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PRUETT: AGR’s Unpleasant Choice
Written by: Marshall Pruett   
06/27/2008
Oakland, CA
 
AGR mainstay Bryan Herta finds himself out of a ride after AGR's bold move to salvage their season and contract with Acura, but Herta wasn't the problem. (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos


How many pilots have been in the Andretti-Green Racing Acura ALMS LMP2 car since the team debuted in March of 2007? Let's count them:

Bryan Herta
Marino Franchitti
Dario Franchitti
Tony Kanann
Vitor Meira
Marco Andretti
Christian Fittipaldi.

Of those seven, only two are currently employed by AGR, and only one is expected to sit in the car again--Marco Andretti. Who knows if Kanaan will still call AGR home after the IRL season concludes. A 7th driver, Franck Montagny, joins the team at Lime Rock as the only permanent driver in their Acura ARX-01b for the rest of 2008.

With the revolving door of drivers over the past fifteen months, have those drivers been the common denominator in Andretti-Green's lack of greater results? It’s painfully obvious, but worth stating: changing drivers before the half-way point of any season in any series is never easy. For Andretti-Green Racing, mired with less than stellar results in the 2008 American Le Mans Series, shaking up their Acura LMP2 program after four disappointing races was a tough but smart call to make.

After those four rounds, the Herta/Fittipaldi driver pairing are just eight points ahead of Emmanuel Collard in the driver’s championship. Collard, a winner with the Penske Porsche team at Sebring, has only done that one race on the ALMS calendar in 2008! They also find themselves behind both sets of Penske drivers, both sets of Dyson drivers, and their Highcroft teammates that currently hold second place in the championship.

More importantly for Acura, the manufacturer is within reach of Porsche for the chassis and engine constructor championships—the prizes that matter most to them, and need the maximum results from all of their teams. And it’s here that we have the heart of AGR’s problems.

For all of the popularity and experience of Herta and Fittipaldi, the two failed to click this season. Herta, a fixture at AGR since 2003, is the most surprising casualty in AGR’s overhaul. Herta’s new partner, Fittipaldi, just never produced what they’d hoped for. When I heard the announcement, my immediate reaction was 'that's great for Christian, but bad for Bryan.' It’s also fair to assume that Herta’s undoing with the team was helped in part by the lack of pace of his teammate. In a team sport like endurance racing, a slow teammate can be a career killer.

Despite his quiet season in LMP2, you’d be hard pressed to find a more enjoyable person to talk to in the paddock than Christian Fittipaldi. But as an IRL team owner once told me, “We don’t pay ‘em to be nice,
we pay ‘em to be fast.”

Let’s be honest—AGR can’t place the blame entirely on their driver pairing. Questions regarding the focus and commitment to AGR’s American Le Mans program have cropped up of late—their Indycar program appears to receive the lion’s share of attention from their management. Simply put, their Acura LMP2 effort doesn’t appear to be treated with the same immediacy and urgency their IRL program receives.

That’s not to say they don’t invest a lot of money and time on Acura’s behalf, but between a four-car IRL team and their lone LMP2 entry, the needs of Danica, Tony, Marco, Hideki, and their litany of sponsors come first. Adding to the perception that the P2 program isn’t run with the same intensity is the frequent lack of senior AGR management in attendance at ‘Series events. AGR is also the one of Acura's four teams that has multiple programs in different series; Highcroft, Fernandez, and de Ferran have their respective Acura LMP2 efforts as their sole focus. It's all they do. With AGR spread thin and failing to deliver in the ALMS, Acura can't be happy.
Franck Montagny last had the fearsome Peugeot 908 dancing on the edge at Le Mans two weeks ago. His speed and technical prowess will pay great dividends for AGR and Acura. (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos

I might be wrong, but I can’t think of any open-wheel races that Michael Andretti or Kim Green have skipped in favor of a sportscar event. The crew under AGR’s tent have also undergone changes from 2007 to 2008. Tensions were high in the off season, Herta’s teammate Marino Franchitti was dropped when his brother left for Ganassi, and more than a few of the ALMS staff either left or were moved to AGR’s Indycar operations. With Acura going all-in for 2008, you’d have expected AGR to do the same.

Six months later, Herta and Fittipaldi join Franchitti in the fraternity of ex-AGR ALMS employees. Despite Andretti-Green’s lack of use for Herta (who I’ve heard was as shocked as I was to learn of his dismissal), the talented Californian should be on many teams’ shortlist for 2009. He’ll land on his feet. If Mazda’s smart, they’ve already called him. With a new car on the way needing development and current vacancies in the #1 R10 TDI machine, Audi would also be smart to test Herta.

As AGR reflected on the shortcomings in their program and decided that jettisoning their drivers was the best move, it’s also worth considering if their partners at Acura have made inferences about jettisoning AGR in 2009. AGR and Honda are still close in the IRL, and have been for some time, but as Honda become the ‘single supplier’ of the series, the nature of the relationship has changed from when they partnered to defeat Toyota.


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