Rossi encouraged by qualifying pace

Alexander Rossi says that he's encouraged by Andretti Autosport's off-season progress after qualifying a career-best fifth for Sunday's Verizon IndyCar Series race at Long Beach.

Rossi joined team-mate Ryan Hunter-Reay in progressing through to the Fast Six shootout for pole on Saturday, and said that most of the credit belongs to the improvements that the team has made on road/street courses.

"I think the turnaround that we as a team at Andretti have had since last year has been pretty unbelievable, especially here," Rossi said.

"Huge credit to them, the belief they had in the off-season they were going to resolve the issues. That's very cool to see and be a part of."

But although satisfied with his starting place on the third row, he believes that there is still more pace to be found as he continues to gain experience.

"It's obviously good to be here [in the top six], he said. "I think we missed a bit there on a personal level because, I didn't know [how to use the reds] because I hadn't done it [in the Fast Six] before. Other than that, a strong weekend and the car has been good since we rolled off [the truck] Friday."