Felix Rosenqvist says he’ll talk to Arrow McLaren teammate Alexander Rossi about the late race battle at Detroit that led first to contact between between the pair, and then to contact between Rossi and the wall. But the Swede believes that those sorts of incidents come with the territory of having teammates with strong equipment fighting up front.
The pair were fighting over third in the closing laps with Rossi ahead when they hip-checked each other, and on the second-last l ap, Rosenqvist made a move to the inside of Rossi at Turn 3 that sent the No. 7 Chevy bouncing off the outside wall. No harm done to either car outside of Rossi losing a place to Ganassi’s Scott Dixon, and Rosenqvist and Rossi finished third and fifth respectively.
“We race hard, but I think we also race fair,” said Rosenqvist. “Obviously we like each other. We don’t have any intentions to put each other in the wall.
“But it was tight. I was completely alongside him into Turn 3. It gets tight, man. It’s so close. He squeezed me a little bit on entry; I squeezed him a little bit on exit.
“I pretty much didn’t have any more room on entry. I was just trying to not go into the wall on (the) apex. After that, I just tried to get out of the corner as quick as I can, give him the room he needed.
“I think it’s a good problem to have. The Arrow McLaren cars have been up there every race. You’re going to find yourself in a situation where you’re fighting teammates. It’s something we’ll discuss internally, (to see) if we can manage it differently. Obviously there were no team calls on this one, which is cool. They let us battle it out on the track.
“I didn’t think committing to the move was high-risk. I wouldn’t want to do it high-risk. With a teammate, you never want to.
“We’ll get through it. Alex is a good dude. As I say, we’ve been fighting each other before, and a lot this year. We’ve pretty much been around each other all season. We’re probably going to keep doing it.”
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