The first significant IndyCar news of 2015 was announced today, with Andretti Autosport landing a pretty big fish to their program. After losing Kyle Moyer to Team Penske, the team has hired Rob Edwards to be Director of Race Operations and Engineering. Edwards spent the last five plus years with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Edwards won four races over the past two seasons with Simon Pagenaud as his driver. Pagenaud joined Team Penske in September.

“We are excited to welcome Rob to the Andretti family. His experience in racing will be valuable in moving our organization forward across multiple racing platforms,” said team owner Michael Andretti. They are still deciding whether or not to field a fourth car this season. Andretti stated that George Klotz will remain IndyCar Team Manager, with Dave Popielarz the Indy Lights Team Manager, and Fran Reilly staying as their Pro Mazda Team Manager.

For SPM, it will be difficult to replace Edwards, who specialized in getting the most out of limited resources. They also lost engineer Ben Bretzman, who went to Penske with Pagenaud. They still have Allan McDonald and James Hinchcliffe, which should be quite a duo. They are still actively looking at drivers to pair in the vacant seat next to Hinchcliffe this year, as Mikhail Aleshin is not expected to return because of sanctions being placed on the Russian banking industry.