Andretti Autosport, Part II
The cast: Drivers – Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter. Chief engineers – Blair Perschbacher (Andretti), Ray Gosselin (Hunter-Reay).
Twitter: @MarcoAndretti, @RyanHunterReay, @FollowAndretti
The car: Honda-powered No. 25 (Andretti) and No. 28 (Hunter-Reay)
Snapshot: Hunter-Reay, who ran No. 1 on the car in honor of his 2012 IndyCar Series championship, switches back to the No. 28. “Everybody was hesitant about running the No. 1 last year. I think we had a great season, but didn't put the whole thing together, had some bad luck,” he said. The opener at St. Petersburg will be Hunter-Reay’s 152nd IndyCar start. The Feb. 24, 2003, Champ Car-sanctioned race on the streets of St. Petersburg was his first. Hunter-Reay has finished either second or third at St. Petersburg in three of the past five years. … Andretti was third among all drivers in laps completed (2,351 of 2,433) and second in top-10 finishes (15) in 2013. Sonoma, where Andretti scored his first IndyCar Series victory, will mark his 150th start. A native and resident of Nazareth, Pa., he turns 26 on March 13 and enters his ninth IndyCar Series season.
The stats: Andretti placed a career-best fifth in the 2013 championship, with six top-five finishes in the 19 races. Third place in the opener at St. Petersburg was matched at Sao Paulo for his best finish. Those results bookended seventh-place finishes at Barber and Long Beach. In the second half of the season, fourth place at Toronto 1 and Sonoma formed the outside stakes for ninth-place finishes at Toronto 2 and Mid-Ohio. He earned the pole at Pocono and led a season-high 88 laps. He started on the front row in five of the six oval events (started sixth in the finale at Auto Club Speedway). “We were really dominant on the ovals. As long as we can improve that 20 percent on road and streets, win the races that we know we can win, then we’ll be where we need to be,” he said. Overall, Andretti had an average starting position of 8.8 and average finish of 8.9. He was running at the finish in 18 races. … Hunter-Reay posted victories at Barber and Milwaukee (second year in a row) and seven top-five finishes overall. He claimed the pole for a career-high three races and had an average starting position of 5.4. He qualified for the Firestone Fast Six in nine of the 13 road/street course races. Finished career-best third in the Indianapolis 500. He was the biggest mover at Iowa by advancing from the 12th starting spot to finish second. He led 10 races for a total of 297 laps (second among all drivers), had an average finish of 11.6 and placed seventh in the standings.
The gist: This is the fifth season that Andretti and Hunter-Reay will be teammates, and Hunter-Reay says "the communication is there." ... Andretti’s car will carry the blue and yellow Snapple livery as the primary sponsor this season. “Those guys (at Dr Pepper/Snapple) have been so loyal, really to the whole team, but to me, especially. (To have a sponsor for) six years running is awesome,” Andretti said. … Hunter-Reay’s car will have the familiar yellow and red DHL as primary sponsor. … James Hinchcliffe and rookie Carlos Munoz comprise the other half of Andretti Autosport’s lineup. READ THEIR PREVIEW
They said it: “Looking forward to 2014,” Hunter-Reay said. “This series is ever evolving, competition getting tougher. Penske added a car, Ganassi back to four with (Tony Kanaan) and (Ryan) Briscoe over there. It’s going to be tougher every year. It’s just how it works. We’re looking forward to it. The team as a whole has been working really well together. Coming back, working with the same group of people, the communication is there. As I’ve always said, it’s an open book of communication between us. That’s how things work well.”
Added Andretti: “I think ‘13 was a good start to the direction I wanted to go. We confirmed a lot of my work is in the right direction anyway. We just need to keep plugging away with that, and we have. I think I made gains since. I’m more confident going into ‘14 than I was ‘13. That’s a good start. From there, we need to do similar things. I was pleased with my consistency. But some of my best results of last year were on the street courses, which is where I was struggling.
“This year the goal has to be to capitalize where we’re dominant because I think that’s what really took us out of the championship the second half of the year last year. I think the races we know we can win we just have to win. If we’re able to do that, string a few together, I think we can be champions.”