Andretti’s Ruzewski says ‘value add’ potential key to fourth Indy 500 entry

Andretti Global was prepared to run an extra car for Colton Herta last May at the Indianapolis 500, but with the rescheduling of Formula 1 and Formula 2 events due to the ongoing war in the Middle East, the aspiring TWG Cadillac F1 driver was forced to abandon his Indy 500 return and focus on racing in Canada with the Hitech F2 team.

The team received plenty of interest in its unused fourth entry with lucrative offers being made by budget-wielding drivers, but declined the offers and concentrated on fielding its three full-time entries. Looking to 2027, team principal Ron Ruzewski (pictured above) says the trio of Kyle Kirkwood and Indy 500 winners Will Power (2018) and Marcus Ericsson (2022) will remain as Andretti’s primary focus but if the call comes in from TWG leadership to accommodate a fourth car for a proven contender like Herta – who hopes to be positioned alongside Sergio Perez in a Cadillac F1 race seat – or another Indy 500 veteran, he’ll be prepared to act.

“Three is the magic number, unless there’s a distinct value add for us,” Ruzewski told RACER. “I’d love to say I know what what’s happening in the Formula 1 world, but I don’t want to even speculate what could happen there.”

TWG NASCAR driver Carson Hocevar visited the team at the Speedway in May after winning his first Cup race for Spire Motorsports and expressed his desire to compete in the Indy 500 at some point in the future. Recent speculation has placed the 23-year-old from Michigan in a fourth Andretti entry and Ruzewski was happy to offer clarity on the matter.

“The Carson Hocevar thing that somebody tried to spill, somebody asked me about it, and I said, ’Absolutely not,’” he added. “I said, ’Maybe someday, but right now, absolutely not for multiple reasons.’ Now, if somebody tells me to do that, then it’s a conversation. But a ’confirmed source’ is about as far from the truth as possible. Again, my vision is three is the right number unless there’s some magical value add that that is worth doing.”

The championship-winning and Indy 500-winning race engineer-turned-team boss also clarified his definition of “value add” for the big race, which would eliminate the idea of dropping in a rookie from NASCAR or any other series at the Speedway without serious preparations that extend beyond the 500.

“’Value add’ is somebody that can add value to the other three drivers to win the race and or win the race themselves,” Ruzewski said. “You could argue if Conor [Daly] didn’t have a ride, with his track record, there is potentially a value add, right? It’s becoming less and less, and not to discredit anybody, but there’s only a handful of people that could be a value add for an operation. It can quickly also become a distraction. If you’re going to do it and do it right, you should run that driver at Phoenix (in March) so that they do pit stops and have at least one race to get ready.

“When we did it with Juan Montoya when I was at the other place (Team Penske), we ran him in the [Indy] Grand Prix just to get pit stop cycles in, get him up to speed first. There was a was a purpose behind that. So that’s why I say ’value add’ means it’s got to provide benefit to the other three drivers to win the race or be a person that can win the race themselves.”