Alexander Rossi is happy with his move to Arrow McLaren for 2023. The 2016 Indianapolis 500 spent his first seven Indycar seasons with Andretti Autosport before signing with Arrow McLaren in early June last year. This morning Rossi said there is still a learning curve not only for him, but also for all the new personnel McLaren is bringing in. He thinks he will get a better idea of the differences between his old and new team after the race,.
“It’s hard to say immediately because we’ve got a race weekend.” Rossi said. “You know, there’s just a lot of obvious structure that exists in an organization from top to bottom. And I’m sure a lot of it comes from, you know, the overarching brand, getting out and about doing things and running race teams. You know, like, there’s pros and cons that are two ways you go about it, you can run them and be like, Oh, I kind of want to vice versa. So there are some some differences that can ultimately be successful if you have anything else. It’s been nice to see areas that they are different in various matters.”
Rossi explained that hisn transition was a little more challengin vecause McLaren hired 40 new people during the off season to accomodate the third car.
” Because we had so many new people in general, like everyone just kind of going through a process. It is challenging in terms of the actual application, being easy to get to work doing what we need to in our condensed timeframe.”
Rossi’s biggest concern this weekend? Driving into the pit of his former team.”This weekend my pit box is right in front of my old 27, so I’m just like please do not drive into that one. So that’s my only concern. It’s pretty easy now to think that you know, the seven car driver tweeted at me like I had to read it a couple of times because I was like, Am I allowed to say this? I mean, it’s been everyone’s been super welcoming.”
Rossi said it was sad to leave his old team after seven tears.
“But you know, I still I’m still very close with Jeremy and Scott and obviously, I’m still in communication with them. So I don’t feel like a whole life changing. ”
Rossi is ot changing his driving approiach with his new team.
“I’m just going out and execute,” he said.
The difference between the Chevroley and Honda engines surprised him.
“I was surprised that engines with basically the same architecture could be that different. They are very different in the way they make power and deliver it. It took some gettinmg used to,” he said.
Alexander Rossi left a formerly elite team that has struggled recently to join a team that is on the verge of joining the top of the grid. I look for have some struggles early, but by Road America Rossi should return to his championship form.
The Pit Window by Mike Silver 