Mario Andretti
(C) CahierArchive
The word "star" is very much overused these days. In fact most people given that tag seem to fit the more astronomical use of the word in that they're dim, distant and dead inside. And then you have Mario Andretti. It's quite something to represent most people's idea of motor racing for an entire continent, but Mario Gabriele Andretti is the Captain America of the racing world.
We have to get one little detail out of the way first in that Mario was born in 1940 in Italy - and to make things even more confusing, he was born in a part of Italy that's now Croatia. His family moved to the States when he was 15. Before that, Mario had already tried his hand at racing in Ancona and he'd seen Ascari and Fangio race at Monza.
There isn't room here to précis his entire career, but by the time he first raced Formula One, Andretti had already proved his worth in Stock Cars, racing in his adopted home town of Nazareth, Pennsylvania as well as Midget racing and NASCAR. He would also win the Indianapolis 500, although unbelievably for a man of his talent he did so only once in 29 attempts. He had several drives in the Le Mans 24 Hours as well, the last one when he was 60 years old.
Andretti's appearance on the Formula One scene caused a stir, as he took pole position on his first ever attempt at the '68 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, when Colin Chapman put him in the fabled Lotus 49. For the next few years, his Formula One appearances were sporadic as he concentrated on racing in the States, but he did find time to take his first ever Formula One win in '71 on his debut for Ferrari.
It wasn't until 1975 that Formula One became his main focus, first with the short-lived American Parnelli team and then back with Lotus. This was when Chapman was at his peak in terms of engineering brilliance, and at the wheel of the ground effect Lotus 79 Andretti took six wins in '78 on his way to the title, finally clinching it - appropriately for a proud Italian-American - at Monza. Sadly, much like his fellow countryman Phil Hill's championship victory in Italy, there was no celebration: Andretti's team-mate Ronnie Peterson had died a few hours as a result of a crash at the start of the Grand Prix.
There were no more wins after that, but Andretti is still the last American to have won a Formula One Grand Prix. He returned to IndyCar in 1982 and went on to win a fourth title in 1984. Remarkably he was still winning Indy races when he was 52. But apart from the talent, what Andretti has in bucket loads is courage and charisma, which is precisely why COTA chose him as their ambassador for the Grand Prix in Austin.
Throughout his carer he would drive anything with wheels and an engine. My favourite tale about the man dates back to 1991 - by which time he was over 50 - when he tried Eddie Lawson's MotoGP bike at the daunting Laguna Seca track. Legend has it that - wearing his helmet and his fireproof suit rather than leathers - he turned in a lap that would have put him halfway up the grid for the bike race!
