American Alex Rossi Puts His Mark on the Monaco Grand Prix

How perfect that I would receive an invitation to guest blog for “Racing in America” the same week I returned from the Monaco Grand Prix.

A hectic week end it had been, I had decided to try and “cover” the race as best I could but had no media connections for passes and access of any type.  Crazy right?  Well, I ended up being a guest of the Monaco Sanitation Department (long story), but the upshot was I spent the Sunday of the race on the inside of Place du Casino, right next to one of the giant cranes tasked with sweeping up any wrecks that inevitably occur at the Massenet corner, where Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso crashed in Saturday morning practice.  

To get that spot I had to be there at 6 AM. That meant I got to see every race in the program, including the Formula Renault 3.5 supporting the main event.

Now, let me rewind a little.  Like many Formula 1 fans, especially American F1 fans, I was extremely disappointed by the failure that was the USF1 program. However, I was irked by the suggestion made by team principals that no Americans were qualified to drive Formula 1.  So it was especially nice to see the name Alexander Rossi near the top of the time sheets in practice and qualifying.

Alex Rossi, an 18 year old Californian, living in Italy and competing in the new GP3 championship had gotten a one off drive for Monaco in the faster Renault cars with the Czech ISR team.

Rossi had never driven a Monaco or Formula Renault car before but he certainly made an impression. No, he did not win; in fact he crashed a few laps from the end after a long fight with the very highly touted Red Bull sponsored Brendon Hartley. But he did get noticed.  Sadly, his performance went largely unnoticed stateside. 

Recently I read about a new effort by an American investor group to break into F1. Their strategy is to just buy into an existing team.  Rossi came up through the now defunct American Formula BMW series. This was once the only relevant development path to European single seater series available to young American drivers. Perhaps a better investment would be to promote American talent. 

Produce a winning driver and everything else will fall into place with the US and Formula 1!

Photo Credit: Andrea Cairone