INDYCAR: E.J. Viso Completes Andretti Autosport Lineup

Venezuelan driver will contest his sixth IndyCar season with in a joint Andretti/HVM collaboration.

Marshall Pruett | Posted February 07, 2013

E.J. Viso will bring his familiar assembly of Venezuelan sponsors to a new joint Andretti Autosport/HVM Racing program. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

Five years into his career as an IndyCar driver, Venezuela’s E.J. Viso decided he needed a change. The 27-year-old started out with HVM Racing in 2008, and after two years with the modest operation, he jumped to the more expansive program offered by KV Racing.

A three-year stint with KV delivered glimpses of promise, but after finishing far down the championship standings, Viso sought a fresh start for 2013—a ‘no excuses’ season with a championship-winning team.

And now, through an innovative partnership that reaches back to his rookie season, he has exactly what wanted.

The reigning IZOD IndyCar Series champions at Andretti Autosport have stayed true to their wishes, maintaining the three-car model from 2012 that provided such great chemistry, but will add a fourth car run as a satellite entry in conjunction with Keith Wiggins’ HVM team.

The symmetry for Viso—aligning his original and newest IndyCar teams in a mutually beneficial collaboration—was a better fit than trying to strike out on his own and form a new team.

“Everything was pretty spontaneous,” Viso told SPEED.com. “Since September I’ve been working to put together my own organization, but as things were progressing with the other teams I was talking to, some things were falling apart with them. So little by little I’ve been talking with Michael Andretti.

Viso now has the front-running team he's desired to improve his results. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

“It actually started about three years ago with Michael, and recently, we started talking again and it went pretty quickly with bringing Keith Wiggins into the plans. We understand each other’s goals and came up with this deal in about a week.”

Despite the three-party arrangement to run Viso, he will share technical resources, engineering data and debrief with Andretti’s three existing drivers in a blended, seamless capacity. Viso has also consolidated the multiple sponsors from his homeland into a new entity, ‘Team Venezuela,’ that will work together to promote his IndyCar activities in unison.

“Team Venezuela is a merger of energies and support from back home, and they’ve been together supporting me for the past four years,” Viso explained. “All of their logos will be on the car, and it will also be seen in our entry name, which will be PDVSA Team Venezuela/Andretti Autosport. A few more names could also be added. It was a deal that worked out well with Team Venezuela and Andretti Autosport.”

Team owner Michael Andretti says he expects good things to come from bringing Viso into his camp.

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