Alexander Rossi

As U.S. football season nears completion, Alexander Rossi is hoping to draw parallels to the NTT INDYCAR SERIES team he joined during the offseason.

Like Indiana University’s historic turnaround in 2024 on the gridiron, Rossi believes Indianapolis-based Ed Carpenter Racing is poised to take a big stride forward in this sport in 2025.

The football-playing Hoosiers brought in a new coach in Curt Cignetti. ECR welcomed Ted Gelov, the owner of Heartland Food Products Group, to its ownership group, and Rossi arrives with considerable experience gained in Formula One and driving for two of the biggest NTT INDYCAR SERIES teams, Andretti Global (for seven years) and Arrow McLaren (for two).

Unlike Cignetti, Rossi doesn’t make brash and bold predictions, but the culture he has stepped into at ECR has created undeniable optimism.

“We often talk about it's the people that are the most important element (in a business), and all of those things are true, but it really only takes one person to offer a new approach, a new way of thinking and getting people to buy into that, and you can see the results that come from that,” said Rossi, who followed IU football through the recently completed season. “That's an inspiration, I think, for anyone that is an athlete or looking to do something in business or in life – it just takes one to make a difference.”

By all accounts, Gelov and his company have added a considerable amount to ECR, and funding is a big element of that. Last season, the team finished 13th and 22nd in entrant points, and a move up could be the result of the new investment.

Rossi will drive the team’s No. 20 Chevrolet alongside 2023 INDY NXT by Firestone champion Christian Rasmussen, who showed flashes last year in his first season as an ECR driver. Team owner/driver Ed Carpenter will again compete in the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge, and it will be his 22nd start in the event. He has won the pole three times and finished second in the race in 2018.

This year, ECR’s cars will carry sponsorship from two of Gelov’s global brands: Splenda, a sweetener, and Java House, a coffee. Rebranding of the team also is an eye-catcher.

Rossi spoke at length last week about the competitiveness of the series and the need to manage ECR’s rising expectations, but he said the team now has tools and resources “that didn’t necessarily exist in the past.” Neither he nor Carpenter specifically detailed them, but Carpenter traced most of them back to Gelov.

“He’s a very smart and successful guy, (and) he’s built a business from nothing to what it is today, which is very impressive,” Carpenter said. “He and his entire organization are an asset to us, especially on the business side of things. They’ve expanded our operation and created new opportunities and resources that we haven’t had.

“As we shift that toward the on-track product, it's allowing us to move a little quicker, make decisions a little earlier, and be slightly more aggressive in what we're trying to do to accomplish our goals of winning races, winning the ‘500,’ and being a contender in the championship.”

ECR has long been known as a close-knit group that first competed in 2012 with many of the same staffers as today. It has been three-plus seasons since its most recent race win – Rinus VeeKay in 2021 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course – but there have been several strong drives over the past couple of seasons, particularly in the “500,” a race Rossi won in 2016 with Andretti Global.

“I think there’s the potential to surprise a lot of people at points in 2025,” Rossi said. “Obviously, nothing happens overnight. We're not going to go from the results that have existed the past couple of years to all of a sudden winning every race, but I do think that everything in this sport is (decided by) very small margins. … It's about putting puzzle pieces together correctly and executing efficiently, and that can add up to results pretty quickly.”

While Rossi certainly wanted more from his second and final season with Arrow McLaren last year, he had one of his best campaigns in 2024. He finished fourth in the “500” after leading 12 laps, scored a third-place finish at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, had double-digit top-10 finishes for only the second time in five years and amassed his highest number of laps led – 109 – since 2019.

Rossi finished the season with three strong oval drives – two at the Milwaukee Mile when he finished seventh and sixth, respectively, and led 46 laps in the latter, and he led 32 laps at the finale at Nashville Superspeedway to wind up 10th in the ultra-competitive standings.

Rossi got his first chance to drive an ECR car in last fall’s IMS oval test and now, at age 33, he is set to begin his 10th season in this series when the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg presented by RP Funding takes place Sunday, March 2.

“(ECR) is changing at a rapid rate, which is pretty exciting to witness and be a part of, and I think that there's a lot of excitement internally about the things that are going on,” he said. “It's certainly a busy time for everyone involved, and I think we're all still trying to find our place a little bit in somewhat of a totally new organization.

“But it's going really well, and the experience that I've had so far has been nothing short of awesome.”