2025 IndyCar season outlook: Andretti Global

Yesterday at 04:19 PM

With the first practice session of the new NTT IndyCar Series season due to begin at St. Petersburg on Friday, Feb. 28, it's time to start ramping up for the launch with a look inside each of the 11 teams.

What's new, what's different, and what has stayed the same? We'll find out from each team, continuing after AJ Foyt Racing with Andretti Global.

2024 ACHIEVEMENTS

To understand the Andretti team's starting line in 2025, let's begin with where it ended 2024.

• Drivers' championship: Colton Herta, No. 26 Honda, second place. Two wins, three pole positions (Detroit, Iowa 1, Toronto), six top 3s, 10 top 5s, 13 top 10s, 10 races led for 296 laps, running at the finish of 16 out of 17 races. Average starting position of 5.6, average finish of 7.4.

• Drivers' championship: Kyle Kirkwood, No. 27 Honda, seventh place. Zero wins, one pole (Nashville), one top 3, five top 5s, 13 top 10s, six races led for 1211 laps, running at the finish of 15 out of 17 races. Average starting position of 10.1, average finish of 8.7.

• Drivers' championship: Marcus Ericsson, No. 28 Honda, 15th place. Zero wins/poles, one top 3, four top 5s, eight top 10s, two races led for 14 laps, running at the finish of 11 out of 17 races. Average starting position of 13.3, average finish of 15.2.

• Entrants' championship: No. 26, second (earned a Leaders Circle contract), No. 27, seventh (earned a Leaders Circle contract), No. 28, 15th (earned a Leaders Circle contract).

2025 DRIVERS

• No. 26 Honda: Colton Herta.

• No. 27 Honda: Kyle Kirkwood.

• No. 28 Honda: Marcus Ericsson

2025 KEY POSITIONS

• Team Owner: Mark Walter, The Walter Group (TWG)

• Team Principal: Dan Towriss

• Chief Operating Officer: Rob Edwards

• Team Managers: Josh Freund, Paul “Ziggy” Harcus

• Technical Director: Eric Bretzman

• Chief IndyCar Race Engineer: Craig Hampson

• No. 26 Race Engineer: Nathan O'Rourke

• No. 26 Race Strategist: Rob Edwards

• No. 26 Chief Mechanic: Nick Allen

• No. 27 Race Engineer: Jeremy Milless

• No. 27 Race Strategist: Bryan Herta

• No. 27 Chief Mechanic: Scott Marks

• No. 28 Race Engineer: Olivier Boisson

• No. 28 Race Strategist: Eric Bretzman

• No. 28 Chief Mechanic: Neil Campbell

MAJOR CHANGES

• Where do we start? The obvious is found with the complete departure of Michael Andretti from the team that continues to bear his name. The 1991 CART IndyCar Series champion is not involved in the team in any capacity, which will mark the first time Andretti will be consistently absent on IndyCar pit lanes — as a driver or owner/race strategist — since his 1993 season spent in Formula 1.

• Another significant change is found with Andretti's No. 2, team president J-F Thormann, who worked with Andretti since his junior open-wheel days in the early 1980s. Thormann is no longer team president, but unlike Andretti, Thormann remains with the outfit in a routine roles as its head of junior driver development, namely looking after the Wheldon boys, which is a perfect fit after performing the duties with Andretti's Indy NXT and USF championship teams for decades.

• The sizable change in years-long leadership from Andretti and Thormann and Edwards to the new matrix of Towriss and Edwards presents a unique dynamic where the senior-most leader of the team is not a racing veteran.

• The departure of Andretti and sole ownership of the team by TWG is also unique, with Andretti Global serving as the first and only known IndyCar team that's wholly owned by an investment firm.

• Although they are not specifically tied to the IndyCar, IMSA, or NASCAR teams purchased by TWG, the company added two high-caliber racing executives to its staff during the offseason with ex-Ganassi and tenured NASCAR man Doug Duchardt, and ex-NASCAR VP and Sonoma Raceway president Jill Gregory.

• Craig Hampson joined the team soon after the 2024 season started. It meant that his imprint as the overarching race engineering manager and leader would not be felt until he found his footing. He enters his first full championship run with the team in 2025, and considering how the program got better as last season went along, there's a reason to believe Hampson's impact will be felt.

• Due to my sustained idiocy, I've had Ericsson positioned as heading into 2025 in a contract year. That is 100-percent incorrect. Per Rob Edwards, all three drivers are signed through at least 2026.

• Sponsorship for the three cars has been an unexpectedly odd topic to attempt to broach with the team. In 2024, team owner TWG bankrolled Herta's No. 26 with its ongoing application of Gainbridge to the car, which continues in 2025, and also funded Ericsson's No. 28 with another of its financial services businesses, Delaware Life. Kirkwood's No. 27 entry was sponsored externally by AutoNation, which has left motor racing. Multiple outreaches to fill in the blanks on whether restaurant chain Chili's, which will be on Kirkwood's car and comes in via TWG's Spire NASCAR team, and Bryant, which was an occasional sponsor on Ericsson's Chip Ganassi Racing cars, are onboard for more than St. Petersburg, have been unsuccessful.

• Adding to the fun, the team supplied its drivers with prepared statements to read if they were asked about the situation, pointing to St. Pete alone and then something about just focusing on the first race of the year. Few teams work as hard to limit information and say nothing whenever possible.

• Separate from the whirlwind of executive changes, the racing team itself — the men and women who comprise the three-car squad — is almost identical from a year-to-year standpoint.

MISSION AHEAD

This was the best team of the second half of last season with Herta shouldering the responsibility of hauling Andretti Global into title contention. As it moves into 2025, the mission, after an initially disruptive offseason, is to become a fully realized three-car team where Herta, Kirkwood and Ericsson are equal contributors to Andretti's success in the final results. Kirkwood made great strides in that department during his second year with the team, and on Ericsson's side, it was a problem- and misfortune-strewn debut with Andretti where immense potential wasn't rewarded on a regular basis.

Reinforcing the last bullet point above, the biggest news for Andretti Global's entering the new season is the lack of change across all the competition areas that make a difference in the results. Consistency should prove to be its super power, and chemistry. This is the most cohesive driver trio in the series. The ongoing infusion of funding from TWG into all engineering and chassis development areas could be the difference maker as Andretti tries to win its first championship since 2012.

Herta's main task: It's a simple one to say, but impossibly hard to do, and that's to pick up where he left off. Herta went from seventh in the championship after Detroit to second by the season finale at Nashville, rocketing past the Penske and McLaren teams as a whole, plus teammate Kirkwood and Scott Dixon, to pose a genuine threat to eventual champion Alex Palou. Getting his first oval win at Nashville, and in convincing fashion, showed he's ready to deliver the results needed to be crowned as IndyCar's best. If Herta arrives at the first race with the no-nonsense approach and heightened focus he used to great effect last year, he will be a nightmare for his closest rivals.

Kirkwood's main task: More of the same. Kirkwood was sneaky-good last season, but due to his lack of wins to add to the pair he earned in 2023, there wasn't the same dynamic pop to his output in 2024. It meant his growth as a driver — in only his third season — flew under the radar and didn't receive the attention it deserved.

In 2023, he had 10 finishes (from 17 races) outside the top 10, which was bad, and left him 11th in the championship despite the two wins. Last year, he slashed the bad finishes down to four; said another way, Kirkwood became a top-10 finishing machine, doing so 13 times, which propelled him to seventh in the standings.

Tuning up his average qualifying position from 10.1 to somewhere closer to Herta's 5.6 would do wonders for Kirkwood. If that can be turned into a 7.0 or 8.0, he's cracking the top five in the championship. Along with the qualifying upgrade, combining the wins from 2023 and the front-running consistency from 2024 would propel Kirkwood into title contention, and he's ready to accept the challenge.

Ericsson's main task: Just finish. For context, Ericsson was a magnet for mechanical issues — engine or otherwise — and had too many incidents to make for a smooth transition from Ganassi to Andretti. Were there highlights? Yes, he had four top fives; Kirkwood only went one better with five top fives, but what placed Kirkwood in seventh and Ericsson in 15th was the chasm in crossing the finish line.

With six failures to finish in 2024, he nearly matched all of his finishing failures from 2019-23 (eight), which explains the uncharacteristic run to 15th. If good fortune smiles on Ericsson again, he'll be back to where he belongs, having placed sixth in the championship three consecutive times at his former team.

GOALS

The time of being a second-tier title contender is over. Anything less than a championship will be a disappointment, and that level of expectations are hard to handle, but that's what comes with what Andretti delivered last season with Herta.

THOUGHTS FROM COO ROB EDWARDS:

"The approach has been to not make any big changes based on the fact that we made good progress the second half of 2024," Edwards told RACER. "As has been well documented, there have been plenty of changes further up above me, so our goal is to try and keep things as close to the same as we can on the race team and the operations side."

"Very much the same line-up in terms of crew on each car, engineering on each car. We’ve taken a good hard look at why we think we made the gains at the end of the year. We did a good hard look at where we think the gaps still are to have that success on a consistent basis. And we’ve spent the last many months focusing on those things.

"With the 26 car, we had a couple of self-induced things in May, Indy road course, had an issue in qualifying. Obviously, Indy 500 we were running along quite happily until we weren’t. Detroit, we were on pole, and then obviously didn’t make the right choice with rain tires and ended up in the escape road. But when we look at it, say Road America onwards, it fell into place. But I think it was actually there before that.

"In ’23 when success didn’t come, there was a level of frustration. People commented they saw that in Colton's driving, and then that spreads right to the team. Everyone doubting themselves, and maybe, you know, trying too hard, if you will. Whereas I think the belief never wavered in ’24 and we just kept digging. Then things started to roll and I think there was a different mindset in that you don’t have to win every race to win the championship. You can probably only afford one DNF. You need to be somewhere around the top five all season. And you probably need to win a couple of races.

"So I think that mindset of, 'OK, big picture, these are all the boxes. It’s not that we have to win every race. We don’t have to do desperate things. You just have to be solid and sensible.' I think everyone just continued to believe that it was all working and that's what we're looking to maintain.

"When you look at the other cars, in a way, Kyle actually was stronger than the results showed at different times last year. I think he’s very strong on belief. Obviously, he and Jeremy have a great relationship, so I don’t think we need to do too much with Kyle’s program or the 27 program to get it operating in the same way as the 26 was last year.

"In Marcus’s case, there were clearly a few issues that got the year off on the wrong foot — a mechanical that wasn't his fault at St. Pete with an air filter, and obviously, crashing in practice at Indy, crashing early in practice at Iowa. Those things just set you back. But I think there were also a lot of positives on his program as well. I think just the fact that he’s got a year under his belt with the team now, and the great dynamics between the three drivers, we can take the lessons from what didn’t work on the 28 car in ’24 and apply those to ’25 and that will help to get us to where we want it to be — and where we need it to be as well."