INDIANAPOLIS — Ed Carpenter Racing has flexed its muscles when it came to their oval performance in the past, and in 2026, the team had aspirations of a revamped program for its road and street course programs.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case for the team, and it all hit rock bottom today (May 9) at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course in the Sonsio Grand Prix.
With qualifying being washed out on Saturday, the first strike of misfortune came after both cars failed to advance from Q1, more frustrating for Alexander Rossi‘s No. 20 team that missed advancement by .001 seconds.
With Rossi starting 13th and Christian Rasmussen rolling off 19th, a lap 1 pile up in turn one looked to favor the ECR Chevrolets along with other teams with an a sundry of alternate strategies blooming from a chaotic opening 30 laps.
However, both cars would run into their own mishaps.
The first hat to drop was Rasmussen’s No. 21.
While battling for position on the first restart of the day, Rasmussen went off track through the grass in turn 8, causing his toe link to bend and need replacement by his pit crew.
While the No. 21 was being attended to, the No. 20 of Rossi slowed to a stop on the yard of bricks. He had his wheel stuck out of the car to signal he’s stalled and even climbed out and over the pit wall before race control flew full course yellow.
Rossi then told FOX that the car had a hybrid malfunction that killed the car and voiced his displeasure in the feature ruining the team’s day.
“It’s pretty annoying to have failures on the car because of a product that we didn’t ask for that doesn’t improve the racing,” Rossi said. “Second of all, the fact that it took that long to throw a full-course yellow when a car is on the frontstraight and people are going by at 170 mph also seems insane when they don’t let us drive in the wet yesterday. I don’t really know where the priorities lie, so pretty frustrated.”
Rossi respectfully chose to not comment to Frontstretch after climbing out of the car and deliberating with his ECR crew.
Then, misfortune ended the team’s day with a abysmal 1-2 in the back of the field with Rasmussen returning to the track to finish their efforts.
While there seemed to be no positives to come from the day, Rasmussen’s team took advantage with their alternate pit crew to get reps while running 57 laps down, and according to the ECR public relations, they found success in clean stops for the No. 21 in those efforts.
The question now heading into the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500 is what can the team do to turn things around?
Rossi exits Indy road course 13th in points in a scrum to break the top 10. On the other hand, Rasmussen is fighting to stay in contention for the Leaders Circle sitting 23rd in points.
One thing is for certain, the Indy 500 can turn everything around for ECR, but they absolutely did not get off on the right foot today.
Wyatt Watson has followed motorsports closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretch as a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt is one of Frontstretch's primary IndyCar correspondents, providing exclusive video content on site. He hosts Frontstretch's Through the Gears podcast and occasionally The Pit Straight.You can find Wyatt's written work in columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monsteras well as exclusive IndyCar features. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media team, posting unique and engaging content for Frontstretch.
Wyatt Watson can be found on X @WyattWRacing