The Real Rossi

Last year’s Indy 500 champ seemingly came out of nowhere—or was it Europe? Let Alexander Rossi set the record straight.

- Ryan Mcgee

On May 29, 2016, with a gigantic wreath collared around his neck and a bottle of milk poured down his throat, Alexander Rossi didn’t really understand what was happening. He had just won the 100th edition of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, but throughout the postrace ceremonies, the rookie driver seemed disoriented, like he had just taken a wrong turn. More than a few Indy loyalists mistook his dazed expression for apathy.

“People then, and people now, they see the photos of me looking kind of spaced-out and they say, ‘Why don’t you look more excited? You just won the Indianapolis 500!’” the 25-year-old says today. “You have to understand that when I woke up that morning, that’s not exactly where I expected to end the day. At no point during the race did I think I was going to win it. Then we did. There was a surrealness to it all that’s hard to describe. My brain couldn’t catch up to the moment.”

Now, gearing up for the 101st Indy 500 on May 28, Rossi is plenty caught up to the idea of winning the planet’s biggest auto race. More important, the sometimes-prickly IndyCar world is too. American motorsports fans, media and marketers have spent this spring spinning the story of the 2016 race as a Hollywood moment: an unknown racer winning his first 500—his first IndyCar victory of any kind—in only his sixth career start by using an improbable fuel-saving strategy. He was the first rookie to take racing’s most revered checkered flag since 2001 and only the fourth since 1927.