“Do I have to?”
Marco Andretti has just been asked to recount his 2016 season in the Verizon IndyCar Series, and he is understandably reticent to do so. His deflection comes with a laugh, but he knows that his dismal campaign couldn’t have come at a worse time in what has often been a disappointing career.
His grandfather Mario and his father Michael combined for 94 Indy car race wins and five series championships, but Marco’s career stat line reads two wins out of 184 starts, the last coming back in 2011 at Iowa Speedway. His career best finish in the IndyCar Series championship was fifth in 2013, but 2016 represented his nadir, 16th place in the standings matching a career low.
Actually, Andretti is surprisingly willing to look back on 2016 and analyze what went wrong. The key moment was a pit stop during the Indianapolis 500, when his car’s front tires were mistakenly mounted on the wrong sides of the car. That caused a handling problem that took him out of contention from winning the one event he craves the most.
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The disappointing 14th-place finish in a race dominated by Andretti Autosport (and won by teammate Alexander Rossi) put Marco into a funk he couldn’t escape.
“I let Indianapolis ruin the rest of my season mentally,” Andretti admitted. “I drove extremely frustrated, and you’re never going to be fast that way. I wasn’t having fun, I wasn’t smiling. I sort of let it spiral out of control.
“I’ve had bad seasons before, but I needed last year to be my best and it was my worst,” he continued. “I feel like having that approach that it needed to be my best, that was a lot of the problem.”
The true test of any competitor is how they bounce back from adversity, and Andretti believes he and his No. 27 team will take a big step forward in 2017.
On the brink of turning 30 (that happens March 13, the day after the IndyCar season opener at St. Petersburg), he’s working harder than he ever has on the mental aspect of the sport, and he hopes the addition of two-time Indy 500 winning strategist Bryan Herta to his team will help in that regard.
“I’ve been saying that my character is built and I don’t need any more character building, but I think I was wrong because I really believe I’m a better person because of what happened last year,” Andretti said. “The biggest thing for me going forward is to stop thinking about the past and the ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda,’ because you can’t fix those anyway. I’ve really been working on the mental side of the game because it’s such a big part of it. I’m working on trying to get excited again and I feel like I’m there. I feel I’m in a really good place for this season, and it’s because of last year.
“Trying to stay confident after a season like that is extremely tough, but I know I still know how to do this,” he concluded. “I don’t need to prove it to myself – we just need to go do it.”
He thinks the root of his problem was simply trying too hard.
“It sounds funny, but I think my problem last year was that I was too focused,” Andretti said. “I questioned everything I did, and that’s a problem.
“I think having a clear mind is how you can go fast,” he continued. “My dad pointed out, ‘When you came in as a rookie, you beat Dario [Franchitti], you beat TK [Tony Kanaan]. You were just driving the car.’ Last year, when hard times happened, you start questioning things. ‘Am I training too hard? Am I training enough?’ I think that is what takes you out of it.”
The addition of Herta to his side of the garage should help. A pretty fair Indy car driver himself with a pair of career wins, Herta has a calm, optimistic demeanor that contributed to the unlikely, strategy-driven Indy 500 victories scored by Dan Wheldon in 2011 and Rossi last year.
“He’ll be a great addition to our team,” Andretti affirmed. “He believes in me, which is something I need. I’m very passionate, if you’ve heard my radio, and he’ll be a good counter to that. My dad (team owner Michael Andretti) is the same way. We operate like that fine, but sometimes it distracts the people around us.
“Bryan will bring the fun back into it, for sure,” Marco continued. “I’m working on trying to not get wound up about things that I can’t control. Sometimes that can really derail your program and that’s where Bryan is good. He’ll always keep us focused on the 27 car and how can we go faster.”
Andretti believes that he kicked off his 2017 program with his strongest performance of the season in the 2016 finale at Sonoma Raceway. Of course, Sonoma is a good track for Marco; he won his first Indy car race there as a rookie in 2006 (with a helping hand with a yellow-flag inducing spin from then-teammate Herta) and he has generally run strongly on the California road course.
Last year, he paced a practice session before suffering a turbo boost problem in qualifying. He showed plenty of speed on race day and finished a season-best eighth.
“I approached it as a test session and it really brought our 27 team forward,” Andretti said. “Our pace was really good and that makes you feel good about this year. I think we can make a huge gain because if we all make little ones – Honda the team – we can make a big jump. That’s obviously what we need and I think we can do it.”
But even if Honda and Andretti Autosport do make gains, the most room for improvement still lies with the man in the cockpit. The IndyCar Series needs Andretti to star on the track, and Marco believes he’s finally ready to emerge from the shadow of his more famous family members.
“It’s a tough thing I’m up against,” he said. “I definitely have my back up against a wall and I know that. But I’m going to make that a fun part of it. I’m going to make people that aren’t on my bandwagon regret it.
“That’s my goal,” he added. “If I can do that, I’m going to be smiling.”
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