Opinion: David Malsher-lopez

Felix Rosenqvist’s first victory is significant in itself – and for his trophy cabinet – but it also lifts him to a whole new psychological plane: that of potential champion

“I would have hated to see Rosenqvist’s huge potential get tripped up by his temperament”

My heart broke just as surely as the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara-honda when last month Felix Rosenqvist lost his patience, lost his car and lost a certain second place against the Turn 2 wall at Texas Motor Speedway.

He had qualified only ninth but, taking full advantage of the superiority that Ganassi’s brightest engineering minds had conferred on their cars for that night’s race, he had moved purposefully through the field, dismissing Team Penske’s three aces with relative ease. Then, during the penultimate stint, he started to really close on leader and team-mate Scott Dixon. When, following the final pitstop, he was inadvertently baulked by James Hinchcliffe, and Marco Andretti whipped past the pair of them to unlap himself from Rosenqvist, the Swede made an impatient move.

As is his way, he took responsibility. Asked afterwards if he blamed Hinch, Rosenqvist would have none of it:“i can’t blame others for whatever situation I have. It’s my judgement, I went for the outside. Probably shouldn’t have done it.”

This display of honesty and failure to rise to media bait went out live on NBC, and I hope it won Felix a swathe of new fans.

Team owner Chip Ganassi will have understood to a certain extent – he acknowledges the desire to win, and he’s been watching his drivers battle with each other since Jimmy Vasser and Alex Zanardi traded blows almost a quarter of a century ago. But unless there’s a championship at stake, he also surely doesn’t care which of his cars visits Victory Lane, so while it’s tolerable for a driver to shunt while trying to snatch a win from a rival team, to cause thousands of dollars of damage while trying to wrest the lead away from a team-mate is not so good.

The shunt was atypical of Rosenqvist because he rarely makes the same mistake twice, so he knew that even a runner-up finish on an oval would have been a huge step. Having disliked left-hand-only courses in his part-time Indy Lights season with Belardi Auto Racing in 2016, this was compounded in his rookie Indycar campaign last year by an alarming high-speed shunt at Indianapolis during practice for the 500. So last winter he went to consult with Ganassi’s driver advisor Dario Franchitti about what to seek from an oval car. Whatever the four-time champion and three-time Indy 500 winner told him clearly helped.

The big worry over Rosenqvist’s Texas shunt was how he might respond following a month brooding over his cock-up before the second Indycar Series race of this disrupted season. Two years earlier, Ed Jones in the same #10 Ganassi entry had stuffed his car at Phoenix and his self-confidence never recovered: too often thereafter, he looked like a man driving at 99%, and that just isn’t enough when 20 cars can be covered by 1.5 seconds. Then there are pilots who respond in the opposite manner, start driving at 101% following a bad result. A fairly recent example is Tristan Vautier, 2012 Indy Lights champion, whose hitherto composed driving style fell to pieces in his rookie Indycar season with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports as he tried to match his smooth and fast team-mate Simon Pagenaud. Vautier simply had far too many incidents so, come season’s end and no longer possessing Road to Indy scholarship money, he was of little interest to SPM, nor anyone else in the Indycar paddock. This very talented youngster’s career has never truly recovered.

I’d have hated to see Rosenqvist’s huge racing potential – he’s won in every major series in which he has competed, bar Super GT – get tripped up by his temperament, were he to respond to pressure in the manner of either Jones or Vautier. Yes, he won Indycar’s 2019 Rookie of the Year title, finishing sixth overall, and enjoyed the highlights of a pole position at the Indy GP and a ridiculously close runner-up finish to Dixon at Mid-ohio. But Dixon nailed the first three races of 2020, and you can only imagine what pressure this put on Rosenqvist, a man who has shown since he first tested for Ganassi back in July 2016 that he at least has the basic pace to match the now five-time series champion.

Even though he’s won at almost every other level, and knew from his limited Indycar experience that he absolutely had the potential to win in this series, to close the deal for the first time, as he did in spectacular style last Sunday at Road America, is a big step.

“It just gets the monkey off your back, kind of reassures you that you can do it,”said Sunday’s third-place finisher Alexander Rossi. “Wins are few and far between – except for the #9 car [Dixon’s] it would seem! Good to remind yourself you’re capable of doing it. As much as finishing in the top five and on the podium is good, without winning races it’s impossible not to question some things.

“Felix – it’s been a long time coming for him. He’s been fast. Won Rookie of the Year last year. No surprise he won today.”

Now Rosenqvist has proven to himself – and to Ganassi and principal sponsor NTT – that he can succeed in Indycar. Don’t be surprised if he takes the title in the next two or three years.