How Letting Alexander Rossi Go Could Bite Andretti Autosport in the Behind

Sometimes, history repeats itself. And that potentially may happen once again for Andretti Autosport.

To its detriment, that is.

Alexander Rossi has quietly and quickly been climbing up the NTT IndyCar Series standings. While he hasn’t won a race since 2019, he earned his first podium of the year and his second podium in two years with this past Sunday’s runner-up finish at Belle Isle.

With 10 races remaining and seventh-ranked Rossi only 74 points behind series leader (and Belle Isle winner) Will Power, there’s still plenty of time for the so-called California Kid to charge to the front and win his first IndyCar championship.

And that’s where the history repeating itself may come into play.

When Andretti Autosport was known as Andretti Green Racing, its lead driver, Dan Wheldon, dominated the 2005 season, leading the points after all but one race, en route to his second and last IndyCar championship.

But Andretti Green let Wheldon slip away and move to Chip Ganassi Racing for 2006 (Wheldon tied for first with Sam Hornish Jr. that season, but lost the crown due to a tiebreaker). After leaving Andretti Green following the 2005 campaign, Wheldon was the last driver to win an IndyCar championship and then jumped ship to another team for the following season.

Fast-forward to 2022 and Andretti Autosport has already let Rossi slip away, signing a multi-year contract last week to race for Arrow McLaren SP starting next season.

“The time has come for a new challenge, with a team that is growing in the sport,” Rossi said when he made the announcement. “I look forward to contributing to the development of Arrow McLaren SP and helping them reach the top. ­I see the commitment this team has to each other and to me, and I’m looking forward to getting started. It’s time for me to race for another one of motorsport’s biggest names: McLaren.”

Rather than fight to keep Rossi, the Andretti camp decided to cast its fate and future with Kyle Kirkwood—in his rookie IndyCar season this year with A.J. Foyt Racing—to replace Rossi in the No. 27.

I don’t know about you, but this is a “trade”—or would you call it a “trade-off”—that looks dubious on the surface at best.

Sure, Rossi has struggled the last two seasons, finishing ninth in 2020 and 10thlast season. He also hasn’t won a race since 2019 (he won twice that year). But with his recent uptick in performance—two top-five and three other top-11 finishes in the last five races—Rossi has gone from 27th in the standings after the second race of the season to seventh after finishing runner-up at Detroit’s Belle Isle this past weekend.

“It's good to get the car where it should have been and have a shot there at the end,” Rossi said. “Obviously Will (Power) did a fantastic job on a tire that has a lot of falloff at the end. We did our best to kind of manage the pace and go for it at the end, but we were probably a lap short. Still, all in all, a good result for the team.”

If Rossi continues to have strong performances and potentially a win or two in the remaining 10 races, he certainly can give the six guys ahead of him—Power, Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson, Pato O’Ward, defending IndyCar champ Alex Palou, Josef Newgarden and six-time champ Scott Dixon—a serious run for their championship money by season’s end.

And then there’s the other part of the “trade,” namely, Kirkwood. Sure, he’s young (23 years old) and was a massive standout in the Indy Lights Series (10 wins and 14 podiums in 20 starts en route to the championship in 2021), but he’s shown very little in terms of performance since getting promoted to IndyCar.

Kirkwood is 21st in the IndyCar standings, a distant 172 points behind Power and 98 points behind Rossi. Kirkwood has finished above 17th position just once (10th at Long Beach), and crashed out three times, including Belle Isle (as well as Texas and the Indianapolis Grand Prix).

Granted, AJFR’s equipment isn’t as strong as Andretti Autosport’s, but letting Rossi go in favor of obtaining Kirkwood could once again come back to bite Michael Andretti in the behind, just like when Wheldon left for the greener fields of CGR.

Sure, Andretti wanted Kirkwood fresh out of Indy Lights but decided instead to choose Canadian driver Devlin DeFrancesco. That decision hasn’t gone very well, either, as DeFrancesco’s best finish has been 17th (Birmingham) and he’s crashed out twice in the first seven events. DeFrancesco is currently 24th, 181 points behind Power.

Rossi may seem smug to some, quiet to others. But even with his mediocre track record the last few years, he hasn’t forgotten how to drive. After all, you don’t win the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 in 2016—as a rookie, no less—without knowing how to beat the best of the best.

Rossi is more than ready to return to victory lane, and Sunday’s race at Road America could very well be the place he does it, again. He dominated the 2019 event there from start to finish, leading 54 of the event’s 55 laps around the 14-turn, 4.014-mile road course up and down Kettle Moraine layout, the largest track the series races upon.

Oh yeah, and Rossi finished more than 28 seconds ahead of runner-up Will Power in the caution-free race.

In fact, many have called the Road America win Rossi’s best race performance ever, even better than when he won the 500 at Indy three years earlier, which was his first of what has been seven wins since.

And given the confidence Rossi and his team have gained of late with their strong performances, it’s just a matter of time before he brings the No. 27 back to victory lane, again, perhaps as early as Sunday.

He’s more than ready, coming off his strong showing at Belle Isle, the 26th podium of his career.

“These back-to-back weekends are a blessing when things are going well,” Rossi said. “Really happy with the progress the whole 27 team has made and we are excited about our prospects at Road America, a track we’ve had some great moments at in the past.”

Great moments, indeed, and with the prospect of even more still to come, potentially starting Sunday in Central Wisconsin.

“The announcement doesn't really matter to me personally,” Andretti said after Belle Isle about his impending move to Arrow McLaren SP. “We're here in 2022, trying to do a job for Andretti Autosport and Honda and all of our partners. That's the main focus.

“(This is) two weeks in a row where we've had very good races and overall a good weekend. That's the result of a lot of work from the whole organization. I think the 27 car in particular has some good momentum going right now into one of our best tracks frankly at Road America. We feel good about the position we're in. We'll just have to go out and continue that.”

And potentially show Andretti ultimately made another mistake giving up on Rossi far too soon.

“All careers and all teams evolve, and we’ve mutually decided it’s time for each of us to move on,” Andretti said of Rossi. “I have no doubt he’ll have a continued, successful IndyCar career and we wish him the best. In the meantime, we are all working hard to finish the 2022 season strong.”

Follow Autoweek contributor Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski