Andretti builds his brand as owner now

His team will field six cars for Indy 500

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Alexander Rossi didn’t sugarcoat his 2020 season, which was a terrible year at Andretti Autosport. Just one win, never in the championship mix, a driver fired with three races remaining and, worst of all, the team was a non-factor at the Indianapolis 500.

“I just think we sucked globally,” Rossi said.

The man running the massive operation is Michael Andretti and he gives Rossi’s assessment some validity. But he also believes Andretti Autosport has emerged with at least two legitimate title contenders among four entries Sunday at St. Petersburg. He’s down two cars from this time a year ago.

“We’re here. We made it out of 2020. We’re not going to be out of business,” Andretti said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But we’re working to make sure we can keep our heads above water and stay competitive. I don’t want to have to cut my budget. If I have to cut my budget, our cars are going to go slower and nobody wants that.”

Andretti is 58 and has been out of cars fulltime since he was 39. He could have kept driving, and physically felt he probably had five more years in him. But he was over it. He had moved on to the next chapter.

There can only be one Mario Andretti, right? At some point you just are Michael Andretti and his career is much different from that of his famous father.

Andretti is running 15 cars across seven different series, from IndyCar to the fully-electric UKbased Formula E and Extreme E Series.

Andretti Autosport will have six cars in the Indianapolis 500, a race Michael Andretti has won five times as a team owner. Rossi and Colton Herta, who had the team’s only win last season, could both be considered to be among the title

contenders.

IndyCar is where Andretti Autosport gets most of its attention but Andretti isn’t afraid to look beyond his backyard. Andretti Autosport races in Australia and Mexico, and he wants to start an IMSA sports car program for son Marco, who in January said his heart isn’t into IndyCar anymore and he only wants to run the Indy 500.

Mario Andretti told AP his son is interested in entering Formula One in some form and Michael Andretti last month announced the formation of a Special Purpose Acquisition Company. The SPAC anticipates being listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “WNNR” and said in a statement it aims to raise $250 million.

“He’s a risk-taker. I’m very proud of what he’s doing,” Mario Andretti said of his son.

Racing is all Michael Andretti knows and although it doesn’t pay the bills — among the Andretti Group “family properties” is a petroleum consortium of gas stations, car washes and convenience stores up and down the West Coast — “you need a reason in your life to get up, right?”

“I don’t see myself myself doing anything but racing because you need that reason to get up,” he says.

It aggravates Andretti that IndyCar doesn’t have any sort of tangible charter system that rewards his investment in the series.

“I got criticized for saying any Joe Blow can come in here and start a team and they shouldn’t be able to because it devalues all the other people that have been here forever and forever,” Andretti said. “We need a system. We need more revenue.”