Rasmussen by name, Razzle Dazzle by nature

Someone really should tell Christian Rasmussen the Milwaukee Mile oval is comprised of four left-hand corners.

The Dane seemingly forgot that part on his way to becoming a first-time IndyCar Series race winner on Sunday. Rasmussen, aka ‘Razzle Dazzle,’ spent a considerable portion of the afternoon turning right on corner entry, mid-corner, and on corner exit to keep his No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevy from swapping ends and ending his day against the wall.

Of the many impressive skills possessed by the 2023 Indy NXT champion, the 25-year-old has a special ability to fight oversteer and win most of the miniature wars with his steering wheel. Turning right… into lefts… on an oval… lap after lap… and reaching victory lane in one piece. Razzle Dazzle, indeed.

“That was a handful,” Rasmussen said with a smile after besting four-time IndyCar champion Alex Palou. “Yeah, it was interesting. We started the race on the loose side, took a little bit of wing out. Tried to do stuff, use my tools. Then I feel like I would pick up a little bit too much understeer in the mid-corner. Then the steering input from the mid-corner would make it snap on exit.

“Just got to a point where no matter what we did with the car, it was always going to snap on exit. I think I got slightly numb to it through the race. It was definitely a handful. I think there were a lot of cars struggling with balance. We just happened to be on the ‘free’ side. There was a couple of interesting moments.”

New teammate and 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner Alexander Rossi rushed to congratulate Rasmussen after the race. With a veteran to learn from, ECR’s junior driver has made immense progress during his sophomore season and was quick to credit the Californian for making Sunday’s victory possible.

“I think not only for me, but for the whole team, Alex has been a massive, massive help,” he said. “Having a real veteran driver that has been around, he's been with all the top teams, obviously has been around IndyCar, top level of open-wheel for a very long time, seeing up close how he operates is quite different from what I've been used to coming through the ranks and whatnot.

“Having him as a mentor, also trusting whenever he says something to me that it's the right thing. You also don't always have that. I think me and Alex, both on the racetrack and off the racetrack, we get along super-well. Kind of similar personalities in a way. We keep a little bit to ourselves. I really enjoy the relationship. We'll continue to grow together, I think.”

Rasmussen hasn’t made of lot of friends between the green and checkered flags this year. Always bullish, he’s been unafraid to make contact and take sizable risks in the pursuit of results like the one he delivered at Milwaukee. His boss loves everything about it…

“People talk about they don't like everything he does,” Ed Carpenter said. “We haven't asked him to change one thing. He's attacking and being aggressive, not settling for anything. That's the mentality we want to have as a team. Really proud of the effort and he way he finished today.”

After using ECR’s pit strategy to take new tires late in the race and charge past Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden for third, then Penske’s Scott McLaughlin for second, and finally, dominant race leader Alex Palou for first – as their older tires began to lose grip – Rasmussen kept pushing and caught a number of wiggles and slides while stretching his lead to 1.9s at the end of 250 laps.

Palou and McLaughlin offered praise for the newest member of the IndyCar race winner’s club, while giving him a hard time for the all-or-nothing approach that has occasionally conspired against achieving ultimate success.

“I knew he was going to race hard,” Palou said. “He always races hard. He was going to pass me or go [into] the wall.”

“That's how he races,” McLaughlin concurred. “You’ve got to respect it. I think he's very fast. He's very brave. He makes some really nice split-second decisions. As we've seen, it's bit him in the backside a couple of times as well. He's learning. He's getting better. I've said for a long time, he's going to win a race at some point. He's been really strong. He's not scared of taking chances.”