Alexander Rossi urges IndyCar for thorough safety checks after bizarre crash in Toronto race

Alexander Rossi had a peculiar crash at the race in Toronto, which left the Ed Carpenter Racing squad scratching their heads after the 33-year-old had merely grazed the wall. Frustrated from the crash and how a small tap on the wall led to his DNF, the 33-year-old lamented IndyCar's quality checks in terms of ensuring safety standards for racetracks.

The ECR driver had qualified 24th for the Canadian race and aimed to move his way up the grid on Sunday. He aimed to stay out on his first stint by utilizing a different strategy than his pals on the primary set of tires, but the racing gods were not in his favor at the sole race north of the American borders.

Grazing by the walls is a common phenomenon on street tracks, and drivers often have to squeeze their way into the racetrack to extract the maximum possible laptime. Rossi was trying to do the same thing, but on his exit from turn 11, he merely touched the wall, which snapped his rear-right tire off from the suspension, leaving a strange incident to unfold in front of the audience.

Unhappy with the wall joints being the root cause of his early retirement from the race, the ECR driver urged IndyCar to conduct thorough safety checks moving forward, in the press conference ahead of the Grand Prix of Monterey.

"The wall was not lined up properly. I'm not going to speculate how that comes to be. It's obviously hard to build temporary street courses. You're building an entire racetrack and infrastructure from nothing. At the same time, we're an elite motor racing organization, so there's got to be quality control. This is not the first time something like this has happened. The first year at Detroit, Kirkwood had some similar issues."

"Something to learn from for everyone. That's behind us now. There's probably no more street courses till probably March."

Alexander Rossi was only able to complete 29 laps of the 11-turn circuit out of the scheduled 90 laps.

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Alexander Rossi lists out his goal for his 2025 campaign

Alexander Rossi at the 2025 INDYCAR XPEL Grand Prix at Road America - Source: Getty

Alexander Rossi has a record of securing a podium finish in every IndyCar season he has participated in. However, this streak will break this year if the California-born driver is unable to claim a top-three result in the following four race weekends.

Opening up on how finishing the season on a good note is immensely important, the 33-year-old said in the press conference:

"You're really only as good as your last race. It's a very demanding sport from that standpoint, but it's immensely rewarding if you can get into a pretty good run and have momentum on your side. That's our goal to finish out 2025."

The 33-year-old has amassed 199 points in the 13 races held so far, with four top-10s, positioning him 18th in the championship standings.