When Alexander Rossi arrived in IndyCar last season after spending the better part of a decade racing in Europe, it was hard to fault U.S. racing fans for not really knowing that he was a homegrown talent.

More likely to be confused with a world champion Italian motorcycle racer named Valentino Rossi than identified as a rising U.S. star, anonymity at home was the price the Californian paid for following his Formula One dreams.

“A lot of people didn’t know who I was and a lot of them didn’t even know I was American,” says Rossi, whose rugged good looks would find him at home on the cover of a fashion magazine.

“My goal was always F1 and it became very clear that I could start my career in the U.S. But in order to get to F1, I had to race in Europe and go through the junior formulas.”

In fact, Rossi is red, white, and blue to the core, growing up in Northern California near Lake Tahoe and splitting his passion between skiing and karting until he decided, at 12 years old, that racing was going to be the centre of his universe.

He excelled almost immediately, taking an International Karting Federation Grand National Championship at 13 before moving to cars and winning a Skip Barber regional title. The 2008 Formula BMW USA championship and a win in the prestigious Formula BMW World Final followed and launched his move to Europe.

He paid a price to keep racing, too. Staying on a path to F1 meant vowing to be just as good in the classroom as he was in a car.

“The one thing that remained constant through my whole karting and early racing career was that I had to maintain a straight A average for my parents to allow me to continue doing it,” says Rossi, who continues to enjoy skiing in winter and can usually be found training on his bicycle in summer.

“I graduated high school just before I turned 17 — two years early — and went immediately into college and got a two-year associate degree so I would have the ability to transfer to a four-year school if my racing career didn’t work out. I think I would probably have studied bio-chem or medicine, which is something hugely interesting for me.”

After stints in several European ladder series, Rossi spent three seasons as a test driver in Formula One, first with the now-defunct Caterham F1 Team in 2012 before he moved to the Manor outfit in 2014. A year later, Rossi became the first American to compete in a Grand Prix since Scott Speed, driving to 14th place in the 2015 Singapore Grand Prix.

Speed started 28 F1 races in 2006 and 2007 before being replaced at the Toro Rosso team by future four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel.

The soft-spoken Rossi walked away from F1 at the end of 2015, choosing to move back across the Atlantic and to race in IndyCar.

“It’s very difficult to break through and get one of 20 spots in F1 when teams are looking to finalize budgets of $10- to $20-million — it’s an absurd amount of money,” says Rossi, who had considered a making a switch to IndyCar in 2015, but stayed in Europe.

“The opportunity that came about with Andretti Autosport was so special and it was a unique situation for a rookie to drive a full season with them. That was the reason I decided to drop everything I had been doing in Europe and come to race in the U.S.”

He may have arrived as a mystery man, but a shock win in the 2016 Indianapolis 500 changed all that, thrusting Rossi into the spotlight in a way that he never anticipated.

“My stock value in terms of the American market definitely was raised,” he says with a chuckle.

“I don’t think I realized when it happened what it was going to entail because I was a rookie to the 500. I had never even been to the 500 as a spectator — I was just thrown into it.”

The Indianapolis 500 win also delivered a seat in the 2017 Race of Champions held in January at Marlins Park in Miami, Fla. Rossi acquitted himself well, but fell victim to Nissan Micra Cup driver Stefan Rzadzinski of Edmonton, who essentially Twitter campaigned himself into the field.

“Man, he did a great job,” Rossi says. “He just out-drove me. Stefan is a cool kid and everyone had a lot of fun with him. He definitely showed that he’s just a naturally talented dude.”

Despite the success in Indianapolis, Rossi struggled a bit over much of the 2016 season as he got to grips with driving in IndyCar on race tracks that he’d never seen. In the end, he scored five top-10s in the 15 races that weren’t the Indy 500, with a best result of fifth in the season finale in Sonoma. His 11th overall finish in points was good enough to earn him Rookie of the Year honours.

This season, Rossi rarely runs outside of the top-10 — unless mechanical issues or accidents get in the way — and he’s a legitimate threat to win or finish on the podium on most weekends. He chalks up the difference this year to being more comfortable in the team, knowing the circuits better, and getting to know all the intricate ins-and-outs of competing in the Verizon IndyCar Series.

“We have had some bad luck this year but the pace has been there, which is the important thing,” he says.

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“It’s a lot harder to win races if you are relying on luck and struggling for pace. We have been strong and had a top-five car on most race weekends and that’s what you have to do.”

Interestingly, the biggest change for Rossi in 2017 may be the spare time he’s got on his hands because he didn’t win the Indianapolis 500 this year. That prize and all the demands it brings went to his teammate, Takuma Sato, who won 2017’s “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” on May 28.

“It was very interesting because the week leading up to Detroit (immediately following the Indy 500), I was watching Taku and his media tour and I was like: ‘Oh, I see, I don’t get phone calls anymore’,” laughs Rossi, who was a factor all day but ended the 101st Indianapolis 500 in eighth place.

“Winning the 500 is great because you can have some bad days and people still think you are doing an awesome job.”