By David Morgan, Associate Editor
INDIANAPOLIS – Back in business.
Following a crash in practice on Monday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Alexander Rossi has officially been cleared to race in the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500.
In the waning moments of that practice session, Rossi’s No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet broke loose in Turn 2, slamming violently into the outside wall in and incident that also collected Pato O’Ward and Romain Grosjean.
Rossi was transported to a local hospital for further evaluation after the crash and subsequently underwent surgery to repair a minor injury on his right foot and left hand, with the intention of being back in his race car for Friday’s Carb Day final practice session.
That clearance officially came on Thursday, with Rossi delivering the news during his Media Day session that he is good to go for his 11th start in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, which also comes a decade after winning the 2016 Indy 500 as a rookie.
“I am cleared to race,” Rossi said. “I will have to be on crutches because it’s a non-weight-bearing injury. Fortunately to drive a race car, you don’t have to bear weight. Range of motion is good. Pain is minimal. Swelling, as you can see, I fit into my race boot. I’m good to go.”
To gain clearance from the IndyCar medical team, Rossi explained that he had to go though and pass a range of tests, including sim time, being able to get into and out of the race car within a certain time threshold, along with testing his reaction time with the injured foot.
“As thorough as you can be without actually being on the racetrack,” Rossi noted.
He added that he will be wearing a brace when he is in the race car to give his foot some added stability, with the exact dimensions of that device still being finalized.
During his media session, Rossi was certainly in a jovial mood, cracking jokes with the media in attendance, as well as two of his colleagues who will join him on the front row in David Malukas and Alex Palou.
But he added that he was thankful to be able to be in this position to be able to cut up a little bit given the impact he had taken on Monday and being able to walk away with minimal injuries.
“I can tell you, I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about the values of the two impacts, but they were very high, and the fact that we’re here having this conversation and joking about a sore ankle is pretty amazing,” said Rossi.
Before the news broke that Rossi was cleared to race, Conor Daly, who has been a friend of Rossi’s for a long time, expressed that he expected Rossi to be in the car no matter what and it would have taken a lot to keep him out of the car following the crash.
“We’re a bunch of psychos, honestly. If you have this job, you’re very lucky to have this job, so you don’t want to let that go away at all,” said Daly.
“Like I said with Alex, you have to rip his limbs off to have him not in that car. Same for me. I have to be in the worst possible form ever to not be in a race car. If you have that chance, you never want to let that go.”
Even though his team has had to break out a backup car for him to race with this weekend, Rossi remained confident that they will still have the speed to contend when it matters most on race day.
“Unfortunate obviously to have it happen. In some ways incredibly fortunate that it happened on a Monday after qualifying, where the ultimate true car speed isn’t as important,” said Rossi.
“Very fortunate it didn’t happen on Carb Day, so the team has had quite a bit of time, unfortunately for them, to rebuild a car from scratch. It’s the car I raced last year. It’s always been a Speedway car.
“As I said, a trying couple of days for everyone involved in the 20 car. Also it will be a very rewarding one if we can accomplish what we think we can on Sunday.”
He added that the car he will be back out on track with on Carb Day and for Sunday’s race was originally planned during the offseason to be the car he would have been driving before they switched to the car that was wrecked.
“This was truly going to be our race car until some other things shifted. This was built all off-season in preparation for this month to be my race car anyways.”
As long as the weather holds out, Friday’s Carb Day practice is scheduled for 11:00 am ET on FOX Sports 1, leading into Sunday’s 110th Indy 500 at 12:30 pm ET on FOX.
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