Alexander Rossi shuts out the field at Road America

Alexander Rossi delivered a crushing performance with a green-to-checkered win in Sunday’s Rev Group Grand Prix at Road America.

The driver of the No. 27 Napa Auto Parts Honda for Andretti Autosport began his commanding performance early when jumped rookie polesitter Colton Herta in Turn 3 of the opening lap.s

He ran the rest of the day uncontested and only relinquished the lead for one lap on the final exchange of pitstops and took the checkered flag with 28.4391 seconds in the bag.

The win breaks a trend of Rossi ending up second to a Penske car for three out the last four races. The Former Manor Marussia F1 driver noted that he was happy to get into victory lane and capitalize on some good enthusiasm.

“You don’t want to complain too much about getting second places because they are good results,” he said. “We knew we had pace and I think ever since Texas when we had Gess Capstone on board we had a new partnership, and we came up second again – the motivation for this week was higher than ever.”

He was also chipper having cut Newgarden’s lead in the championship down to seven after trailing him for the last few races.

“It was just a win that we needed to too. We’ve been thereabouts, but the Penske cars were getting the upper hand on us. To be able to go out and win a race – we stated our intentions, and we’ll regroup the next couple weeks and hit them hard again in Toronto.

Rossi’s closest challengers came in the form of Team Penske’s Will Power and championship rival Josef Newgarden, who rode second and third for much of the day after Herta had a slow first pitstop on Lap 15.

The Penske pair held the positions with little contest from the rest of the field to complete the podium.

Graham Rahal ended up fourth after an uneventful day but closed to within 1.5 of a second to Power at the checkered flag.

Scott Dixon emerged as the final driver in the top five after a dramatic day starting with a spin on the opening lap which dropped him to last place. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver made up lost ground in the opening stint as much of the field fell off the pace on alternate red tyres while his primary blacks held up.

The race headed up for the five-time NTT IndyCar Series champion in the final stint as he found himself in seventh place behind polesitter Herta and Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ James Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe and Herta lost time after a brief scuffle on the penultimate lap which allowed Dixon to motor past to claim a valuable top-five finish.

Dixon’s rookie teammate Felix Rosenqvist scooted by Hinchcliffe on the final lap to take sixth place after starting in 18th place.

Herta nursed his worn tyres to finish eighth which stands as his best finish since his win at the Circuit of the Americas in March.

Indy 500 winner Simon Pagenaud came home ninth ahead of Takuma Sato.

Former Formula 1 veteran Marcus Ericsson had the lone incident of the day when he spun in Turn 5. That brought out a local yellow flag as Ericcson continued on his way to finishing in 13th.

Marco Andretti was the event’s lone retiree as he dropped out with mechanical issues on Lap 18.