INDYCAR: Drivers react to 2018 aero kit designs

"I like how prominent the floor is because that means, like they've discussed, the bottom-side downforce will be a priority," the Andretti-Herta driver said.

"When we're trying to follow closely, you get to this point where the racing kind of seems stagnant because nobody is really getting closer [to each other]. It's because the car behind us is so affected [by turbulence from the car in front] because they are going over the top of it.

"When you're relying on downforce coming from the bottom, you're not affected by turbulence or dirty air because it's irrelevant the state that the air is in when it hits the floor. So that part is massively encouraging.

"And I mean, beyond that, I think it looks awesome. It takes us back to kind of the glory days, which is the direction the sport is heading, and this is a huge step in going in the right direction. Big hats off to the team for what they've come up with. It looks like a real race car."

Rossi's enthusiasm was echoed by new Team Penske arrival Josef Newgarden.

"They've done a lot of due diligence to figure out, how do we make this car even better than it currently is, and they're trying to do that while making it look sexy," he said. "I think all of us want a sexy-looking race car. We want people to show up, and when they come to the racetrack, you want them to be wowed by the race cars.

"The sexy element, making them bad-ass looking, that's really, really critical, and we're going to tie the performance into that, too, so it's just encouraging to hear all those points that they're trying to hit from the IndyCar side."