Alex Palou at the The Indianapolis 500 — Photo: © IMAGO

IndyCar

IndyCar and former F1 star wary of 'TROUBLE' over massive change

Alexander Rossi confirmed that IndyCar will be making a big change

Chris Deeley

Friday 17 January 2025 05:00

IndyCar star and ex-Formula 1 driver Alexander Rossi has given some strong thoughts on rumors of a new car coming to the series in 2027.

The California-born driver was speaking at a media day ahead of the start of the 2025 season, where he gave the strongest answer yet to the new design talk.

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Rossi is entering his tenth season in the series, and his first with Ed Carpenter Racing after ending a winless two-year run with Arrow McLaren.

Talk has been circling about the introduction of a redesigned car coming in two years time, which Rossi emphatically confirmed on Tuesday before revealing some strident thoughts on the matter.

#INDYCAR Content Day, arguably one of @AlexanderRossi’s favorite days of the year. 📸 pic.twitter.com/7outh565ny
— Ed Carpenter Racing (@ECRIndy) January 14, 2025

Alexander Rossi confirms new IndyCar for 2027

Q. What do you believe are kind of the keys that they kind of need from this new car compared to what there has been for the last however many years?

Asked for his thoughts on the potential changes, he continued: "I have to weigh my answer to not get in trouble.

"Here's the thing. I've actually talked to quite a few people at length about this. There's some people that have the belief that it needs to be this super futuristic crazy looking ultra modern car. There's other people that are like, okay, it needs to be this super light, high-horsepower thing that does track records everywhere.

"Ultimately what I think needs to be done is we already have, and I don't think it's a debate, we already have the best product on track that exists globally, so to reinvent the wheel I don't think is something that in my mind that needs to be done. I think it needs to be an evolution of the car we've had.

"Obviously technology has developed, materials has developed. We have added a lot on to the DW12. So integrating all of that is going to have benefits from a cost standpoint, from a safety standpoint, from a workability standpoint for the mechanics to have things that fit and flow and work a bit better together.

"But ultimately I don't think we need to do anything that's beyond what we already do because I think what we already do is pretty good. It just needs to be an updated version of what we have. So that's my opinion."

F1 IndyCar Arrow McLaren Alexander Rossi