Michael Mario Andretti (born 5 October, 1962) is an American former auto racing driver and current team owner.
Statistically one of the most successful drivers in the history of American open-wheel car racing, Andretti won the 1991 CART PPG Indy Car World Series and amassed 42 race victories, the most in the CART era and fourth-most all time. Since his retirement from active racing, Andretti has owned Andretti Autosport, which has won four IndyCar Series championships and five Indianapolis 500 races. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
From racing karts, Michael Andretti would go on to race at Le Mans, be an Indy Car champion (taking 42 victories), and become a team owner.
After racing in karts and FFord, he went on to be Super Vee champion and 1982 should have seen his international sports car debut but his Mirage M12 was disqualified at Le Mans before the race started.
In 1983 he won the Formula Atlantic championship and the year would also see him make his CART debut with Kraco Racing. There was a third place finish in a Kremer Porsche 956 at Le Mans (with father Mario & Philippe Alliot) and he also raced with his father, AJ Foyt and Preston Henn, in the Riverside 6 Hours but they didn’t finish.
Staying with Kraco the following year, he took five third-place finishes, plus fifth in the Indy 500 and shared the Rookie of the Year award with Roberto Guerrero. He (and Mario) drove a Porsche 962 in the Daytona 24 Hours but despite starting on pole they retired from the race due to engine failure.
During their racing, Michael and Mario would achieve the first father-son front row, at 1986’s Dana 200 at Phoenix, plus they would have 15 father-son podiums, starting in 1984 at Laguna Seca, through to the 1992 IndyCar race at Surfers Paradise.
His first IndyCar victory came at Long Beach in 1986 and this year (and 1987) would see season long championship battles between him and Bobby Rahal, with Michael finishing second in both years. During the year there was also a World Touring Car drive at Monza for Alfa Corse (with Alessandro Nannini) and they finished second in class.
During their racing, Michael and Mario would achieve the first father-son front row, at 1986’s Dana 200 at Phoenix, plus they would have 15 father-son podiums, starting in 1984 at Laguna Seca, through to the 1992 IndyCar race at Surfers Paradise.
Along with his Indy racing in 1987 he also raced Hendrick Motorsport’s Corvette GTP (with John Andretti) in the Mid-Ohio 500 km.
In 1988, Porsche entered a 962C at Le Mans for Mario, Michael and John and they finished sixth overall but in CART his season would be a disappointing one and there was only one victory, in a non-champion Marlboro Challenge race.
Michael switched to Newman/Haas Racing for 1989 (partnering Mario), and after taking victories in Toronto and Michigan, he finished third at season’s end. He and his father drove for Busby Racing in the Daytona 24 Hours but their 962 retired during it.
1990 would see him and Al Unser Jr. fighting for the championship (Michael taking five races and four poles) but Al took the championship.
However, Michael would take the Indy Car title for Newman/Haas in 1991 but despite eight victories, eight poles, and leading more than half of the laps during the season, Bobby Rahal fought him for the title to the final race. The day before this victory, Michael won the non-championship Marlboro Challenge for a second time and at Daytona, he, Mario and Jeff Andretti drove Jochen Dauer Racing’s Porsche 962, but though they didn’t finish they were classified fifth overall.
His 1992 season started slowly, but after another season long battle, he lost the title to Bobby Rahal by just four points and he then left CART to race for McLaren in Formula 1 (with Nigel Mansell taking his place in the team).
Unfortunately, he would have a frustrating season in F1 and there were crashes at Kyalami and Interlagos (a massive collision saw his car flying into the barrier). He qualified sixth at Donington Park but collided with Karl Wendlinger’s Sauber in the race, then spun off at Imola as he been unable to reach a cockpit knob that balanced the car’s brakes. There would be a fifth place finish in Spain and at the Canadian GP, he had a dead battery and when he left the pits the race was three laps old. After starting 16th at Magny Cours, some bold overtaking moves saw him finish sixth and at the British GP an incident wth another car caused him to spin off. At Hockenheim, he made a clean start but his race ended after a tangle with Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari and following this there was an eight place finish at Spa. In what would prove to be his final race, at Monza, despite finishing third he then left McLaren, and F1, and there are various opinions and theories, from differing quarters, as to why Michael struggled in F1.
Returning to IndyCar with Target Chip Ganassi Racing, he led every lap and won the first race at Surfers Paradise in Australia. The victory was also Reynard’s first win, in their CART debut, and he also won in Toronto.
In 1995, back with Newman/Haas he scored points in every race, though only won at Toronto and finished second in 1996’s championship. Michael competed at Le Mans in 1997 (with Mario and Olivier Grouillard) but they had to retire their Courage C36 after an accident during the night.
The following seasons would not be as successful, although there were victories in Miami (twice), Illinois, Japan and Toronto and during 1997 Michael competed at Le Mans (with Mario and Olivier Grouillard) but their Courage C36 retired after an accident during the night.
For 2001 he moved to Team Green to race in the Indy 500 as Newman/Haas were not entering an Indy Racing League event. He was leading the race during a rain delay but a puncture and minor collision in the pits would eventually see him finish third.
2002 saw him take his 42nd, and final, victory at Long Beach and Michael would go on to buy the team, renaming it Andretti Green Racing. The team claimed the IRL titles in 2004 and 2005 (Tony Kanaan and Dan Wheldon winning 11 out of 17 races, including the Indy 500). Michael returned to the driver’s seat for 2006’s Indy 500, but, despite leading with four laps to go, he finished third behind his son Marco while in 2007 Dario Franchitti took the team’s third series title, plus its second Indianapolis 500 victory. In 2012 Andretti Autosport were championship winners and they would also win the Indy 500 in 2014.
Over the years, Michael Andretti’s team would also race in the American Le Mans Series, Indy Lights, AI GP, Pro-Mazda Championship, US F2000, Global Rallycross and Formula E.
Michael was inducted into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in 2002, elected into the Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2008, the Long Beach Grand Prix Walk of Fame in 2010, the Canadian Motorsports (International Division) Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Indianapolis Speedway’s Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 2012.
The combination of the Andretti name and McLaren was an interesting premise though Michael Andretti’s season in F1 triggered much debate about why it did not prove a success. Some point to the struggle to adapt to the car and unfamiliar circuits plus competing against Ayrton Senna as team-mate though others cited a lack of commitment due to not basing himself in Europe and commuting from the USA.
Michael Mario Andretti came into racing via karts, FFord, Super Vee and Formula Atlantic and before long was an established Indycar star. He amassed 42 race victories and was second in the championship five times (1986, 1987, 1990, 1992 and 1996), third twice (1989 and 2001) and was champion after a dominant season in 1991, where he was on pole 8 times. He then looked to F1 and testing with McLaren began in 1991, with the announcement made during the 1992 Italian GP that he would drive for them for 1993. With his experience in IndyCar, he joined with high hopes of launching a successful F1 career though the team faced a number of issues as the end of 1992 approached. Honda intended leaving F1, Ayrton Senna was nearing the end of his contract and wanted to join Williams while teammate Berger was leaving and going to Ferrari.
Ron Dennis tried unsuccessfully to secure Renault power plants though they finally ran customer Ford engines but Benetton would be first to receive the newest engine specifications. Michael later told how “Ron said he wanted to hire me for the 1993 season after I won the ’91 championship, and that’s where it started. There was interest probably starting in 1990. I’d tested before I even won the CART championship. But every test I went to, unfortunately something was out, or the weather was bad, and I never got a real proper test. It was a great opportunity and I was very excited. Although from the time I signed my contract to the time that everything started to happen, we lost an engine deal. We were supposed to have the Renault engine, but that went away.” Negotiations between Dennis and Senna continued up to the wire before he finally agreed to drive for McLaren though Mika Hakkinen was now also part of the team, as either a test or race driver, depending on Senna’s decision. After initial testing, Senna was happy with the MP4/8 and went on to take victories at Brazil, Donington, Monaco, Suzuka and Adelaide. Michael faced a restriction on the maximum number of practice and qualifying laps at race weekends. He told how “I literally got one and a half days of testing at Silverstone before the first race. That was the only real test I’d had ever in an F1 car before I went to my first race. So it was pretty tough. Before we even got going from that standpoint things were stacked against us.” Michael’s pace in post-race tests was significantly stronger and warranted higher grid positions than he achieved.
The first race of the season took place at Kyalami, where Senna qualified alongside Prost on the front row and Michael startied ninth. However, he suffered clutch failure on the line and then lost a front wheel after colliding with Derek Warwick’s Footwork on the fourth lap trying to make up for lost time. “We went to the first race in Kyalami and on the first day I qualified sixth. The next day unfortunately there was a problem with the car but I still ended up ninth. We thought that’s looking good. Then we were sitting on the dummy grid and I put it in gear and there was no clutch, so the car just didn’t move. So I ended up starting the race one or two laps down.”
He showed good form at the second race in Brazil by beginning fifth but unfortunately collided with Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari, with the two cars cartwheeling through the air. Thankfully both drivers were able to walk away unharmed and he described how “we went to start the race and the car didn’t shift when we started to go. I kept calling for the gear and it wouldn’t shift. Then because I was going slower I pulled out and I got hit by Berger, and had a big crash.”
The third round was the European GP at Donington Park, where Michael qualified a strong sixth while in the race Senna produced one of his greatest ever drives. Michael unfortunately retired after colliding with Karl Wendlinger’s Sauber and ended up in the gravel trap, “I qualified sixth and in the wet morning warm-up Senna and I were among the quickest. I never had a car that good in the wet, it felt like it was in the dry. And that’s probably where I made my biggest mistake of the year. I got a good start, I think I went up to third, and I was trying to pass Wendlinger. I got too greedy. I think he could have given me room, but he didn’t, and we ended up together.”
Both McLaren drivers suffered problems in qualifying at San Marino and the active suspension would inexplicably go down as they went over the kerbs and spin the car out. Senna crashed twice at Aqua Minerali while Michael spun off at the final chicane and hit the pit wall and they qualified fourth and sixth. “At Imola I crashed in practice, but Senna crashed twice. We ended up finding that when the car hit the kerb it thought it was raising the ride height, so it dropped the car on the ground, and we were both spinning. We couldn’t figure out what it was, but that’s what it ended up being. I was crashing because the car was doing some weird stuff!” During the race he was battling for fourth with Wendlinger when he spun out under braking for Variante Alta on lap thirty three and later recounted “our brake balance was set up for the wet and I couldn’t reach to adjust the control. My rear wheels started to lock when I tried to have a go at Wendlinger and locked a second time, which caused me to nearly overshoot a corner. When I finally went off, I wasn’t trying to pass him but the car just swapped ends on me.”
In Spain, Senna was third behind the Williams cars though Michael was seventh but he went on to score his first points with a fifth place finish. “In Spain I finally got my first points, fifth, which was nice. It was a boring race, it was one of those races where I was running the whole race in my spot. I had a good start there and kept my position the whole race.” A fan of streets circuits, he was looking forward to Monaco though the MP4/8s experienced active suspension system problems and both drivers spun a number of times. Senna was third and Michael was down in ninth but his car selected third gear at the start, giving him a slow launch and after hitting Barbazza’s Minardi at Ste Devote he had to pit for a new nosecone. “Monaco was so disappointing! I loved the track. That’s a race where you like to qualify and like to drive by yourself but when you have to try to pass somebody, forget about it. At the start I had another problem. When I lit up the tyres the car went from first to third gear, and brrr… and everyone passed me. When I came down to Loews Hairpin I had never experienced anything like it. The field was literally stopped and I hit somebody and broke my wing. I then spent half my race behind De Cesaris…That race I had the fastest pit-stop that McLaren had up to that date, it was four seconds. And if you remember there were no speed limits in the pits. It was insane. I was behind De Cesaris, I went in the pits, I came out, and in one lap I was right behind him again! Then I went for it in Turn One and I passed him and I finished eighth.”
He faced another frustrating weekend in Montreal, qualifying twelfth while Senna was only eighth, but an electrical problem forced him to start from the pits. Dennis stated “there was some sort of short circuit in the jump start battery and it just sucked the life out of Michael’s car. You just can’t restart it because you have to reactivate things, and change some things, and that takes time.” Three laps were lost before he joined the race but despite putting in a very vigorous drive he finished fourteenth, stating “another nightmare..I just got stuck in and tried to work my way back up, but it was hard to overtake.”
His fortunes did not change on a return to Europe and though Senna started fifth in France, active suspension problems put Michael back in sixteenth place. However, a strong drive in the race saw him finish sixth, after passing Barrichello’s Jordan on the last lap. He later told how a locator beacon required to let the active system know its location on a lap had been deactivated and “and when you shut that off the car didn’t know where it was on track with the fully active suspension. Throughout qualifying it was raising the car and lowering the car and changing gears and not changing gears. It was a mess, so I qualified 16th. But I came back and passed a lot of cars-I remember passing some in the outside at some corners-to finish sixth. It was an OK race.” Silverstone promised a change in fortune but after qualifying eleventh he spun off at the first corner, telling how “in qualifying up until the last couple of corners I was right there with Ayrton on his lap, and it started to rain, so the last three corners were wet. It screwed up my qualifying, and I qualified 11th or something..I decided that I was going to go for it on the outside in Turn One. When I got there it was all marbles!” Hockenheim came two weeks later but he suffered a number of problems in practice with the gearbox and active suspension and then retired in the race after a collision with Berger’s Ferrari on lap 4. At the Hungaroring, he was running sixth when a throttle problem forced him out and Senna experienced similar problems soon after. In qualifying, he was “on a front-row time until I caught Ukyo Katayama in the last couple of corners and it screwed up my whole run, so I ended up 11th. But at the start I went up to sixth and that race I think I was going to be on the podium. The car was good and I was running with the leaders and then the throttle broke. So that was disappointing.”
By this point, despite so many of his problems being beyond his control, questions were being raised about his future plus it was suggested he wasn’t fully committed to F1 due to his commuting to America between races. He himself addressed this, stating :it wouldn’t have done one thing…Me even being there–first of all, when I was there (at McLaren), they’re like ‘okay, you guys need to leave,’ when I was at the shop, you know? Then so what was I going to do? Twiddle my thumbs? I spent one or two months in the heat of it over there. I could be there in six hours because of Concorde and I never let myself get off the time, I always stayed on European time when I was in the US.”
At Belgium, which he declared one of his favourite tracks, he started fourteenth but during a pit stop for a tyre change the engine stopped and he eventually came home eighth. “Again there were problems in practice, I didn’t get many laps, so I was literally learning the track in the race. I think I would have finished fourth but when I came into the pits I went to push the button for neutral and I switched the engine off. So I ended up falling back to eighth by the time they got the engine started.” Rumours were now rife that Michael was to be replaced by Mika Hakkinen but also that he was planning a possible return to America.
Then came Monza, which saw a top ten qualification in ninth place, with Senna fourth, but in the race the two cars had brake balance problems and spun. Senna retired but after Michael spun on the second lap he had to make a lengthy stop for fresh tyres and to have grass cleaned from the radiators. Running in last place on lap three he started overtaking and a strong drive took him to seventh place on lap twenty nine, chasing Pierluigi Martini’s Minardi. After taking him on lap thirty four he had Karl Wendlinger’s Sauber in his sights and took him at the Parabolica, though ran a little wide, and was now up to fourth. The two Williams were leading but five laps from the end, Prost’s engine blew and at the flag Hill took the win ahead of Alesi, with the McLaren third and a podium result. “It was a tough way to get here, but now we made it. To have done it at Monza makes it even more special. I made that mistake on the second lap which got me into a bit of trouble but we were able to dig ourselves out of that, and I’m happy. It took a bit of luck too, but it worked out.”
Despite the result this proved to be his final McLaren outing as shortly afterwards it was announced he was returning to CART for 1994 and Mika Hakkinen was in the car at the next race. One wonders if Monza could have been a turning point had he been able to continue but he felt there was little chance of continuing in Europe as “nobody was going to touch me with a 10-foot pole, there was no way! Honestly, I was over it. I loved IndyCar racing and I just went that way.” Back in IndyCar, he won the season’s opening race at Surfer’s Paradise, plus took a win at Toronto and finished fourth in the championship with Chip Ganassi. Michael eventually became a team owner, establishing Andretti Autosport, and there was a reunion with McLaren in 2017 when they formed a partnership to field an Indy entry for Fernando Alonso. He admitted “I despised McLaren until the last couple years. I love it now. I love-you go to that race team, it’s like you’re in a different team. Just the way it’s run, they’re having fun with what they’re doing, which with Ron, you weren’t allowed to have fun.”
On his time in F1, he declared “You know, thank God that at least I can say in my last race I was on the podium. So that was cool, but I could’ve been on the podium so many times that year with so many things happening…I understand why and the reasons why things happened, why people did what they did, and you just deal with it. I think it was never a personal thing…but in the end, it almost ruined my career, and so it was a tough time, but a valuable time. Learned a lot, matured a lot that year..” He described Ayrton as amazing, “he knew what the cars could do but I was still learning the limits of them. We’d both be there until late at night. With the active car you’d dissect every corner, and you could make the car do whatever you want. ‘If you can drop the front here as I turn in and then have it raise as I leave.’ There were so many things you could do. I felt that given another year I was going to be right on par with the best of them…I can say that I raced with Senna as my teammate, enjoyed it…Ayrton was awesome, we became very good friends. Everybody knew he was a special guy. To tell you what kind of guy he was, the next race was Portugal, he had a press conference and said how unfairly I was treated and I was one of his best team-mates ever. He was really behind me, and saw what happened. He knew how quick I was when we were running in testing, so he knew what was going on. It was cool of him to do that. He was the first one to call me when I won the Australian IndyCar race (in March 1994), he stayed up all night to watch it in Brazil.”
