Alexander Rossi can look at his 2026 season one of two ways: a year of enduring pain or a season of what might have been.

Rossi (photo, top), who turned 34 on Sept. 25, finished 15th in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES standings with one top-five finish and five top-10 results this season. It was a step back from 2025, his first season driving the No. 20 ECR Chevrolet, when he also finished 15th in the standings but recorded two top-five finishes and seven top-10 results.

“It's no secret that this has been a pretty terrible year for myself and the whole ECR team with the litany of issues, some out of our control, some in our control,” Rossi said. “Anything that could go wrong really did go wrong from crashes to failures of gearboxes, hybrids, engines. Some struggles being on fire in pit lane. Some lack of performance at some events. Anything that you can think of has happened to us across both cars. Just a really trying year.

“Really proud of the whole organization and everyone involved for kind of staying true to the course and fighting through a lot of adversity.”

And yet, there were glimpses of what Rossi and ECR could accomplish when everything came together. Rossi's season highlight came at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he qualified second for the 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge. A crash in practice the following day, however, left him with an injury to a finger on his left hand and a leg injury that required an outpatient procedure. He spent more than a month in a walking boot and detailed the injury and his fight to continue racing on his “Off Track with Hinch and Rossi” podcast last week.

Rossi also earned his 100th career top-10 finish this season, ending the season with 102 to his tally. One of those came in the season finale at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, where he started fourth and finished third.

“That was a great result to kind of reward that effort, just rebuild the confidence in everyone that we're capable of doing this,” Rossi said. “It's a good boost going into what's going to be a long offseason, but an important one, to make sure we execute a lot better and clean up a lot of our issues that we can control in 2027.”

That Laguna Seca result was evidence of a shift that began around midseason. Rossi credited a June test at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with helping ECR turn its performance in the right direction. The team still encountered plenty of issues on track afterward, but Rossi said the underlying speed was beginning to emerge.

The five races immediately before the Mid-Ohio test produced finishes of 25th, 30th, 17th, 18th and sixth. In the first five races of the season, Rossi had recorded four top-11 finishes.

“We started to uncover some shortcomings,” Rossi said. “There's two issues, two challenges: You have to identify the problem, then you have to figure out how to fix it. We were able to do that to a certain extent. There's still more to come from what we know.

“It's a huge step in the right direction. Now we have a lot of time to really understand. To really analyze and understand how it can be better will be useful coming into March.”

Alexander Rossi

Rossi and his team returned to Indianapolis after the Laguna Seca race (photo, above) and initially analyzed the final six weeks of the season. They will expand that review to the entire year as the offseason progresses. The goal, Rossi said, is not a wholesale overhaul.

“I've said it often this year, that the team has done a lot of things better year over year from '25 to '26,” Rossi said. “Just unfortunately nothing really to show for it.

“I think drastic changes aren't necessary. It's a continual evolution. Just like in a car setup, there's no magic bullet. It's the same thing in putting together a season: There's not one thing you have to do; you have to do everything a little better. It's just focusing on understanding our strengths and weaknesses and executing when we can.”

ECR also has additional resources at its disposal through Ted Gelov, who joined the organization as an investment partner and co-owner before the 2025 season. Gelov, the owner of Heartland Food Products Group, brought Heartland brands Splenda and Java House to the team.

Those resources give ECR the ability to address its needs. But they also come with the understanding that closing the gap to the series' established front-running organizations takes time.

“I think the team knows now that it has the ability,” Rossi said. “If we feel we need something, we can go get it, right? But the teams that we're trying to close the gap to have had that advantage on this organization at ECR for a decade.

“Just because someone comes in and gives you the resources and tools to close that gap, the teams you're competing against don't stop developing either. You have to take bigger steps than they do. It's not a simple proposition.

“This championship has so many great drivers and teams and personnel, you don't just do that overnight. Inside the organization, everyone knows if we need something, we can go get it. It's a matter of continuing to develop and get better.

“It will come. It's a process.”