Alexander Rossi will start the 110th Indianapolis 500 from the middle of the front row, but he will do it in a backup car after his three-car practice crash with Pato O'Ward and Romain Grosjean on Monday. He is also doing it with small fractures in his right ankle and left hand, screws now holding him together after minor surgery on the night of the accident.
The 2016 Indy 500 winner returned to the cockpit for Carb Day's two-hour final practice session and reported no concerns. "Mentally is fine. You know, I've crashed race cars before. That's really no different to any other time. It's just the time crunch," Rossi said in pit lane. "You have to take into consideration a big check up in front of you when you're battling with other cars. You're pedalling the car a lot, a yellow flag comes out, so you have to have that ability to react as well, and all of that is where it needs to be."
Rossi also publicly thanked the IndyCar doctors, IU Health staff and his Ed Carpenter Racing crew for the rebuild effort that delivered a backup that, in his words, "feels just as good as the car that we qualified." The chassis itself has an unusual back-story. It is the same car Rossi drove in the 2025 Indianapolis 500, the one that suffered a gearbox failure and then caught fire in pit lane while running near the front of the field.
Despite the lukewarm omens, the Speedway record book offers Rossi reason for optimism. Backup cars have a habit of finding magic at Indianapolis when the cards fall right.
Mario Andretti supplied the original template in 1969. After crashing his primary four-wheel-drive Lotus so heavily in practice that he was too badly burned to take the ceremonial pictures and instead sent his brother Aldo in his place, Andretti qualified a Brawner Hawk backup into the second position on the grid. The same starting slot Rossi takes this Sunday. Five hundred miles later, Mario had his first and only Indianapolis 500 victory.
Al Unser Sr added a more improbable chapter in 1987. After Penske wrote off a brand-new chassis in practice, the team had to pull a backup car out of a hotel display in Reading, Pennsylvania. The hastily prepared 1986 March-Cosworth carried Unser Sr to his fourth Indianapolis 500 win, an emotional victory that remains one of the most unlikely in Speedway history.
Rick Mears wrote the most relevant chapter for Rossi to study. In 1991, Mears crashed for the first time in his Indianapolis career on Fast Friday and broke his ankle, an injury strikingly similar to Rossi's current setback. Mears was back in the backup on the same day, set the month's fastest lap, qualified on pole and beat Michael Andretti in one of the most thrilling final-lap duels the race has ever produced.
More recently, Ryan Hunter-Reay took a 2012-spec backup, the very car Oriol Servia drove in the first DW12 race, to within one pit stop of winning the 2025 Indianapolis 500 after his primary car burned down on Carb Day.
Rossi will be flanked on race day by Alex Palou on pole and a hard-charging field hunting their first 500. Whether the 2016 winner can add his name to that elite backup-car list will depend on a heroic ankle, a settled hand and 500 miles of nerve at the Brickyard.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/indy-500-2026-backup-cars-history-rossi-andretti-mears-unser). Visit for full coverage.*
