Italian-born, American-raised Mario Andretti’s motorsports dream began at the 1954 Italian Formula 1 Grand Prix at Monza. Andretti, 14, along with his twin brother, watched in awe as the Ferrari of their early racing idol and hometown hero, Alberto Ascari, sped down the track, unaware that this precious childhood moment too It would define his career. .
Monza holds a special place in Andretti’s heart and he declares that he could not have written a better script: in 1978 he won the Formula 1 World Championship there, twenty-four years after attending his first race. That fateful weekend in 1954 set in motion a series of events that would ultimately lead to an outstanding career spanning five decades, 879 races and 111 wins in various classes of motorsports.
I sat down with the racing icon to talk about his remarkable career, his thoughts on Formula 1 today, taking a trip down memory lane back to where it all began.
EH: Let’s start with Monza, and what it meant to you when you were 14 to see your first big race there.
ME: Well Monsa. I could say that it was probably the real beginning of my dream of being a race car driver, and I couldn’t have written a better script because this was in 1954 and in 1978 that’s where I achieved the [Formula 1] World Championship. For me it was amazing of course to win the race, I won the race the year before. I won that year [1978] too, but I was penalized along with Gilles Villeneuve for supposedly moving up the start, which I think was debatable, I only reacted to Gilles saying he left; I reacted and stopped and left. But anyway that’s another story. And the reason I didn’t protest was because my teammate Ronnie Petersen was killed that day, so I didn’t have the energy to go and continue the protest. But just to repeat what I said about how important that particular day or weekend was in 1954 at age 14, that’s what started it all. Not only for me, but I also have a twin brother. [Aldo] and we both had the same dream and that’s what we were after.
EH: And then a year later your family moved to Nazareth and you and Aldo discovered a race track nearby.
ME: We had no idea what to expect when we moved to the States, but we soon discovered, three days after arriving here, that there was a race track nearby. We had no idea about oval racing, you know, American type racing, but the sound was good and it seemed like a lot of action and at the same time it seemed very doable to me at that level. As you can imagine when we saw Monza, the Grand Prix cars [of] Mercedes, Ferrari, Maserati, all of that seemed so far away, so unattainable, that when we saw these cars racing locally, they seemed really raw. But again it seemed doable, it seemed like something we could build. In fact, that’s what we started, two years later, at 17, that’s when we started building a racing car and we started driving two years later.
EH: How did it go with that car?
ME: In fact, we were winning. That was really a great launching pad for us because it was one car, two drivers. Obviously Aldo and I had to share, but he started first, he won the toss and it’s a matter of record, he won the first race. The following weekend I did. But we win races. That year we crashed and did all the good things that are normal for young racing drivers. That was a very auspicious start for us, as you can imagine, and it encouraged us along the way. We had a very good season, except at the end of that season, my brother got seriously injured because in the last race of the season, he pretty much determined his race at that point. He raced for another ten years, but then had another big accident that put him out of business. But for me it was a first step that launched me to the next level and I continued and was much luckier. I started my career in 1959 and my last race was Le Mans in 2000, so basically I had a 41-year career.
EH: In 1969 you won the Indianapolis 500, what did that victory mean to you?
ME: Well, it’s one of the ambitious goals you set for yourself, to win the classics. And if you’re running in America, the classic event that’s known around the world is the Indianapolis 500. I felt very comfortable from the beginning there, which was in 1965 and I was Rookie of the Year, finished third and carried on. and I also won the National Championship, and I was the youngest driver to do it at the time. And then winning it four years later was huge for my career and it opened a lot of doors for me. But two years before that I won the Daytona 500, which is the big brilliant event for stock cars, which is very popular here. And two weeks after winning Daytona, I won my first 12 Hours of Sebring with Bruce McLaren as a teammate, so my race was shaping up pretty well. But, as you can imagine, winning the most well-known events in the world is the most important part, that’s what can really change my life, which it was for me in many ways.
EH: In 1991 in Milwaukee we saw the Andretti Podium, which must have been a very proud moment for you to share with your family.
ME: Yes it was indeed. And that’s pride with a capital “P” really, because as you can imagine having my own son Michael and my nephew John, Aldo’s son, and me on the same podium. Then later Michael actually became my teammate. He and I shared the front row many times in qualifying and we’ve also been on pole position I think 12 times together. And we were first and second like eight times in IndyCar. You can imagine how sweet it is for a family to be able to share those moments, you can never even technically plan it, it will just happen or it won’t. And I’ve had so much satisfaction over the years from that standpoint of seeing the family continue. Both of my sons are in the races and like my brother, my second son Jeffrey was not as lucky as his brother or me. He had a devastating injury in 1992 at Indianapolis that nearly cost him both legs and marked his career. But then something like this puts things into perspective, like how lucky Michael and I have been in the sport. And it’s not a given, you know, because both my brother and my other son paid dearly for what they tried to do and we know how much we can appreciate the luck that we’ve had on our side throughout our careers.
EH: How do you handle the competitiveness and tensions that arise between partners when that partner is your son?
ME: Well, the competitive games were there. He wasn’t about to give her an inch or receive an inch. But the one that was really pins and needles, as you can imagine, was my wife because she was on the sidelines watching us fight, and a lot of times we were actually touching wheels and stuff. Not too much, she wanted to make sure that we would take care of each other and that we weren’t doing anything stupid to put my son in danger or him to put me in danger, but we weren’t giving anything away. In fact, the first pass, the first pass that my son made me to compete for the lead, we touched the wheels throughout the corner and it was very forceful. But at the end of the day there was a lot of satisfaction. When it happened, I was thinking “how dare you, Michael!” And then when he’s gone into the sunset, I think “that’s my boy.” He is a double edged sword. You know we had the closest finish in IndyCar in 1986 at the Portland Grand Prix.
EH: Yes, Father’s Day. I bet his wife’s heart sped up seeing that at the finish line.
ME: Yes actually. However, here’s the thing. In fact, he definitely deserved to win that because he had a bit of a lead on me as we got closer to the end of the race. There were three laps to go and my engineer was yelling in my ear that Michael was having some fuel issues. At that point he had settled for second and I knew I couldn’t catch up. And I actually stood up in my seat, and here he was getting closer and closer. On the last lap we basically had a drag race to the finish line and I only bit him off by an inch. And he was so upset. When we were at the podium, he realized it was Father’s Day and he said, well, Happy Father’s Day, Dad. [laughs]. He probably thought that he could give him a break and let him win, but no way!
EH: You’ve raced just about everything there is to do on four wheels, so out of all the motorsport classes you’ve competed in, which is your favourite?
ME: It has to be Formula 1, mainly because that’s where my love for the sport really started. And of course the opportunity to get into the sports chamber in America, so I had a very satisfying full career here in the States with IndyCar, then stock cars and so on. But if someone said that you can only choose one discipline, then I would choose Formula 1. It is that simple.
EH: After three decades of racing in Formula 1 and now as a spectator, how do you see the evolution of this sport?
ME: Well, changes are expected, and they are subtle changes, so to speak. If you are in the sport as close as I am, the changes are almost natural, not a big deal. What allows me to understand things quite well is that I have gone through decades and I have seen how enormous changes materialized, but it was gradual and now it is the same. What I understand, what makes me quite happy, is that it led to the computer age that it is now. We start computer instruments in the car. [in IndyCar] back in the mid 80’s so I drove into the so called modern computer era into the mid 90’s. And I’m sticking with that I’m still driving a two seater that’s the same as a race car only it expands for another passenger, but all technology and everything is the same. So being up to date with things makes it easier to accept and understand. I love progress and I love technology, and I like how sport is today. Obviously it’s much more regulated because there’s so much knowledge that it can make cars undrivable, but there’s a human element, so it needs to be regulated, which is fair enough. In fact in IndyCar we were hitting the speeds the records that were set in the mid 90’s when I was still driving still stand they had to slow the cars down from a safety standpoint so As you can see, I have driven faster. what they are doing today. I am not old-fashioned in any way.
EH: What is your favorite track that you have raced on?
ME: Any clue that I won [laughs]. That’s the only way I can answer that. The other question is, what is your favorite race car? Every race car I’ve won a race with. So it’s as simple as that. I don’t know how else to say it because it’s a fact.
EH: And which of your 111 career wins is the most memorable?
ME: The most memorable would probably have to be winning Indianapolis for what it really meant career-wise. But for personal satisfaction it had to be to win the Monza Grand Prix in 1977. In 1974 I won the Monza 1000km for Alfa Romeo with Arturo Merzario, which was really my first win at Monza. But winning the race, the Grand Prix in ’77, was huge for me because of what Monza represented in my life. I don’t think I could have gotten more satisfaction than that. I count my blessings every day. I think I won more races than I deserved and I’m grateful for that every day, so I don’t take anything for granted. My life in motorsport has been absolutely complete.