Year two of Andretti Autosport’s partnership with Volkswagen should see the Global Rallycross Beetle GRC program hitting its stride.

If any Andretti Autosport program serves to illustrate the benefits of collaboration, it’s Red Bull Global Rallycross, where it has partnered with Volkswagen to run a pair of factory Beetles for two-time champ Tanner Foust and three-time event winner Scott Speed.

On paper, GRC could scarcely seem further removed from what Andretti’s racing in elsewhere. The differences go all the way down to the surface that the cars run on: the only time a Verizon IndyCar Series driver guns it on gravel is when they’ve overshot a turn at Mid-Ohio.

Foust believes that understanding how to prepare a car for such a different surface was one of the biggest challenges Andretti faced, but notes that the team’s vast road racing experience proved beneficial, too.

“The Andretti guys needed to attend a few events and learn from Volkswagen on the rally side about how to make the car work on gravel,” Foust says. “But the year they came into the sport [2014] is the year we went to a radial tire, so rallycross moved more toward road racing on asphalt, which Andretti is exceedingly proficient at, of course.

“The Polo we started the first year with wasn’t a factory car, but it had good bones. Yet Andretti’s knowledge of how the radial tire worked is what made it quick. That sort of knowledge and experience is priceless.”

The Beetle that the team will use this year has been updated over the one that contested the final events of 2014, and it’s still very much at the start of its development. That might seem a disadvantage compared with other IndyCar crossover teams using fully-sorted, off-the-shelf Ford Fiestas, but Speed believes that Andretti and VW’s partnership will ultimately prove stronger.

“We can build on where we left off at the end of last year with the Beetle, and there’s a ton of potential there,” he says. “Other cars, you’ve kind of got what you’ve got.”
The Andretti/VW combination is a potent one. VW’s recent success in the World Rally Championship has been remarkable, and Foust says that he’s impressed by what he has seen from the Andretti side.

“The fundamental thing you realize in your very first meeting with Andretti is its commitment to winning,” he says. “Michael’s a pure competitor. If there’s a competitive edge to be had, that team will find it. It doesn’t matter if it’s rallycross, or IndyCar, or whatever, having that as the spine that everything else operates from – that ideology of pure success and results and competition – I think that’s the key that makes them good at whatever they get involved in.”