To describe Mario Andretti, a multi-winning driver in all categories, from Midget to Formula 1 through Indycar and the Prototype World Championship, is always a big undertaking. An encyclopedia would not be enough to tell the whole of his competitive career. Son of emigrants, originally from Motovun of Istria, Piedone, as his admirers later nicknamed him due to his particular way of stepping on the accelerator, was the driver with the longest and most prolific career ever. Andretti’s numbers are impressive: 879 races, 111 victories and 109 pole positions, are the corollary to almost forty years spent on circuits all over the world. Eclectic and multifaceted, he drove any type of car, adapting to every need that he presented and always with great professionalism.
Of him, Enzo Ferrari in his book ‘Piloti che gente’ said: “Courageous and generous, serious professional, he is Mario Andretti, originally from Trieste, an American idol. Also rose to Indianapolis glory. For years it was impossible to have it exclusively, because he was earning astronomical sums in the United States and could not make up his mind to cross the Atlantic again. When he was finally able to compete for an entire season in Formula 1, it didn’t take him long to learn all the circuits and to be among the first ”. – “I thought of him in 1977, as a driver of the“ after Lauda ”but, to the regret of both, it was not possible. He became world champion not in a Ferrari car and this displeases me and, I think, he and many of his supporters too. Some of our best victories in the seventies are linked to his name ”.
The Drake’s judgment is flattering, admired and also a little regret because of that World Championship, the only one of Piedone’s career, that the Italian-American conquered aboard the fantastic ground-effect Lotus 79. And it is precisely some episodes from this period that reveal the pragmatism and determination of the Andretti man. At the time, his highly armored contract with the Colin Chapman team, in fact, provided that he, Super Mario, was clearly the first guide. This is because, on the other side of the garage, there was a ‘very uncomfortable’ teammate who went by the name of Ronnie Peterson. Andretti absolutely did not want to repeat the same situation that arose in Lotus in 1973, when Emerson Fittipaldi and Peterson were free to race without team orders.
The result of this policy was quite destructive in that year, as by not supporting either of the two in particular Chapman managed to escape the conductor title in favor of Jackie Stewart. A situation that the American driver pretended not to be repeated again with him within the team. 1978, from what he himself later said, must have been his year and in fact, everything was there for this to happen. From the car to the organization, because Lotus was a winning team, up to Mario who, in his custom and custom, had planned the situation in every detail. He demanded from Chapman that his Swedish partner, who returned to Lotus that season, was the second driver by contract. An agreement signed and signed by Ronnie, who accepted everything albeit with some reluctance, at least from what is still said today. In spite of these clauses, the relationship between the two was true and sincere, so much so that Andretti suffered a lot from the death of his rival friend, who was also much loved by the general public of Formula 1 because of his great talent and his personality.
But for Piedone the career was not only dyed in Lotus black as his name, as we all know, was tied with a double thread to the house of Maranello with which he had obtained prestigious victories in the World Championship for Marche. The most spectacular is probably the one at the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring, which initially raced aboard an official 512S Roadster paired with Arturo Merzario. The two remained in the lead for a long time before the gearbox collapsed forcing them to retire. Once back in the pits, Andretti was about to leave the circuit when Ferrari’s technical director, Mauro Forghieri, asked him to get into Giunti and Vaccarella’s car to finish the race. This model was different from the one driven previously because it was the coupé version, which Piedone was hesitant to drive not knowing how it had been trimmed by the two brand colleagues.
Eventually, he was convinced and agreed to finish the race with this other car which at the time was in second place behind Steve McQueen’s Porsche 908 driven by Peter Revson. For the record, Mario, very determined once he sat in the two-seater of the Cavallino, drove like a demon despite the fact that the car was not suited to his style. Because, in his opinion, that race could not be won by an actor who had only driven 10% of the time. In fact, from the very first laps, Andretti set times even four seconds faster than Giunti’s. Later, in the dark, his time trials were still two seconds faster than what he himself had achieved during tests with the roadster version.
Naturally, Piedone and Rossa won the 12 Hours and thus consecrated themselves heroes in the land of America. An intense competitive life was that of Andretti, who arrived in the States in 1955 on board the steamship Count Biancamano with only $ 125 in his pocket, he created a great empire from scratch and was the progenitor of one of the most important racing families in history. He and his twin brother Aldo, with the money they earned working in a service station owned by an uncle, built the first racing car on their own in 1959. By the age of twenty, Piedone had already won twenty races in the stock car series and from that moment on his career was a Rossinian crescendo of affirmations and sporting successes. Like for example Indianapolis 1969, when he won a fantastic 500 Miglia and became a legend.
Dynamic man and always on the move, it is said that he was born with a suitcase in his hand, as when in 1982 at the age of forty-two Enzo Ferrari called him back to Italy to replace the injured Pironi for the last two seasonal races. Andretti arrived at Linate, stopped for lunch in Maranello with the Commendatore, then afterwards, without even getting rid of the “jet lag”, he got on the 126 C2, signing the Fiorano record. In Monza, in the midst of the frenzy of the Ferrari crowd, he scored his last pole in F1 aboard the Rossa, while in the race he finished an excellent third. He then also raced in Las Vegas, where he qualified seventh on the grid, retiring in the race with a knockout suspension. After those two Grands Prix at the wheel of the Red, Piedone never returned to racing in the Circus, but his American career was still very long and full of emotions.
In short, Mario Andretti is one who never stops and is always acclaimed by the general public, even when he appears in the role of guest star at the wall of the stable run by his son Michael. And for Indycar he played the role of great testimonial, driving the two-seater up to the age of 80 to drive guests and sponsors to the start of the races: therefore, on the front line, as always. Piedone at the time of him was a great friend of Clay Regazzoni, with whom he shared many happy years when Formula 1 was a less aseptic sport than today and where human relationships still constituted the foundations of this sport. A total sample as we have written, because it is unique and inimitable. Stainless.
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