242 replies to this topic

[rogano]

INDIANAPOLIS -- Although Marco Andretti would jump at the chance to race in Formula One if the right team came calling, his eyes are wide open to the sport's dark side of politics and backstabbing.

And the third-generation member of one of racing's most famous families doesn't have to look far to find an example of F1's ruthless nature: His father, Michael, drove in the elite international series in 1993 and came away looking like a failure.

But Marco said the team his father drove for, McLaren, went out of its way to make sure he didn't get a fair shake.

"If you ask me, it was sabotage," Andretti told the Associated Press on Wednesday, as he prepared for Sunday's Indianapolis 500. "It was."

According to conventional racing wisdom, Michael Andretti didn't succeed in his lone F1 season because he wasn't committed enough, wasn't properly prepared or simply didn't measure up.

But Marco said people don't know "the real story" behind his father's poor performance that year, insisting the team tried to make his dad look bad so they could get rid of him and make room for a promising young driver -- Mika Hakkinen, who would go on to win two world championships.

"They wanted him to fail," Andretti said. "I don't know, it was a very bad deal. The reality of it was, they had Mika Hakkinen ready to come in for a lot less than what my dad was getting paid, and that's all it was. Right then and there, they had to make him look (bad)."

Andretti said McLaren's efforts to sabotage his father's career went beyond simply giving better cars and engines to his teammate, Ayrton Senna -- something that might be expected, given Senna's status as a three-time world champion. Andretti insists the team intentionally made his father's cars more difficult to drive.

"They would make the car do weird things in the corner electronically, stuff out of his control," Marco Andretti said.

The situation only improved, Andretti said, when Senna stepped in.

"And I think my dad's biggest supporter over there was Ayrton Senna," Andretti said. "Because he was one of the few who knew what was really happening in the team, and I think he believed in my father. It was Monza that he really said, 'Give him my car. Give him exactly what I had.'"

Michael Andretti finished third in the 1993 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, his only top-three finish of the season. It didn't matter, as Andretti was replaced by Hakkinen in the final three races of the season and returned to race in the U.S.

A McLaren team official did not immediately answer a request for a response to Andretti's comments. Senna died in a crash at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994.

http://www.sportslin.../story/10836286

I always knew it, Ron

[Clatter]

Funniest stuff I've read in ages. Talk about being in denial.

[Hacklerf]

If thats true, that is a disgrace


But really, it sounds a bit fishy

[Chiara]

Originally posted by Hacklerf
If thats true, that is a disgrace


But really, it sounds a bit fishy

What's fishy is this isn't the first time we've heard this sort of thing about McLaren...... didn't we get rumours of this sort of thing last year?

Just a coincidence? sour grapes? who knows!

[Hacklerf]

Originally posted by Chiara


What's fishy is this isn't the first time we've heard this sort of thing about McLaren...... didn't we get rumours of this sort of thing last year?

Just a coincidence? sour grapes? who knows!

Yea exactly, DC has said it, Alonso suggested it, and now Marco?

Where there is smoke, there is usually fire...

[Frans]

Ferrari did this for years with Michael and his teammates......... what's new?

[Mika Mika]

Might of helped if his dad was even remotly good! LOL

[Nobody]

Tell me again Marco - WHY?

[JensonWDC]

What? The most faithfull and sporty team in history of formula 1? They would never do this, would they?

[JForce]

What complete bullshit.

Whilst we all know that some drivers receive new parts, or more experienced engineers instead of their team-mates, Marco is talking about making a car WORSE, not failing to make it better as much as possible.

I don't believe for a second that McLaren, or anyone else, would make a car worse on purpose. It doesn't make any sense. Had Andretti come in and blasted everyone away and won races and championships, do you think McLaren would have cared about Mika, or what they were paying for him.

It doesn't make sense and it's a crock of ****.

[Youichi]

So Marco believes what his dad tells him, and this is news how ?

Does anyone really think Michael would tell his son that he failed in F1 because he wasn't quick enough ?

[Chiara]

Originally posted by Nobody
Tell me again Marco - WHY?

why did it happen? or why bring it up now?

seems a bit odd doesn't it. what would he have to gain for bringing it up (if it did happen - taking with a pinch of salt) so many years after the event?

[GT Racing Online Magazine]

That's complete cack. I mean it's his dad, ok, the guy who he probably sees as his nr.1 hero, but come on... what was Marco at the time 5 years old? it is not as if he has some insight into what went on...

I don't even want to go there but Marco should ask his mom how she contributed to the downfall of Andretti's grace in the McLaren garage...

[EvilPhil II]

This during a season that Mclaren (at the time a Ford Customer) were trying to get a factory backed engine deal from Ford, an american company? If anything i would have thought they would have favoured Andretti.

[Levike]

I don't know about Michael Andretti's testing efforts, but on the race weekends it seemed for me that he was trying desperately hard and was not a full failure. All he needed is a bit time in the car.
Anyway, i saw an interview with him in which he stated that after his first win in CART, Senna phoned him to congratulate, and that Senna wasn't that bad at all like everybody thinks.

[JensonWDC]

There wasn´t a FIA man in the McLaren garage last year at brazil for nothing, you know...

[Josta]

Andretti failed because he was ****. End of story. It seems a bit strange for someone wanting to get into F1 to go critisizing one of the top performing F1 teams.

Come to think of it, could Piquet Jr be the new Michael Andretti? WDC Father, lots of expectation, ultimately **** in F1 and replaced mid season.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by JForce


It doesn't make sense and it's a crock of shit.

Word.

I posted this text five years ago at TrackForum and see no reason to change my opinion:

Michael really didn't commit himself fully to F1 - you can't run a season in a European-based series by living in the States: I understand he and his wife couldn't settle in Europe and they spent a lot of time shuttling to and fro across the Atlantic between races. He lacked testing miles, was unfamiliar with the circuits and had Senna for a team-mate. While Ayrton produced miracles with the Ford HB-engined McLaren, winning five races in a dog of a car which had no right to be at the front, Michael could manage no better than a third place (and that in his last race). I think he seriously underestimated how competitive F1 was and how big the gap was between F1 and CART.

I also heard a story that someone persuaded them they couldn't buy disposable nappies (diapers) in Europe and were seen struggling through Heathrow loaded down with bags full of them ....

[Nobody]

I remember back in those days hearing that Michael Andretti would jet back to the US between races and cared little for testing or developing the car.

I also remember the huge buzz around F1 and McLaren when Andretti came over, everyone had big expectations, but in the end the bigger story turned out how poor he ended up being in the car.

It was similar with Alex Zanardi.

[Oho]

Originally posted by Hacklerf


Yea exactly, DC has said it,

I thought the only thing Coulthard really said was that he felt like an outsider with Häkkinen having much closer ties with the team and especially Ronzo, not that he felt he was put in systematic disadvantage let alone sabotaged by the team.

[donald29]

well mclaren would definitely favour senna that is understandable.

just like they favoured mika over dc, and hamilton over alonso...

would be surprised if there was sabotage to one drivers car, but this did make me laugh

[glorius&victorius]

There goes Andretti's chance of getting a top drive in F1. What an idiot!

As for his dad and Mclaren.
- Michael was signed on his own merits.. there were no pressure from sponsors etc to sign him.
- In his first three races he crashed out in the first laps...
- He didn't make an effort to work committed with the team. Remember Mclaren was used to Senna's standard of commitment.
- Andretti only scored 7 points during that season. 7!!! At that time Williams was the no 1 team and Mclaren was No 2. (on par with Michael Schumachers Benetton) So all Michael had to do was finish races and get points.

Offcourse at the same time Mclaren started to discover Hakkinen's potential during tests. Perhaps Mika got along better with Ron. I remember that from the BBC - A season with Mclaren, them driving together to the circuits etc. I am sure that Mclaren could predict how Mika would do compared to Senna.

And I can imagine Mclaren was very open to the idea of giving Mika a try. But I dont think they needed to resort to making the car slower etc.

Sabotage is a real unwise expression to use.

[Torch]

Originally posted by Hacklerf


Yea exactly, DC has said it, Alonso suggested it, and now Marco?

Where there is smoke, there is usually fire...

You forgot Montoya as well. But these drivers all have one thing in common - they got beaten by their team mates.

If you're a highly competitive F1 driver wanting to increase your value after getting beaten by your team mate and you have the opportunity to say "my team favoured the other driver" or "I was beaten fair and square" - what would you say?

Have you ever heard a regular guy say "I lost my job because I was rubbish and a little but dim" or do you hear "my boss/company treated me badly".

Why don't any of these drivers pipe up whilst they are at McLaren? (Alonso, accepted, is a whole different bag of worms that I don't want to get involved in).

The sabotage claims 'mid corner' sound a bit ridiculous to me!

[MattPete]

Not that I think it was sabotage or anything, but in the back of my mind I do remember at least one (maybe multiple?) instance(s) in which an electronic gremlin in the active suspension caused Andretti's McLaren to hop sideways while entering a corner.

[howardt]

Yeah Ron does this for a laugh - hires a champion driver so that he can sabotage him & make him look like a tit. He does have *two* cars, after all, and only one of them can win, so he might as well just ruin someone's career with the other one. That's what racing's all about, right ?

Hmm..or do we think it's more likely that Andretti just didn't measure up against Ayrton Senna ? That he had trouble making the transition into F1, as so many other Indy/Cart racers have.

[Burai]

Who do we hate more Atlas? Michael Andretti or Ron Dennis? FIGHT!!!!!

F1Rejects has a great article on Andretti's spell at McLaren which pretty much sums up everything in a fair and balanced manner:

http://www.f1rejects...etti/index.html

[Bloggsworth]

I would suggest Marco concentrate on finishing Indy before mouthing off. Michael was not prepared to live F1, he thought he could do it part-time................................. Wrong.

[speedy]

There's another Marco who could say someting similar - Melandri/Moto GP that is. He is way off the pace of his teammate, it must be because his team wants him to fail and sabotages his bike. NO

[Ferrim]

What a load of ****, as you said. But it's not news, probably these are things Michael has said to him.

About the part where Marco says McLaren only gave him the same material than Senna's at the Italian GP... and then he performed for the first time that season... a big LOL to him. Andretti didn't finish 3rd on pace. He did because Prost, Senna and Schumacher all the three retired! For God's sake, even Alesi with the shitty '93 Ferrari finished 2nd that day, their best result since '91. Even Comas was sixth for Larrousse. Other guys who had qualified well (Berger, Herbert) also retired.

Andretti's fastest lap was 2.8s slower than Hill's; pretty similar to other races.

Also remember that for the first half of 1993, Senna was on a "race by race" contract, so McLaren wouldn't have any reason to make Michael feel bad, they could need him alongside Hakkinen.

Another point: if McLaren didn't want Andretti why on earth did they sign him.

About the electronic gizmos failing: it also happened on Senna's car! It happened specifically at the San Marino GP, with both cars. Watch at the 2:20 mark:

Senna had several stupid failures that year, like his alternator giving up (what the hell?), or running out of fuel in the last lap of the British GP (in spite of having a not very powerful engine, and a safety car period). Should we open a topic called "McLaren wanted Senna to fail in order to save his salary" on this basis?

All in all, very unfortunate words from Marco.

[JacnGille]

They must have some really good Kool-aid in the IRL.

[Ross Stonefeld]

What year was Marco born?

[Vitesse2]

1987

[aportinga]

Originally posted by rogano


http://www.sportslin.../story/10836286

I always knew it, Ron

Well it's not just Ron - in fact I would not blame him at all... Firstly MA had the ability to test and did so in 1992. Also he refused to move to Europe - hardly making it worth while for anyone to take him seriously - including his team.

I had a contact at Newman Haas for years - he moved over to the Atlantics with a completely different team 6 months ago. According to him it was Bernie Ecclestone who "placed" MA at McLaren - instead of McLaren being allowed to bring up Hakkinen who was - and is a far better driver then MA. So in that case why wouldn't Ron be not only pissed but want to rid himself of MA... All he was doing anyhow was crashing into - I think it was Wendlinger, all the time.

IMO MA was just a pawn in an effort to de fuse the success of CART. F1 is and always will be the ultimate goal of any OW driver. The temptation of even a **** seat (Bourdais) is good enough to remove any business critical driver from the States to F1 on any day. Business critical of course is in terms of marketability - can the series hang a hat on such a driver to help the series itself move forward... We have seen NASCAR and F1 pluck away for years.

Whether it's malicious is anyone's guess (IMO I think it is). But that is not necessarily the point.

The bottom line is that MA had no business in F1 at that time. He was not committed, was not fit and was going through a horrid divorce as well. Add to that the fact that McLaren never wanted him and there was no way he was going to be succesfull. The timing was all wrong. IMO MA missed his window by many years. Had he hit it at the right time I think he could have been just as good - of not better then his own father.

[Rinehart]

Obviously a few are milking this story just for the cheap shot at McLaren, fair enough, har har har, but if anyone here seriously thinks that a multi-million pound team would sabotage one of its own cars - they'll definately be going onto the morons of the forum list.

[aportinga]

Originally posted by Frans
Ferrari did this for years with Michael and his teammates......... what's new?

Yup

[Josta]

Originally posted by Rinehart
Obviously a few are milking this story just for the cheap shot at McLaren, fair enough, har har har, but if anyone here seriously thinks that a multi-million pound team would sabotage one of its own cars - they'll definately be going onto the morons of the forum list.

Andrea Moda and Perry McCarthy.

[Ben]

The Team - A Season With McLaren was a 6-part BBC documentary on the 1993 season. There were TV cameras in the garage at most events. Ironically one episode focusing on Andretti covers the Canadian GP practice session when he pitted with a problem and the team refer to a "strobe sensor" on the right rear corner being "on the blink" Do you really think they'd let the BBC film the changing of a piece of faulty electrical equipment related to the active suspension if any of these allegations were remotely true.

The whole series is on racing underground BTW.

These claims are BS in the extreme. The issue was summed up for me when I asked a fairly well know race engineer what Andretti's problem had been "wrong team?" I asked... "Wrong wife" came the answer.

You can't live in PA commute to races, rarely test and expect to come anywhere close to Senna. Lets also not forget that Hakkinen outqualified Senna in Portugal on his debut and ran strongly before making a mistake and crashing.

Ben

[noikeee]

Originally posted by Youichi
So Marco believes what his dad tells him, and this is news how ?

Does anyone really think Michael would tell his son that he failed in F1 because he wasn't quick enough ?

Sums up my thoughts.

[Keir]

WOW !!!!

Just a brief note here, Michael was never Mario and Marco isn't Michael.

Michael arrived in F1 at a bad time for newbies to be testing the waters with all the restrictions that year.

.... but for Marco to compare his Dad to Senna ????????

Michael wan't ready for F1 and F1 does not care for Americans in general.

Gone are the days of Mario flying over for a brief seat fitting and then putting the car on pole.
Gone are the days when Dan Gurney, Phil Hill and Ritchie Ginther were just one of the boys in the paddock.
Gone are Revson and Donohue.
Gone is Cheever.

Now we have Scott Speed, who didn't leave much of a dent in the "Americans in F1" record book.

Marco needs to focus on the IRL before he gets in over his head in F1.

[BMW_F1]

To be fair to Michael, he had never raced in the wet before he entered F1 and most of his crashes during the first races there was rain involved. The thing he said about Senna, if true, makes some sense.

[Uwe]

Marco can have an opinion about happenings - in the end it is his father - but he should also be aware that it is just that: an opinion and no knowledge. And because of that he should have remained silent instead of shooting himself in the foot. Which I think he did with his unfounded rantings.

[ensign14]

"They would make the car do weird things in the corner electronically, stuff out of his control," Marco Andretti said.

Hm, Evil Ron was using his remote control to make Michael crash in the first four races on the first lap?

And if they're trying to insinuate that it all came good when he had Senna's car and waltzed to a podium, well, he was a lap down, he was just ahead of Wendlinger's Sauber, Prost/Schumacher/Berger/Senna/Herbert/Blundell (all in the top 10 in the WC standings) all retired and he qualified behind Aguri Suzuki.

It is insane to suggest that McLaren would sabotage 50% of their driving force in such a way.

[jdanton]

Originally posted by Keir
[B
Gone are the days of Mario flying over for a brief seat fitting and then putting the car on pole.
Gone are the days when Dan Gurney, Phil Hill and Ritchie Ginther were just one of the boys in the paddock.
Gone are Revson and Donohue.
Gone is Cheever.

Now we have Scott Speed, who didn't leave much of a dent in the "Americans in F1" record book.

Marco needs to focus on the IRL before he gets in over his head in F1. [/B]

Speed was at least professional in his endeavors in F1. Micheal's Concorde hopping didn't do him any favors with the team I'm sure.

Those here who are saying he wasn't quick are crazy. He sucked in F1, but it was due to his ego and thinking he could live in the US. He wasn't professional about F1, and I don't think anyone, especially in the 90s and onward, had enough talent to just show up and drive.

[aportinga]

Originally posted by EvilPhil II
This during a season that Mclaren (at the time a Ford Customer) were trying to get a factory backed engine deal from Ford, an american company? If anything i would have thought they would have favoured Andretti.

I recall Senna threatening to quit and hold out for Factory Ford engines - exactly what Schumacher had in the Benetton.

[FLB]

Originally posted by BMW_F1
To be fair to Michael, he had never raced in the wet before he entered F1[snip]

Hmm, yes he had. There were several wet road/street races in CART from 1984 to 1992 (Meadowlands 1990 comes to mind, Elkhart Lake 1985, etc.).

[StefanV]

Originally posted by Chiara


why did it happen? or why bring it up now?

seems a bit odd doesn't it. what would he have to gain for bringing it up (if it did happen - taking with a pinch of salt) so many years after the event?

I am sure this is not the first time he brought it up, it is just the first time someone listened. Some responses in this thread proves that if you want to have a go at McLaren, this is a good time.
The electronics was not the worst thing - although it could have killed him - I heard that once when Micheal got out of his car he was very upset and yelled: "My hovercraft is full of eels!"

Poor guy.

[BMW_F1]

Originally posted by FLB
Hmm, yes he had. There were several wet road/street races in CART from 1984 to 1992 (Meadowlands 1990 comes to mind, Elkhart Lake 1985, etc.).

thanks for the correction if that is accurate. I had read recently that Michael had problems in the rain because his first wet races were in F1 on an unfamiliar car.

[shaggy]

Well, to be fair, Bobby Unser has said the same thing regarding his foray into F1.
Michael did say that his biggest supporter in MC was Senna, and that after he went back to CART, it was Ayrton who stayed up watching the race live on tv and called him, a little after the race, to congratulate him.
I think it is is ludicrous to compare him to Mario or to Ayrton, but he certainly could have held his own against the rest of the F1 field. After all, if the likes of Rubens, Trulli, DC, Ralf, Berger, et al. can have long careers in F1, Michael certainly could have had a longer and more productive one than any of them.

shaggy

[BMW_F1]

Originally posted by shaggy
Well, to be fair, Bobby Unser has said the same thing regarding his foray into F1.
Michael did say that his biggest supporter in MC was Senna, and that after he went back to CART, it was Ayrton who stayed up watching the race live on tv and called him, a little after the race, to congratulate him.
I think it is is ludicrous to compare him to Mario or to Ayrton, but he certainly could have held his own against the rest of the F1 field. After all, if the likes of Rubens, Trulli, DC, Ralf, Berger, et al. can have long careers in F1, Michael certainly could have had a longer and more productive one than any of them.

shaggy

oh certainty, but he was not committed, perhaps did not have the full support of an F1 team and had very very little limited mileage in F1.

[JacnGille]

Originally posted by BMW_F1


thanks for the correction if that is accurate. I had read recently that Michael had problems in the rain because his first wet races were in F1 on an unfamiliar car.

He raced in F Atlantic and F Ford before that and other things. Of course he raced in the rain before F1.