INDY 500: Patience was key, says Rossi
Sunday, 29 May 2016
Mark Glendenning / Image by LAT
The video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH0vjWGm91Q
Alexander Rossi says that resisting the urge to push during the final stint of Sunday's Indianapolis 500 despite having a fast car ultimately proved to be the key to his surprise win.
Rossi stretched his final tank of fuel to an extraordinary 36 laps while all those around him were forced to make late stops to top up, but admitted that hitting the fuel numbers that Bryan Herta was asking of him required self-discipline.
"It was just patience," Rossi said. "Bryan kept reminding me the way we were going to win this race was by hitting the fuel number. It was very difficult because obviously I had cars in front of me that I knew I was quicker than. Throughout the whole race we were overtaking cars. It was very hard to then not do that, look big picture. I wouldn't have been able to do that without Bryan on the radio and offering the support and wisdom that I needed."
Although he only emerged as an obvious threat in the second half of the race, Rossi says that he began to feel confident about his chances very early on.
"Probably lap five, if I'm honest," he said. "I had a bit of a conservative start. I was able to overtake cars. I knew if that was the case, we definitely had the opportunity to go forward. There were a couple setbacks we had; every time we fell back, we were able to come forward. I knew we were strong, the pace was there, we were able to pass cars, follow cars."
Rossi's win in the 100th running of the 500 came exactly five years after the late Dan Wheldon won the centennial race, also in the No.98.
"Maybe Danny was out there pushing the car for us today," Herta told RACER. "But Alex executed the perfect race. We had a plan with 50 to go that we were going to make it work with one stop and it was hard, because he had to save fuel and hold track position. It's impossible to do both, but somehow he managed it and just got to the end.
"We had two bad stops where he couldn't get plugged in, couldn't get fuel in the car; we fell all the way back to 25th. But he just kept going forward. We knew we had a fast car, we just kept burying ourselves in the field. We started marching forward, and we finally saw the opportunity to get off strategy. We knew that if we could get in the lead, we could stay up there. And from thereon we put the race in his hands, and he did a great job."
