Marco Andretti pairs up with engineer Hampson for Indy 500
Marco Andretti will have the race engineering talents of the returning Craig Hampson for his 19th attempt to win the Indianapolis 500.
Hampson spent 2013-2016 as a race engineer and director of R&D for Andretti Global before leaving to join Dale Coyne Racing from 2017-2019 and then Arrow McLaren from 2020-2023. Having recently completed his non-complete clause with Arrow McLaren, Hampson’s public debut with Andretti Global will take place during this week’s Indy Open Test.
For Andretti, who won Rookie of the Year honors at Indy in 2006 and competed full-time in the IndyCar Series through 2020, his annual outing at the Indianapolis Speedway in the No. 98 Andretti Herta Autosport entry will benefit from Hampson’s oversight while seeing to improve upon his runner-up finish in 2006 and three third-place runs.
“Craig has not come back to Andretti to be a race engineer; he’s come for a wide-ranging role in what we’re doing, but we thought it would be good to put him in the trenches with our other engineers at Indy as a way of living in their world and getting up to speed with things Andretti versus things McLaren, where he’s come from,” Andretti COO Rob Edwards Told RACER.
“So he’ll be working with Marco for the 500 and then go back into wider role between the test and the 500, and then post-500.”
The four-time Champ Car champion will work alongside Andretti technical director Eric Bretzman and race engineers Nathan O’Rourke (Colton Herta), Jeremy Milless (Kyle Kirkwood), and Olivier Boisson (Marcus Ericsson) to try and push the program towards a higher level of competitiveness as the team seeks its first Indy 500 win since 2017 and its first IndyCar championship since 2012.
“That’s clearly the hope,” Edwards said. “And that’s why Craig has been brought into the mix. With as many things as we’re involved in with the different series we get to play in; Eric’s role really encompasses more than just IndyCar. And so the opportunity with Craig is to have him focus on the IndyCar program with the three race engineers and that works hand in hand with what Eric’s doing in his role both from a personality standpoint and from skill set. It should all be additive to the three-car model we have for the season and what we’re trying to do with that.”
