Andretti Global has confirmed that the team will only run three cars in this year’s 110th running of the Indianapolis 500.
The team had been working on finalizing plans to bring Colton Herta into the seat of a fourth car, but Formula 2 formalized a revision to its calendar earlier in the day that added two rounds to the 2026 schedule.
One of those new events, which will be run during the Canadian Grand Prix weekend in Montreal, clashes with the Indy 500. The side effect being that Herta will no longer be available to return to IndyCar on a single-race basis in order to contest his eighth Indy 500.
Andretti team principal Ron Ruzewski confirmed what that meant for his team’s May plans by stating Andretti would only field three cars for this year’s event.
“As a lot of people deduced, we were trying to put something together for a fourth car, and our primary focus would have been Colton,” Ruzewski told RACER. “And we’re committed to Colton’s F2 program.”
“There were plenty of people that were interested, but we’re primarily focused on value-added programs. And honestly, there’s no shortage of talent out there, but our focus is to remain on our current line-up and continue our focused effort and the strong efforts that we started this year.
“We don’t really want to be distracted on anything else. So we’re going to maintain three cars.”
Andretti has fielded at least one additional entry above and beyond its full season roster for each of the past 15 Indy 500s.
In recent years that seat has been filled by Marco Andretti, but the third-generation driver announced his full retirement last October.
Will Power, Kyle Kirkwood, and Marcus Ericsson will represent Andretti at this year’s event on May 24 as they look to give the historic team its first Indy 500 win since 2017.
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