Keeping Indy 500 champion is the next step for IndyCar

Rossi hugs his Dallara Honda. Will he love it enough to stay?

In newly crowned Indianapolis 500 champion Alexander Rossi, the IndyCar Series and Andretti Autosport have a rising star they must stay latched to writes Curt Cavin of the Indy Star.

Rossi said Monday he wants to keep the focus on his victory in the historic 100th Indianapolis 500, but it doesn't figure to be long before Formula One re-enters the discussion, and the scenario isn't without precedent.

In 1995, Andretti's predecessor — Team Green — lost 500 winner Jacques Villeneuve to an F-1 offer he couldn't refuse.

This could happen to Rossi, too, since F-1 has long been his goal — it has been since he was 10 years old, and he raced there last year — and global corporations value the U.S. market. Michael Andretti was the most recent American star to race in F-1, and that was 23 years ago.

"Obviously, we want to try and keep this thing going," said Bryan Herta, a co-entrant with Andretti on Rossi's No. 98 car. "But I think it would take a mighty offer from a very prominent F-1 team to get him to want to do anything else."

Rossi, 24, was clearly a happy IndyCar driver Monday, but he steered clear of what might be next for him.

"What's happening in the long term, I don't know, and I'm frankly not that interested at the moment," he said. "I'm focused on (this weekend's IndyCar race in) Detroit and still enjoying the fact that we won the Indy 500."

Rossi said he celebrated the 500 by getting to bed early and sleeping well in preparation for a hectic media tour that will have him in New York on Tuesday, at Texas Motor Speedway on Wednesday and in Detroit starting Thursday. Recent 500 winners on the same journey have found the schedule exhausting.

Monday night, Rossi accepted a winner's check for $2,548,743 that will be shared with the team. A breakdown of who gets how much isn't known, but it's clear Rossi, who also was the 500's Rookie of the Year, is now this sport's hot commodity.

Rossi turned his attention to IndyCar only in February after being left without an F-1 ride for this season.

Rossi is signed with Michael Andretti's Indianapolis-based team through the end of the season, and Andretti said negotiations for 2017 began before Rossi held off teammate Carlos Munoz to win Sunday's race. They don't have a deal, but Andretti thinks the Nevada City, Calif., driver is enjoying being back in the U.S. after eight years in Europe chasing his F-1 dream.

"He likes it here, but he liked it even before all of this," Andretti said. "I told him (at the February signing) that you're going to have a lot more fun (in IndyCar) than you've ever had in your career. It's fun racing, and after the St. Petersburg race (March 13) he realized that.

"Look, there's a chance for anything (in 2017), but there's a way more positive chance that he'll be here."

Rossi understands why people wonder what's in store for 2017.

"There were huge question marks, rightly so, over me and IndyCar and specifically oval racing, (me) having absolutely zero background, and we all know it's a different kind of animal, if you will, in terms of the motor sports world," he said. "I think this (win) has kind of cemented the fact that, A, I don't have an issue with (oval-track racing), B, I do enjoy it, and C, I've fully committed to this program and being successful in IndyCar.

"This is what I'm looking towards for the future, and I definitely want to finish out the year in the strongest possible way."

Rossi noted that because IndyCar distributed twice the regular number of series points, he has climbed to sixth in the standings, 89 points behind leader Simon Pagenaud.

It stands to help Andretti's cause if NAPA can be retained as the primary sponsor of Rossi's car, and it's almost a miracle that there's a relationship in the first place. Andretti said the team invited a NAPA representative to IndyCar's road race at IMS, and on Friday of that weekend they were sitting in the team's hospitality area on the southeast side of Gasoline Alley when Andretti initiated a discussion about Rossi's car.

"I pointed to that car and said it needs a sponsor," Andretti said. "The guy's like, ‘Really?' and I told him we could do a good deal, and it came together like that."

NAPA has already extended through this weekend's Detroit street race doubleheader on ABC, and Andretti thinks there's a reasonable chance the logos will still don Rossi's car for the June 11 race at the Texas oval.

Rossi won't drive the Indy-winning car at Detroit; that machine will be another from the team's stable. But Andretti expects a return to this car for the Texas race.

What happens from there remains to be seen, but Rossi admitted he stumbled through the victory lane festivities, including how to slip on the winner's wreath. Now he knows, and he wants another chance to perfect it.

"I knew to drink the milk, but I didn't know how much to drink," he said. "I didn't know if I was supposed to drink it all at once. … I had no idea what to do.

"It's more motivation to go back so that I can do it right this time and be like, ‘See, I've got this, I've figured it out.' " Curt Cavin/Indy Star