Andrew Glock

**Andrew Glock** (born October 5th, 1998) is an the Team Principal and partial owner of the Ford Performance Haas F1 Team, succeeding Chip Ganassi and Bill Ford. He is also the head engineer for the Ford Performance road and race car division, a brand ambassador of Dorilton Capital, and a former driver for Ford. He is a former Formula 4, Formula Ford, Formula 3, and Formula 2 champion.

## Andrew Glock

### Aliases

"America's Formula 2 hero", "Star-Spangled Saffron Speedster", "King of India", "Fresh prince of Cos Cob"

### Occupation

Team Principal (Current), Head engineer (Current), Driver (Former)

## Appearances

### Debut

March 28th, 2015 (Formula Ford), April 3rd, 2016 (Formula 3), March 12th, 2017 (IndyCar), March 27th, 2021 (Formula 2)

## Early life

Andrew Glock (no relation to Timo Glock) was born in 1998 in Tampa, Florida, USA. He is the first and only child of first generation Andhra Pradesh immigrants Raj Glock and Mamatha Glock. Growing up, he was a big fan of motorsport in general, but his parents never had enough money to fund his dream.

When Glock was 10 years old, his family moved to Maryland, away from any famous racetracks, so his passion for the sport died somewhat, until they moved again to New York when he was 14. In the Connecticut suburbs, he found good roads to practice racing on.

Glock has no idea where his family name comes from because as far as he knows, "No German was ever related to me by blood."

## Racing Career

### Karting

At 15 years old, in 2013, Andrew Glock got a special surprise. His dad Raj pulled some strings and got him a seat in a national karting competition at Nazareth Speedway, Pennsylvania, attended by Mario Andretti. In a rainy race, Glock rose from last to first place.

### Formula 4 (2014)

Glock's heroics in the karting championship landed him a seat in the Formula 4 Series. The condition was that Glock had to get 10th place or higher in order to get enough sponsorship money to continue. But despite supposedly being overmatched, Glock outright won the 2014 Formula 4 series in his first year. The public didn't really pay attention to him after this, but Mario Andretti did and he reprised the line told to *him* by Jim Clark: "When you're ready, Andrew, give me a call and you can join Formula Ford."

### Formula Ford (2015)

After dominating the Formula 4 series in 2015, Glock started to get some recognition from motorsport names.

### Formula 3 (2016)

In Formula 3, Andrew had forged a close relationship not just with Mario Andretti, but Ralf Schumacher as well. He started to get noticed more often as he dominated the series, facing no real competition except for Charles Leclerc.

### Formula 2 (2021)

Amid some controversy between Robert Shwartzman, SMP Racing and Prema Powerteam, an unexpected slot opened at Prema. It was expected that Callum Ilott, Marcus Armstrong or perhaps Arthur Leclerc would take his place, but Ford paid 5 million dollars for Andrew Glock to join Oscar Piastri.

Mario Andretti was uneasy, as his successors never fared well in Formula One, but ultimately decided to sponsor the Prema Powerteam.

At first, the fans hated the decision, feeling that Glock was likely quite rusty, and most wanted Oscar Piastri to outqualify him horribly. After Glock suffered 4 mechanical failures in a row, this looked set to happen. But for the rest of the season, he finished at least inside the points in all 20 races. He claimed podiums at Spa and Monza, won Sprint race 2 and the Feature race in India, and even absolutely dominated all 3 races at Circuit of the Americas, the last of which secured him the Formula 2 Championship by 24 points over 2nd placed Jehan Daruvala. He became the first American-licensed driver to ever win the Formula 2 championship.

Glock was famous for gaining a massive following within his Formula 2 season, most of which was American, but a large minority of the fans came from Andhra Pradesh in India.

### Formula 1 (2021)

Andrew Glock made frequent Free Practice appearances for Haas, as well as Alfa Romeo (later Shelby) in 2021. Even in the VF-21, he managed to top the timing sheets on 3 occasions: Britain, Germany and Belgium. In the Alfa Romeo C-40, he topped the timing sheets once, at Monaco.

Glock was given the opportunity to replace the disgraced Nikita Mazepin at the United States Grand Prix, but as the Indian theatre of Formula 2 had begun, he decided to decline this offer. He was given a lot of criticism for not taking the offer, and Glock himself admits that it is "one of the biggest regrets of my life."

## Management Career

### Ford Performance Haas (2022-)

In a shocking turn of events, Chip Ganassi retired from managing Ford, and called upon Andrew Glock to replace him.

## Controversy

### Rivalry with Jehan Daruvala

The 2021 Formula 2 season proved to be Jehan Daruvala's breakout season, but it also coincided with Andrew Glock's return to racing after a 5-year hiatus. But oddly enough, their rivalry only lasted during the 6 races of the championship, as Daruvala didn't consider Glock to be a title contender until then.

## Personal Life

### Relationship with Andretti Family

Over the years, Andrew Glock has grown very close to his mentor Mario Andretti. Mario, as well as his son Michael Andretti, both said that they saw some of themselves in Glock, and so they mentored him.

### Relationship with Schumacher Family

In addition to the Andretti’s, Glock has also become a close friend to the Schumacher family. Glock has a tight friendship with both Mick and David Schumacher. Ralf Schumacher has also overseen his journey somewhat.

Glock has also had a unique opportunity to meet Michael Schumacher.

"One day, in 2019, I was in Switzerland and Mick called me to his house. He asked me if I wanted to meet his father, and I said yes, albeit a bit uneasily. When I got there, Mick was suddenly very quiet. I asked him why and he didn't say anything. Then, he accidentally creaked a floorboard, and Corinna (his mother) came running. She looked at me like she was gonna kill me, and to be fair I couldn't blame her. She then proceeded to aggressively yell at Mick in German. I think she said something along the lines of, 'Who the fuck is this kid?'. Then I think Mick explained to her who I was, and she started saying something to *me* in German. Mick told her 'Mom, he doesn't understand German.' and she said that Mick told her a lot about me and she's seen me racing and such. Normally she doesn't allow people to visit at all, but she actually encouraged me to go see Michael. When the three of us reached his room, and I saw Michael, it felt surreal. He actually knew who I was, he was pointing at me and then pointing at the screen - it was my interview after winning the Indy 500. And that's how I knew Mick saw me as family."

### Personality

On the racetrack, Andrew Glock is a menacing, aggressive powerhouse, and he says he has been made over the years to handle anything the others throw at him. By comparison, in real life, Glock is quite soft-spoken and antisocial. He is known for being rather awkward, as seen by his press conferences. However, Mick Schumacher has said that Glock as a close friend is “quite eccentric, passionate, and if nothing else, American.” He went on, “In terms of maturity, sometimes he reminds me of my father, and other friends times he reminds me of my cousin David.”

### Residence

Andrew Glock officially lives in Cos Cob, Connecticut, but has residences in Kannapolis, North Carolina, USA, Detroit, Michigan, USA, Northampton, England, and Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India.

### Car accident

On December 13th, 2021, a week after Glock won the Formula 2 championship, Gene Haas and Bill Ford summoned him and Mick Schumacher to Detroit, saying that they would officially sign their 5-year contracts. But soon after he landed there, as he was walking out of the airport, he was run over by an INEOS Grenadier. The doctors wanted to pronounce him dead on the spot, but he was very barely breathing when he was loaded into the ambulance. He was in a coma when they reached the hospital.

According to Glock, Mick Schumacher was actually the very first person to his bedside, and he said, "When Mick got there, we talked for about an hour before my 4-month nap. He was crying a lot, saying he got flashbacks to his father's incident, and I knew that this part was out of character for him."

This caused the fans to look at Glock very differently, as just a year before they were abusing him. Daniel Ricciardo, F1 champion of 2021, said that "when I won the Constructor's title for McLaren in Buddh, there was cheering of course. But when Andrew (Glock) did the same thing in Formula 2 three weeks later, it eclipsed any passionate group I had ever seen before for any other event. Just in one section I saw more fans screaming their hearts out for him than I did for me when I toured the entire track." It is often said that he would have won some races, and even a few World Driver's Championships had he not been injured.

On February 20th, 2022, Andrew Glock woke up from his coma with almost perfect physical ability. He was entirely able to walk, run, and use his hands, which was very rare. However, his reflexes were entirely gone, due to the way his head was hit. This meant that he could never drive, much less race, ever again in his life.

In an exclusive interview with Mario Andretti about what happened, he said “I cried my heart out when Bill told me over the phone. I had seen this kid grow up from a scrappy boy in Formula Ford to quite possibly one of the greatest drivers in the world. And then my heart sank even lower when I thought, who’s gonna tell his parents about this? How is *Andrew* gonna feel when he has to hear the words ‘You will never race again’?”