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Edwards embracing new challenge at Andretti Global

Andretti Global’s IndyCar team will have a new leader to welcome in 2026 as former Team Penske race engineer, race strategist, and managing director Ron Ruzewski takes the helm from COO Rob Edwards.

Edwards, who joined Andretti after leading the Schmidt Hamilton/Peterson Motorsports team to a pair of top five championship runs with Simon Pagenaud, will shift into a new role for Andretti’s parent company as TWG Motorsports’ chief performance officer. It’s a significant change, and a new challenge for Edwards after placing most of his focus on Andretti’s IndyCar and Indy NXT programs since joining the outfit.

He’ll continue to have some involvement with both teams as TWG’s chief of performance, but with the remit from his bosses, Edwards will expand his responsibilities to include the other series where it competes, including NASCAR, IMSA, and Formula E.

Once Ruzewski arrives in January and gets to work as team principal over the IndyCar and NXT division, the handing-off process from Edwards will commence. And thanks to their time spent together decades ago at Derrick Walker’s Walker Racing CART IndyCar Series team, the working relationship won’t be new.

“When I went to work for Derrick, Ron was there, and we worked together for two or three years,” Edwards told RACER. “He’ll be a great fit and I’m super excited to help him get settled in. He will know what needs to be done. And for me, with that position of chief performance officer, which was sitting sort of dormant, if you will, throughout most of the year, I think [TWG leader] Dan [Towriss] saw with the [Cadillac] Formula 1 team coming online and the increasing number of things that he’s balancing, that filling the performance officer role still had value.

“And he’s been aware that my interests, and part of the reason I joined Andretti in the first place, was because it wasn’t just an IndyCar team or an Indy NXT team, but it was a motorsports property or motor sports team in varied places, was an attractive proposition. And so I think over the course of the year, as he got to know me better and where my interests were, he had this (performance officer) position in the original concept for TWG Motorsports and it needed someone in that role, and so it came together from there.”

Although Andretti Global will be a new team for Ruzewski to learn and command, the job itself is no different from where he left off in running the day-to-day aspects of Team Penske’s IndyCar program. With a long track record of success, Ruzewski’s addition should bolster Andretti’s quest to win championships and Indianapolis 500s.

For Edwards, the chief performance officer position is an entirely new playbook to write and execute, which could – as a late-career change – be somewhat terrifying.

“No, I’m truthfully excited,” he said. “Grateful for Dan and giving me the opportunity. I have worn a number of hats right throughout time in racing, having engineered, having started a team from scratch, the business side of it, having started in sports car racing. I’ve done a lot of things.

“Formula E is super-interesting; technically different to the other types of racing that we’re involved in, and every time I go to a race, you see things that you know can benefit another series that you’re involved in. And certainly, I think we’ve successfully been able to take some things from Formula E and incorporate them into our IndyCar program.

“And I think we’ve taken some things from IndyCar and incorporated them in the Formula E program. And so I’m excited about being able to look for those gains across all of the series that are in the TWG Motorsports portfolio. When you’ve been doing this for a while, the opportunity to do something fresh doesn’t always come along, because you get pigeon-holed. So I’m looking forward to be able to take what I’ve done over the last 30 some-odd years and take that into this role and try and make try and contribute in some small way to all of the programs that we’re running.”

Beyond the newness of the upcoming role change, Edwards will also need to adjust to a significant change of routines.

Across those many decades at motor races, he’s walked to pit lane once or more per day, put on a headset, and been a key player within the engineering, managerial, or strategic hierarchy with a specific car. In recent years, it was Colton Herta’s No. 26 Andretti Honda where Edwards served as race strategist, but as TWG’s chief performance officer, he’ll detach from the dedicated car and driver responsibilities that have fed his competitive nature.

“It will be different,” he acknowledged. “At the same time, it’s actually, over the years, in its own way, caused some challenges because you are on one timing stand, but my role has often been to make sure the team as a whole is successful. And those two things are not always the same, and so being tied to the timing stand, even if it’s only from a perception point of view, could have people think that you only know one car, that your focus is only on that car, whereas in reality, your job as a leader of the whole team is to have your focus on all the cars. So it will be an adjustment, certainly mentally, on race weekends itself.”

Edwards will experience a rise in air miles as he connects with all the TWG properties in his purview, but won’t be absent from the paddock where his name was made.“I certainly wouldn’t expect to be at every IndyCar race next year, but I will continue to be at some IndyCar races, be at some Formula E events,” he said.

“I’m hoping to go to my first ever NASCAR race, because I’ve actually, would you believe it, never been to a NASCAR race in my life? Looking forward to going to some sports car races. To embrace the outline that I’ve got for the role, then I’ll be traveling more to events in all of the different series that that we’re competing in. I’m sure it will be an adventure, but it’s an adventure I’m looking forward to having.”