It’s Arrow McLaren’s livery launch week and first up is Alexander Rossi. The 32-year-old heads into his second season as the driver of car number 7 with the iconic brand.
The American driver is facing a challenge at present. Since challenging for the championship with Andretti in 2018 and 2019, he has struggled somewhat after the introduction of the aeroscreen in 2020. 9th, 10th, 9th and 9th over the last four campaigns is disappointing for a driver of Rossi’s ability.
2023 was his first season with Arrow McLaren and his biggest struggle was qualifying. He only made three fast six appearances, with a best qualifying of third at Texas.
He did secure a podium at the IMS road course, and bagged other top fives at St. Pete, the Indy 500, Detroit, the second IMS road course event and Gateway.
However, Rossi needs to elevate his performance to challenge the main contenders this year, including his rapid teammate Pato O’Ward.
Alexander Rossi:
“I absolutely love the new livery on the No. 7 car. It really does a very good job of representing the modernness of today’s papaya, but also has a bit of a classic throwback to it. I can’t wait to get it on track soon.
“Last year had a lot of positives throughout what was a very challenging year in terms of transitioning into a new organization that was going through a pretty big expansion. Now that everything has settled down and we are all comfortable with working with each other, it is important that we maximize each other’s potential to get the best results on track.”
On his new engineering group:
“We’ve been fortunate to have quite a number of days of testing with our role in helping the hybrid development, which has allowed me to get up to speed with the new engineering group on my car. I was very impressed with what Chris and Nigel were able to do with Felix last year, and I am very confident that we will be able to carry their strong performance at the end of last year into the start of this year.”
