AMERICA'S NEXT

RISING STARS AND HOPE TO

ITH THE TOP DOWN, stereo cranked, and sta- speedometer winds past 120 mph, 130, 140. He brakes firmly and bility control off, the black BMW M6 glides through carves into a left-hander, As the car rotates down toward the apex, the neon caverns of Las Vegas. At the wheel, he plants the gas pedal and deftly catches the sliding rear end with W twenty-year-old Alexander Rossi is driving his fa- an effortless application of opposite lock. Up ahead, a roundabout ther's car with the nonchalance and grace you'd expect of the only awaits. Rossi pulls off to the side of the road to let a few cars pass. American holding an "FIASuper License-a prerequisite for racing His father, Pieter, knows what's next. "Don't hit the curb," he mur- in Formula 1. Although he's just finished an elaborate celebratory murs, more concerned about his expensive wheels than any may- dinner after meetings with potential sponsors at the Consumer hem to come. Alexander doesn't bother to reply. When the round- Electronics Show, Rossi shows remarkable restraint as he cruises about is clear, he nails the throttle, cranks in a bunch of steering, through the typical flotsam of a Las Vegas night. He ignores a and dirt-tracks around the traffic circle in a heady haze of engine young reveler who's retching outside the open door of his limou- noise and tire smoke. sine, then declines a challenge to street race with a sport-utility After completing one full revolution in perfect drift form, he vehicle filled with giggling hotties. In fact, he hardly pushes the comes to a stop. "How are your rear tires?" he asks his father. speed limit until passing well beyond the city limits on his way to "OK. Why?" his hotel near Lake Las Vegas. "1 want to do it again." There's nothing out here-no cars, no cops, no traffic lights, Pieter shakes his head. "Once is fine. But then somebody calls just a long, straight furrow of empty road that fairly beckons for the cops, and that's how you get into trouble. Come on, we'll be speed. Rossi can't resist the temptation to let the V-lO sing, and the back here on the way to the airport tomorrow." l:i! :g ! :.: Z ""S "'11:1 "",_ZIG -',_"'co ZJ: c:>"- ... ~ :18 La""I- '_J: co c, BRING AN AMERICAN PRESENCE BACK TO THE GRAND PRIX SCENE.

And there, in a single 360, is Team Rossi in action: Alexander So it's not inconceivable that there might be not one but two Amer- takes care of business in the cockpit with verve, aplomb, and preci- icans fighting for Fl podiums a few years down the road. sion. Pieter is the deal-maker, the sponsor-finder, the whatever-it- It's been a long time coming. The lack of competitive Ameri- takes guy who keeps his son's career on the right course. Working to- cans in the world's most expensive, exotic, and internationally gether, they've secured a highly coveted slot as a reserve driver for popular form of racing has long been the source of national soul- Caterham Fl, which means Alexander will test during free practice searching, especially during an era when F1 is drawing drivers before grands prix in 2012. And next year, if all goes according to from motors ports backwaters such as Poland, Russia, and India. Team Rossi's fastidiously laid plans, he'll be the first American to race After all, what do they have that we don't? The issue seems par- in Formula 1 since flamed out so spectacularly in 2007. ticularly galling now that a U.S. Grand Prix is scheduled for Aus- Meanwhile, halfway across the country, the heartland racing tin, Texas, in November and a second Fl race in New Jersey is ten- mecca of is the unlikely home of another father and tatively set for 2013. And as puts it, "Unless there is an son chasing the Fl dream. Actually, the father-Derek Daly-spent American driver in Fl, those races will not succeed:' five seasons in Formula 1 before hanging up his racing suit. Now, So plenty of eyes are on young Rossi and Daly. Not just in For- he's using his Fl contacts and hard-headed negotiating skills to mula 1 but also here in the States. Will they be the next coming of help his twenty-year-old son, Conor, follow in his wheel tracks. and , the only Americans to win world This year, Conor will do his second consecutive season in GP3, charnpionships? Or will they join the long list of Americans who which is an international open-wheel series that's two rungs below made a run at F1 but didn't have the talent, or money, or luck-or Fl, and he's reportedly on the radar of at least one Formula 1team. all three-to make it to the top? mericans haven't always been strangers to Formula 1. During the 1960s and '70s, there was a formidable American contingent in international rnotorsports, but the ranks of Yanks thinned considerably in the '80s. The pipeline dried up after A 's debacle at McLaren in 1993. Unable to get enough proper testing time in a difficult car and unwilling to commit to living in Europe, Andretti looked second-rate next to his teammate-who happened to be Ayrton Senna at the height of his powers. The episode convinced Fl movers and shakers that there was no reason to look for drivers in the . If the mountain wouldn't go to Muhammad, then journalist/broadcaster Jeremy Shaw-a Brit who'd moved to the States-realized Muhammad would have to go to the mountain. With the help of various motorsports professionals, Shaw created the Team U.SA. Scholarship in 1990 to help Americans race in the hotly contested and closely watched Festival in the United Kingdom. Besides spotlighting the talent of young Americans, the idea was to show Americans what it took to succeed in Europe. "Here, the racing is a lot more chummy and fun," Shaw says. "Over there, it's much more cutthroat. You get thrown in at the deep end, and you're on your own." Shaw proved to be a remarkably prescient evaluator of young talent; the Team U.S.A. honor roll includes top-shelf pros such as , , , A. J. Allmendinger, and . Eventually, though, it became clear that one European race a year wasn't going to cut it. So the next generation of American Fl hopefuls moved to Europe. , Paul Edwards, , and showed plenty of speed, but their progress up the European formula-car ranks stalled when they ran out of money, and they returned to solid careers in the States. Only Scott Speed grabbed the brass ring, largely thanks to the financial backing and marketing clout of . Formula car racing is hellishly expensive, especially in Europe. A ride in a premier GP3 team runs about $800,000. To that, add travel and living expenses. And insurance. And crash damage. "We didn't have a Brazilian bank account with gazillions of dollars, so we had to be creative," Pieter Rossi recalls. When Alexander was racing in the For- mula BMW series here in the States, the Rossis defrayed their expenses by putting to- gether elaborate VIP programs for paying guests. Later, they created a limited partner- ship composed of commercial sponsors and personal investors to fund their racing program in Europe. Conor Daly has taken a somewhat different route. Until this year, most of his racing expenses have been covered by scholarship money earned tile previous season. For 2012, though, he struggled to come up with the funding for another year in GP3, and his father says they came close to forming a Rossi-style investment group. Derek Daly acknowledges that his own reputation in Europe probably helped his son secure a race seat with a front-running team. "But no matter what doors I can open, Con or has to be strong enough to walk through them by himself," he says. "Racing has a way of finding you out very, very quickly."

here's not much shop taJk about racing while DaJy and tional component. (Three of last year's Fl drivers were former Rossi kill time during a photo shoot in San Diego. That's Formula BMW champions.) He won three times during his first business, after all. Instead, the conversation is dominated season, in the States. His second, he won the World FinaJs in Mex- Tby the mundane stuff that interests most rwenry-year-olds. ico City, which earned him a Sauber-BMW F1 test (and an FIA "So, have you met any famous people in Formula l?" Daly Super License). In 2009, Rossi excelled in the InternationaJ For- asks Rossi. mula Master Champions. The next year, he won twice during a Rossi thinks it over. ''NataJie Portman at Cannes," he says. frustrating up-and-down GP3 season. Last year, he was third in ''Noway!'' World Series by Renault, which is one rung down from Formula 1 Rossi scores extra points with Jennifer Lopez in Monaco and and which has produced two world champions in Fernando Paul McCartney in Abu Dhabi. The best a jealous Daly can do is Alonso and . having talked to Troy Polamalu in an airport lounge. "You don't meet very many people like Alexander," says Stuart Rossi is the greyhound to Daly's bulldog. He's lithe as a dancer, King, his race engineer in World Series. "He's not arrogant, but fashion forward and quietly confident after three years of living you can tell that he believes in himself. He's so clued in. He knows largely on his own in Europe after growing up in Northern Cali- exactly what he wants from the car, and it never seemed as if his fornia. Daly is built more like a wrestler, and he's earnest and eager brain was saturated when he was on the track. There were times to please, with a deep voice and Midwestern accent that betrays last year when he made everyone look pretty average." none of his Irish heri- For Daly, 2012 tage. Yet it's the simi- promises to be a make- larities between them or-break season. If he that are the most strik- doesn't win races in ing. They were both GP3, he realizes that he born in 1991.They both tt:. can probably forget started karting when about Formula L "The they were ten. And nei- politics are brutal," he ther of them can imag- _,- says matter-of-factly. ine a life other than the Rossi, a year or two one they're leading. ahead of Daly, is already Rossi: "This wasn't on the cusp of FL But a hobby that turned he, too, knows how into a career. It was quickly the dream can more like a career from evaporate. "We're get- day one." ting closer, but there is Daly: "It's the only still a long, long way to thing I'm really, really go:' he says. good at, and I love doing Purely from a sta- it every single day." tisticaJ standpoint, the Although they have odds aga.inst making it never raced against one to Formula 1 are astro- another, their careers nom.icaJ. This is the have followed remark- goaJ of virtually every ably similar trajectories. Both parlayed dominant performances in driver in the world outside the United States, and it's uncommon karts into Skip Barber championships. For Daly, his breakout season for more than five or six seats to open up any given year, so you do was a magicaJ year in Star in 2010. Last year, he managed a the math. Back when Derek Daly was clawing his way up the lad- few races in before moving to Europe to tackle GP3. der in the 1970s, the map for reaching the Prom.ised Land was There, he endured a hero-to-zero nightmare, goingfrom first in the simple: prove that you've got the requisite skill and determination, Indy Lights championship to last on the grid in Turkey. Although amass a reasonable sum of money, and you, too, could be a For- he never got to grips with the peculiarities of his Pirelli tires during mula 1 driver. GP3 quaJifying, he was a demon in race trim, putting together a These days, the model is much more complicated. Talent is still h.ighlight reel full of ambush-style passes and briefly leading the a given, and winning races is still a must. But Daly and Rossi realize field in the final race at Monza. that they also have to aJign themselves with 'the right sponsors and "He's still a goofbaJl kid, but he's got a good head on his shoul- fashion a persona that attracts the right team, Caterham Fl wouldn't ders, and I was surprised by his maturity in the car:' says Chris have been interested in Rossi if he wasn't blazingly quick on the Finch, his race engineer in Indy Lights. "He's willing to take the track. But as team principal says approvingly, "He risks necessary to make a Cal' go fast. But he thinks about race- conducts himself extremely well in and out of the paddock, and he craft, and he understands that you have to adjust your driving to is the sort of ambassador that ticks the boxes of many global brands." the demands of the venue." It has been twenty-nine years since two Americans were in the Rossi's meteoric rise began in Formula BMW, an exorbitantly same F1 field. Here's betting it won't be another twenty-nine years expensive junior series with the notable benefit of an interna- before we see two more Americans sharing a GP grid. AM