Andretti Autosport's Alexander Rossi isn't pulling any punches in his search for a first IndyCar championship as he declares second is no longer good enough.
Rossi, who is just seven points shy of championship leader Josef Newgarden has won two races so far this season in dominant fashion in Long Beach and Road America.
However, has also finished a Penske three times in the past five races, which included a battle to the finish with Simon Pagenaud at the Indianapolis 500.
After losing out to Chip Ganassi's Scott Dixon, who claimed his fifth series title in 2018. Rossi worked hard through the winter with his Andretti Autosport team to focus on going one better in 2019.
Speaking about finishing runner-up again this season, Rossi told IndyCar.com: "We’ve already done that once, I’m not really interested in that. We’re only here to win. We’re thinking about the championship for sure. That was our goal coming into this year. We were close last year and didn’t get it done.
"The whole offseason was focused around building a championship campaign. We’re close. We’re working through it. There are still some areas we need to improve upon.
"There’s still a lot of races to go. It’s going to be a big fight all the way to the end."
The Californian also refuses to believe his Dixon as the reigning champion is out of the title race, despite being 94 points adrift in the standings.
"Dixon is still in it; you can’t count him out," Rossi added. "There are so many guys now that are capable of winning races, week in and week out. There’s no sense picking and choosing who you are trying to beat. You have to beat everyone.
"Every mistake at this point is magnified. You’ve got to make sure you’re not making mistakes and maximizing every possible position each race weekend.
"You look at Scott last year and where he was after Portland and regardless of anything that I was going to do it was going to be pretty hard to beat him.
"You need to go into the final race being the championship leader and at that point, you know that if you finish in the top five you’re going to be able to walk away with (the title).
"The double points is a unique aspect, but at the end of the day, you still want to go into the finale leading."
The next round of the NTT IndyCar Series is in Toronto, Canada on July 12-14.
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