Alexander Rossi looked like the championship favorite back in June. Following a dominating win on June 23 at Road America, Rossi cut Josef Newgarden’s points lead down to single digits.

See, from the Indy 500 through Road America, Rossi has three runner-ups, a win and a fifth place effort. He looked like he would be the one crowned as the season champion.

Unfortunately, he’s looked pedestrian ever since. Granted, pedestrian for him.

Rossi’s last three finishes are third, sixth and fifth respectively. While those are solid results and gives him eight consecutive top eight finishes heading into Sunday’s ABC Supply 500 at the Pocono Raceway, he just hasn’t had the speed to contend lately.

He was a distant third in Toronto. He never had a car capable of competing in Iowa. In fact, he fell a lap down in the Iowa 300. In Mid-Ohio, he was on the wrong end of strategy and didn’t have the pace to make up for it.

Last year in Mid-Ohio, he led 66 of 90 laps en route to a win. This year, he led zero. In fact, Rossi hasn’t led a lap since leading 54 of 55 on June 23 in Road America.

Now, he heads to a strong point of his – superspeedway racing.

Rossi, led 180 of 200 laps in this race last year. He finished second to Simon Pagenaud in the Indy 500 in May. He finished second to Josef Newgarden at Texas in June. He’s hungry for a win. He’s scored the third most oval points in the series this season.

“I’m really excited to get back to Pocono,” Rossi said. “It’s one of my favorite tracks to go back to each year – and obviously, we had a good race there last year. We’re getting into a critical point of the championship and we need to win races. Pocono is a great place for us to hopefully do that. Being so close to where the Andretti family is from is great. The area has a lot of tradition for Indy car racing and we all look forward to coming back to each year. Hopefully, we can leave the weekend leading the championship.”

Can his No. 27 Honda get there on Sunday? He’s to a point that he needs to.