Big race coming to Austin
A Q&A with IndyCar driver Alexander Rossi
Mar 1, 2019, 8:29 am
Alexander Rossi is one of Indy-car's brightest stars. Over the course of his four years, he has won five races including the 100th annual Indianapolis 500 back in 2016. I was lucky enough to be able to talk with him over the phone about this year's Indy-car Classic in Austin's Circuit Of The America's and what you can expect for this year's Indy-Car Season:
Q: So first and foremost, this is a brand new track for you guys. I saw you were No. 1 on the speed chart for your test session, I know you had some experience here in F1 but how was it getting a feel for this new track here in Indy-Car?
AR: Yeah You are absolutely right. It might as well have been a new track because the cars are so much different but, yeah it was a really positive two days for the whole Andretti Auto-sport Organization and we learned a lot of what works and what doesn't and how to maximize the car around that track and definitely having some prior circuit knowledge was a good thing for us and looking forward to using that to our advantage next month.
2- While both cars are vastly different, how does your prior experiences in F1 kind of translate over into what you have going on now?
AR: Very Roughly, yes. I mean it's still the same racetrack regardless of what you car you're driving, you still have the areas where you need to maximize your lap times and of course you have little tricks you do in certain corners but at the end of the day it's a very different race car so you have to kind of rework your driving style a little bit and in a way kind of relearn parts of the racetrack in order to be fast in an Indy-car.
3-For maybe some of the newer fans of open-wheel racing, can you kind of explain the difference between an F1 Car and an Indycar?
AR: The biggest thing really is money. They're both open-wheel cars, they both have a huge amount of Down-force, very lightweight but the biggest thing is a Formula 1 team's budget. If you look at a like a Mercedes Benz type of team, they spend about $300 Million whereas a single-car Indy-car team spends about somewhere in the $4-5 million range, so it's a tenth of the budget so the car's are a little bit rougher. These car's don't have power-steering, they slide around a lot more and you have to work a bit harder to achieve your lap times but at the end of they're still the second quickest open wheel cars on the planet, we are just doing it at a tenth of the budget. With that being said, the racing we are able to put and the show we are able to create with our cars being SPEC puts a whole lot more on the teams and drivers and you have results are that are whole lot closer.
4-To kind of get back to Circuit Of The Americas, with you being sort of the world renowned racer that you are is there any tracks that this track reminds you of?
AR: Yeah, I mean it was designed by one of the same guys who designed a lot of the tracks in Europe so some of the corners are very similar. You know the Esses are similar to the corners in Silverstone, the stadium section you see at Hockenheim so it's very much like a track where I grew up racing around. Austin is a very special track in that sense, you know it's got a little bit of everything.
You can hear the entire interview above.
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How Astros advanced metrics tell puzzling story about Houston's start
Apr 17, 2025, 5:21 pm
Major League Baseball’s regular season is 162 games long. You can think of 18 games as the first inning of the season, 18 times nine equaling 162. While the Astros 8-10 record is not good, it’s far from disastrous. Think of it as them being behind 1-0 after the first inning. It is pretty remarkable that they have yet to win consecutive games. Even during last year’s 7-19 stink bomb of a start the Astros twice managed to win two in a row.
The Astros’ offensive woes are plentiful. Oddly enough as impotent as they’ve been, the Astros have yet to be shutout. But in half their games they have scored exactly one or two runs. Basically, most of them stink thus far. Exemptions go to Jose Altuve and Isaac Paredes, but it’s not like either of them has been outstanding. It’s still early enough that one big series can dramatically alter the numbers, but the Astros badly need Yordan Alvarez to pick up his production. Yordan enters the weekend batting just .224 with a .695 OPS and just four extra base hits. Yainer rhymes with minor. As in minor leagues, where Diaz belongs at his current level of performance. That is not saying Diaz should be sent down, just that any random AAA catcher called up couldn’t have done much worse to this point. Diaz isn’t hitting Altuve’s weight, a woeful .130 with seven hits in 57 at bats. Diaz simply remains too undisciplined at the plate swinging at too many balls. He’s drawn three walks. And now to Christian Walker, who thus far has delivered return on investment for his three year 60 million dollar contract about as strong as the stock market’s performance in Tariff Time. Walker’s .154 batting average and .482 OPS are very Astro Jose Abreu-like. Walker’s23 strikeouts in 65 at bats jump off the page. He has often looked befuddled in the batter's box. Walker is definitely pressing and frustrated, wanting to perform better for his new team. Jeremy Pena goes into the weekend batting .215 and has one hit in 13 at bats with runners in scoring position. Brendan Rodgers, Jake Meyers, and Chas McCormick all have weak stat lines, with little reason to expect quality offensive output from any of them. Cam Smith is at .200 with a yucky .591 OPS but he’s obviously a young stud work in progress thrown into the deep end of the pool.
All batting orders are top-heavy, the Astros’ on paper more so than many. As I set forth on one of our Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts this week, the first inning should be a team’s best offensive inning. It’s the only frame in which a team gets to dictate who comes up from the start with the batters lined up just as the manager slots them. Add to that, the first inning is a good time to get to a starting pitcher before he settles in. The Astros have scored a pitiful three first inning runs in 18 games, and in two of the games they pushed one across in the first, it turned out to be the only Astro run of the game. Improvement needs to come internally from the big league roster. It’s not as if the Astros have a meaningful prospect at AAA Sugar Land who looks ready to help. Entering play Thursday the Space Cowboys’ team average was .186. Second base hopeful Brice Matthews is nowhere close, batting .180 and striking out left and right. Outfielder Jacob Melton opened three for 17 following the back injury-delayed start to his season.
As exasperating and boring as the offense has been for so many, grading needs to occur on a curve. So, while the Astros’ team batting average is a joke at .216, know that at close of business Wednesday the entire American League was batting just .232. The American League West-leading Texas Rangers scored eight fewer runs over their first 18 games than did the Astros, though that is skewed by the Astros’ one 14-run outburst against the Angels.
Familiar faces return
This weekend the Astros play host to the San Diego Padres at Daikin Park. The Friars are off to a fabulous start at 15-4. The Padres being here creates a mini reunion as both Martin Maldonado and Yuli Gurriel are on their roster. In a telling fact, Maldonado would have the third-highest batting average on the Astros if on the team with his current numbers. Maldonado is hitting .250 with seven hits in 28 at bats. The last season he finished above .200 was 2020. The only season in his career Maldonado topped .234 was his rookie season with a .266 mark in 2012.
Gurriel was last good in 2021 when he won the American League batting title at .319. He fell off a cliff from there, though perked up to have a fine postseason in the Astros’ 2022 run to World Series title number two. “La Pina” is batting .115 with just three hits in 26 at bats. Gurriel may be released soon, and approaching his 41st birthday June 9, that would probably be the end of the line. Short-timer Astro Jason Heyward is also on the Padres, and batting .190.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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