Cabot Bigham eyeing regular podiums after Andretti move

Cabot Bigham has his sights set on regular podium finishes this year as he returns to rallycross supercars competition in Americas Rallycross.

The 22-year-old will move to Andretti Autosport to partner Tanner Foust this season following the departure of Scott Speed to Subaru.

The recently-announced move has been in the works for much of the last year and had been regarded as something of an open secret among the ARX paddock. Bigham set his sights on the second Andretti seat once word got out that four-time champion Scott Speed would be departing the team after five seasons.

“Realistically at the start of 2018 when I realised that ARX would be starting up I was looking for a couple of rides but in the back of my mind I always wanted to be in the supercar,” Bigham told DominikWilde.com in an exclusive interview. “I saw that Bryan Herta had left so my ‘in’ with him sort of disappeared, but naturally Herta and Michael Andretti have a great relationship so I immediately looked to the Andretti position.”

“Once rumours had come out and started circling that Scott Speed was going to Subaru, that’s when I decided that maybe I could actually take a swing and put in a bid for that seat,” he added. “That was probably around August of last year when we started to think about that, and we were in contact with JF Thormann (Executive Vice President and COO at Andretti Autosport) towards November 2018.”

Bigham’s move to Andretti comes after Volkswagen decided it would be scaling back its involvement with the team. Despite constant speculation as to whether the team would be on the grid this year, Bigham never had any doubts.

“In the back of my mind I always had confidence that they would run the Volkswagen again this year, since it had such an amazing reputation over the last four years,” said Bigham, who ran a partial campaign in ARX2 with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing last year. “Tanner was eager to get back behind the wheel so I knew that he would work as hard as he could and that he knew the right people to make it happen so I wasn’t too worried about it per se.”

This year will also mark the first time Bigham has worked with a team mate in the top category of US rallycross, with his sole supercar season to-date coming with Herta’s one-car operation. In partnering with Foust, Bigham will have one of US motorsport’s most accomplished stars to compare himself to.

“It’ll be massive,” Bigham said of working with two-time US rallycross champion Foust. “Tanner is respected in so many types of racing – drifting, rally, even in the Hollywood industry. It’s incredibly impressive what he’s done with his career and I’d be so lucky just to try and replicate what he’s done, so working with him will be amazing.”

“He’s already taught me a lot of things about how to hold myself in front of people … he’s definitely a great role model and I took forward to working with him.”

While naturally Bigham will be measuring himself against Foust this season, one driver he also has in his crosshairs is the driver he’s replacing at Andretti.

“I think that Scott Speed is going to be a threat to me this year,” Bigham said when asked who his biggest threat will be this year. “He’s got a lot of responsibility on his shoulders at Subaru. He’s now coming in as the four-time champion and they’re looking for all his advice and looking for him to prove that his changes and everything he’s brought to the table are actually going to make the team better so he’s got a lot riding on his shoulders and I know that he’s not looking forward to being beaten by his old car.”

That car, the Volkswagen Beetle, hasn’t enjoyed the rate of development that the likes of Subaru and privateer Ford outfit Loenbro Motorsports have enjoyed during this off-season, but while Bigham feels the lack of development so far could be a disadvantage, he revealed that the team already has ideas of how to improve the car in what could be its final season of top-tier competition.

“In every type of racing research and development is very crucial so not having as much Volkswagen support and not having that R&D is definitely going to hinder us a little bit,” Bigham admitted. “But I know that the Andretti team and even Tanner himself have ideas of how to make the car faster – things that they haven’t shared with Scott necessarily, so Subaru may not know of those things.”

“We definitely will have a competitive edge, but it may not be in the traditional way.”

With arguably the strongest package he’s ever had underneath him, Bigham’s goals for this season are clear. While he says the proven Andretti/Beetle combination will give him ‘a shot at the championship’, Bigham’s main aim is to make it into the top three at each of the five rounds this season.

“My personal goals however are to podium in every race, which is definitely a longshot – it’s a tough thing to do in rallycross but I think that I have the right people behind me to do that,” he said.