Andretti Green is the winningest team in IndyCar Series history with 34 victories and three championships. The only team that fields four cars in the series, AGR returns all four of its drivers in 2009 for the first time since 2005.
Question: I’m sure it’s a good feeling to have all four drivers coming back. Can you take a minute and kind of tell us about each of the drivers and what your expectations are for each of them this season?
MICHAEL ANDRETTI: First of all, hi, everybody. We’re very excited that it’s the first year since 2005 that everybody is coming back together, and I think continuity is always an important thing, and it’s nice to have that going into this year.
I think we have high expectations from all four drivers. I think Tony and Marco are going to have great years, I really feel it, as well as I think Danica (Patrick). Hopefully we can get her back into victory lane, and we want to give Hideki (Mutoh) his first win, which we feel would be really huge for our team if we were able to achieve that, be able to get the first Japanese driver to win a major open wheel race.
We have a lot of incentives for all four guys to be running up front, and we’re going to do everything we can as a team to make it happen. So far the testing that we’ve done, I feel very good about what’s been going on, and all the work that we’ve done over the winter, I think, is hopefully going to pay off, and we’ll see at the first race at St. Pete.
Question: You did make a couple of changes kind of behind the scenes, some new engineers in some places and also the change yourself, moving over to Danica’s radio. What was the impetus behind some of those changes?
MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Well, when you make one change, it sort of is like a domino, or a puzzle I should say, and you have to make sure that when you make that move, it’s not going to affect this or that. We felt that putting me into the role that I’m going to be playing, which I really need another job like a hole in the head (laughing), but I’m excited about the challenge. But the team as a whole just felt that I would be able to help Danica. She seems to respond to me in a lot of ways, and we felt that I might be able to use some of my experience to help her, and in doing so we moved Kyle (Moyer) back over to Marco, and we also made a change with his engineer. We’ve moved Eddie Jones, who used to be his engineer, over to Danica, and we have Peter Gibbons, who is coming back to engineering, who engineered me for many, many years in my career and who I think is one of the best in the business, and he’s going to be moved to engineer Marco.
And for Tony we have a move that was actually adjusted at the end of last year when Eric Cowdin moved over to (Team) Penske and we moved Allen (McDonald) over to him. So we had some changes in the background, but I really, really feel that every single change that has been made has been a real positive for the team. I’m actually quite excited. I think we’ve hit the right combination for all four cars with this.
Question: Michael, quickly more on the promoter side, take a look at St. Petersburg. Andretti Green has been the promoter for that event since day one as it relates to the IndyCar Series. Tell us a little bit about how the event has grown into one of the marquee events on the schedule and now for the first time ever it’s going to be the season opener.
MICHAEL ANDRETTI: We’re really excited about that. It’s a positive for the event. It’s always nice to be the opener, and I can’t think of a better place to open the season than down there. I think the setting is just perfect for an auto race and a street race, and we’re excited about the progress that’s been made there. I think there’s going to be a lot of new things that you’ll see that are a little different and more things ‑‑ we’re always trying to do more things to keep the fans busy during the weekend, which I think we’re achieving with the yacht club and things like that.
The encouraging thing, in tough times that we’re in right now, I’m happy to say that ticket sales are right there with last year, which we’re quite excited about. We’re looking for another great event down there, as well as Toronto is going quite well, as well, the ticket sales up there, and also the corporate involvements are quite high. So things are really chugging along up there, so we’re excited about that, as well.
Question: Michael, I kind of wanted to ask you a little bit of a question about expectations that you have for your team, and specifically with Marco. You’ve got Tony who’s the veteran, and you’ve got Danica who last year won her first race. I know that Marco has always been on the cusp of winning more races and challenging for the championship. How much do you see his role improving entering this season?
MICHAEL ANDRETTI: I feel real positive about this year for Marco. I think we made some really good changes within his team, and I know he’s been working really, really hard, and I think getting him more experience with A1GP stuff I think is going to be good. I think it’s really tough right now to be an up‑and‑coming driver because it’s hard to get racing miles or even testing miles anymore because of the rules and everything. Every mile that Marco does, he’s just going to be that much better, and I feel that this could really be his breakout year. I feel good about that. And I think it’s really important for our team to have him doing well, and hopefully working along with the other three, they all are hitting on all cylinders. This team can be unbeatable.
Question: With the year’s experience that the transition teams had after coming over from unification, do you see them basically on even par with you guys, and is this really going to create an even more wide‑open battle for not only race victories but also for the championship?
MICHAEL ANDRETTI: If you look at a good example is just the test down in Homestead. There was a lot of the ‑‑ I guess you want to call them transition teams were at the top of the scoreboard there. So yeah, I think it’s going to be really, really tough because of that, and I think they’ve had a year and they know what they needed. Coming into this year they knew what they needed to work on over the winter. I would say, yeah, they’re going to be right there. I see Newman/Haas and KV especially have definitely improved you can see, so I think they’re going to be a real pain in the butt.
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