laps to go.
Rossi finished 11.45 seconds adrift of his teammate for his second top-five finish in a row.
“I mean, it’s obviously two very different tracks and environments, but yeah, this sport is a game of momentum and sometimes it goes in waves for a long time one way or another,” Rossi said.
After climbing from his car, Rossi went to victory lane to congratulate Rasmussen on his victory.
“Your first career win is a moment you’ll obviously never forget and it’s huge for your career,” Rossi said. “And he’s been so good on the ovals this year and it’s been a long time coming for ECR as well.”
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.