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Mario Gabriele Andretti (born February 28, 1940 in Montona d'Istria, Italy, now Motovun, Croatia) is an Italian American racecar driver, and one of the most successful Americans in the history of auto racing.
During his career, Andretti won four IndyCar titles, the 1978 Formula One World Championship, and IROC VI (the 1978 - 1979 IROC). To date, he remains the only driver ever to win the Indianapolis 500 (1969), the Daytona 500 (1967), and the Formula One World Championship. Andretti had 109 career wins on major circuits. [1]
The name Mario Andretti has become synonymous with speed in the United States, similar to Barney Oldfield in the early twentieth century and Stirling Moss in the United Kingdom.
Mario Andretti was born in the town of Montona d'Istria in the then Italian province of Istria. He was born with a twin brother, Aldo Andretti. Istria was occupied and annexed by Yugoslavia after World War II. His family, like many other Italian Istrians, fled in 1948. They lived in a refugee camp from 1948 to 1955. The five members of the Andretti family resettled in Nazareth in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley in June 1955. Andretti became a United States naturalized citizen in 1964. [2]
In 1945, at the age of five, he and Aldo were racing their hand-crafted wooden cars through the steep streets of their hometown. [3] The brothers were hired by a garage to park cars. Andretti described the experience in his book What's It Like Out There: "The first time I fired up a car, felt the engine shudder and the wheel come to life in my hands, I was hooked. It was a feeling I can't describe. I still get it every time I get into a race car." [4] Andretti's first racing experience was in a new youth racing league called Formula Junior in Ancona, Italy when he was thirteen years old. [5] He had a fond childhood memory watching a stretch of the Mille Miglia race in 1954. He became captivated by Alberto Ascari. [6] [5]
Mario and Aldo worked on a 1948 Hudson Hornet Sportsman stock car in an uncle's garage in 1959 after they moved to the United States. They took turns racing the car on oval dirt tracks near Nazareth in 1959 in the old Hudson. The twins each had two wins after their first four races. [7] Mario had 20 modified stockcar wins in his first two seasons. [1] Andretti rapidly moved up the ranks. Andretti raced sprint cars in the United Racing Club on the eastern circuit from 1961 until mid-1962. [2] Andretti moved to the American Racing Drivers Club midget car series in 1963, where he again toured the East coast of the U.S. [2]
Mario made his championship car debut in the USAC series in 1964 at Trenton, New Jersey, starting sixteenth and finishing eleventh. Andretti won his first championship car race at the Hoosier Grand Prix in 1965. His third place finish at the 1965 Indianapolis 500 earned him the race's Rookie of the Year award, and helped Andretti win the series championship. He repeated as series champion in 1966. [5]
Andretti raced in numerous different series between 1967 and 1975. [7] He juggled Can-Am, Formula 5000, Formula One, IndyCar, drag racing, sprint cars, and many others. Andretti finished second in the IndyCars in 1967 and 1968. 1969 was a banner year for Andretti. In IndyCar, he won nine races, the 1969 Indianapolis 500, and the season championship. He also won the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. He moved to the Formula 5000 series in the 1973 and 1974, and finished second in the championship in both seasons. He also competed in USAC's dirt track division in 1974, and won USAC's championship while competing in both series. [7]
Other major races that he won in that period include the 1967 Daytona 500 for Holman Moody, [8] three 12 Hours of Sebring endurance races (1967, 1970, 1972), and the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1972.
Andretti competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in four decades. In 1966 and 1967 he drove the same Ford GT40s as the eventual winners, but retired on both occasions, once because of an accident and once because of an engine problem. Andretti did not return to Le Mans until his full time Formula One career was over in 1982. Over the next 18 years he competed an additional seven times, four times with his son Michael. His best results were a third place finish in 1983 and a second place at the 1995 race. He said in a 2006 interview that he feels that the Courage Compétition team "lost [the 1995] race five times over" through poor organization. Andretti's final appearance at Le Mans was at the 2000 race, six years after his retirement from full-time racing, when he drove the Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S at the age of 60, finishing 16th. [9]
At Andretti's first Indianapolis 500, in 1965, he met Colin Chapman, owner of the Lotus Formula One team, who was running eventual winner Jim Clark's car. Andretti told Chapman of his ambition to compete in Formula One and was told "When you're ready, call me." By 1968 Andretti felt he was ready. Chapman gave him a drive, and the young American took pole position on his debut at the 1968 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.[10]
Andretti drove sporadically in Formula One over the next four years for Lotus, March, and Ferrari, while continuing to focus on his racing career in America. He won his first grand prix in 1971 in his debut for the Italian team at the South African Grand Prix, and won again at the non-championship Questor Grand Prix in the U.S. three weeks later. [11]
It wasn't until 1975 that Andretti drove a full Formula One season, for the American Parnelli team. The team was new to Formula One, although it had been successful in both Formula 5000 and IndyCar racing in America. The team had run Andretti in the two North American end-of-season races in 1974 with promising results. Andretti qualified fourth and led the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix for nine laps before his suspension failed. He scored five championship points in the season. Andretti continued to compete in IndyCar, missing two Formula One races in the middle of the season to do so. [12]
When the Parnelli team pulled out of Formula One after two races of the 1976 season, Andretti returned to Colin Chapman's Lotus team, for whom he had already driven at the season-opening Brazilian Grand Prix. His ability at developing a racing car soon progressed the Lotus towards the front end of the Formula One grid, culminating in lapping the field in his victory at the season ending race at the Mount Fuji circuit in Japan. In 1977, at Long Beach, he became the only American to win the United States Grand Prix West, in the Lotus 78 "wing car". Andretti's development work at Lotus was to result in the revolutionary "ground effect" Lotus 79 of 1978. He won six races in 1978, and took the title. The championship was a bitter-sweet victory in the light of the death of his teammate and close friend Ronnie Peterson.
Andretti would find little success after 1978 in Formula One - he failed to win another grand prix. He had a difficult year in 1979, as the new Lotus car was not competitive, and the team had to rely on the Lotus 79 which was showing its age. In 1980, he was paired with Italian Elio de Angelis, but the team was again unsuccessful.
Andretti had an unsuccessful 1981 with the Alfa Romeo team. Like other drivers of the period he did not like the ground effect cars of the time: "the cars were getting absurd, really crude, with no suspension movement whatever. It was toggle switch driving with no need for any kind of delicacy...it made leaving Formula One a lot easier than it would have been." [13] The next year Andretti raced once for the Williams team, after their driver Carlos Reutemann suddenly quit, before replacing the seriously injured Didier Pironi at Ferrari for the last two races of the year. Suspension failure dropped him out of the last race of the season, but at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza he took the pole position and finished third in the race. [14]
He returned to IndyCars in 1982. He won the pole for nine of sixteen events in 1984, and claimed his fourth CART title. It was the first series title for second year team Newman/Haas Racing, which was owned by Carl Haas and actor Paul Newman. Mario's son Michael joined Newman/Haas in 1989. Together, they made history as the first father/son team to compete in both IMSA GT and Champ Car racing, [5] as for the former, it was the pair's pairing for the fourth time in an endurance race. Mario's last victory in IndyCar racing came in 1993 at Phoenix International Raceway, the year that Michael left Newman/Haas to race in Formula One. The win made Mario the oldest recorded winner in an IndyCar event (53 years, 34 days old).[15]
Andretti also made the saying "Mario is slowing down!" famous at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Andretti has had numerous incidents at the track.
Andretti was the first driver to exceed 200 miles per hour while practicing for the 1977 Indianapolis 500. [2]
Andretti finished second in the 1981 Indianapolis 500 by eight seconds behind Bobby Unser. The following day Unser was penalized one lap for passing cars under a caution flag, and Andretti was declared the winner. Unser and his car owner Roger Penske appealed the race stewarts' decision. USAC overturned the one lap penalty four months later, and penalized Unser with a $ 40,000 fine.
In the 1985 Indianapolis 500, he was passed by Danny Sullivan. Sullivan subsequently spun in front of Andretti, pitted on his own caution, and then passed Mario again to go on for the win. Andretti dominated the 1987 Indianapolis 500 testing, led for 170 of the first 177 laps, but his race was ended with electrical failure before the finish on lap 200.
Mario finished all 500 miles just five times, including his 1969 Indianapolis 500 victory. Andretti suffered broken ankles in the 1992 Indianapolis 500 when he crashed hard in turn four during the race. His last race at Indy was the 1994 Indianapolis 500.
Andretti was performing a tire test for his son Michael's IndyCar on April 24 2003 in place of the injured Tony Kanaan at Indianapolis At 5:58 pm -- two minutes before the scheduled end of the session -- Andretti powered out of the first turn onto the "south chute" of the circuit. In his path lay a chunk of debris from Kenny Brack's car, which had crashed seconds earlier. The object forced the nose of Andretti's car to become airborne, and Andretti's car went into a rapid double reverse somersault at speeds exceeding 200 miles per hour. Television footage from a local TV station's helicopter showed that the car was nearly high enough to clear the debris fence mounted atop the circuit's outer retaining wall. Andretti's car fell back to earth, having been slowed by its mid-air tumble, and slid to a stop. Luckily, the car landed right side up and Andretti walked away from the crash with very minor injuries.
He was invited to race in six International Race of Champions (IROC) series in his career. His best years were his first three years. He finished second in the final points standings in IROC III (1975-1976) and IROC V (1977-1978). He won the IROC VI (1978-1979) points championship with finishes of third, first, and second. He won three races in twenty events. [8]
In 2000, the Associated Press and RACER magazine named him "Driver of the Century." The same year, he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the United States National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1996, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1990.
He was the Driver of the Year in three years (1967, 1978, and 1984), and is the only driver to be Driver of the Year in three decades. [7] Andretti was named the Driver of the Quarter Century in 1992. [1]
On October 23, 2006, at the Columbus Citizens Foundation in New York, Andretti was awarded the highest civilian honor given by the Italian government, the Commendatore dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (known as the Commendatore), in honor of his racing career, public service, and enduring commitment to his Italian heritage. Enzo Ferrari is the only other recipient of the Commendatore from the world of automobile racing.
Mario was instrumental in keeping championship car racing at Road America. CART severed its ties with the track as a legal resolution of payment issues from the 2002 and 2003 series events at the track. Andretti was an intermediary between CART President Chris Pook and Road America President George Bruggenthies. After six weeks both sides came to terms and signed a two year contract. The event was renamed the "Mario Andretti Grand Prix of Road America". [3]
Both of Mario Andretti's sons, Michael and Jeff, were auto racers. Michael followed in his father's footsteps by winning the IndyCar title. In 1991, the Andrettis were joined by Mario's nephew John Andretti. The Andrettis became the first family to have four relatives compete in the same series. [7] Mario's grandson Marco completed his first full season in the Indy Racing League (IRL) in 2006, driving for his father Michael's Andretti Green Racing team. Marco finished second in the 2006 Indianapolis 500, became the first third-generation-recipient of the race's Rookie of the Year Award.
Mario and his wife Dee Ann live near their son Michael in mansions overlooking the town of Nazareth, Pennsylvania, Mario's home city since the 1950s. Dee Ann is a native of Nazareth who taught English to Andretti in 1961. [2]
Andretti is a spokesman for long time sponsors Texaco/Havoline and Firestone. He is also occasionally a spokesman for the Champ Car World Series, although he was spotted at IRL races throughout the 2006 season as he watched Marco compete.
Andretti is vice chairman of a winery named Andretti Winery in Napa Valley, California.
In July 2006 Mario took part in the Bullrun race across America, the first pitstop was at the Pocono Speedway, Gate #5 aptly named Andretti Road.
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)
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