At the start of May every year for the past two decades, IndyCar circles openly asked the question, “Is it Marco’s year?” We already know that next year won’t be his year. Marco Andretti announced his retirement from racing on Wednesday. The third-generation driver famously fell short of winning the Indianapolis 500 as a rookie in 2006 by 0.0635 seconds. The 38-year-old ended his full-time IndyCar career after the 2020 season but returned annually for a one-off Indy 500 in the years afterward.
Andretti received video farewell messages from a cavalcade of racing dignitaries he competed with and against, including Roger Penske, Helio Castroneves, Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan. In his message, Michael Andretti described his son’s time in racing as “a career of almosts.” It’s an accurate description when you consider that Marco only won two races across his 253-race IndyCar career. With his notoriety and connections with the series, Marco could have continued racing at Indianapolis every May but he decided to step away to focus on his family:
“I am very much at peace with the next chapter in my life after dedicating three decades to the sport. I will be prioritizing most of my time on being a great father to my daughter, Miura, and tending to my other business ventures.”
Marco could never live up to the expectations set for his career
Expectations were always high for Marco as the son of CART’s all-time wins leader and the grandson of 1978 F1 champion Mario Andretti. The anticipation of another American racing superstar was only heightened when he eventually won his first race at Sonoma later in his rookie season. A then-19-year-old Marco became the youngest winner in IndyCar history. However, it wasn’t the first of many. The second and final win of his career would come in the 2011 Iowa Corn Indy 250. Marco’s oval-focused skillset wasn’t well-suited for the end of the IRL/CART split. The IndyCar’s unification in 2008 led to an influx of road and street circuits onto the schedule. The series that Marco spent his life preparing for was effectively gone overnight, and he didn’t adapt as well as his rivals.
Critics constantly derided Andretti’s tenure at the team owned and operated by his father. While Marco was rarely ever a title contender, there were plenty of bright spots and dramatic moments from his later career. Notably, he won pole for the 2020 Indianapolis 500 as the Andretti Autosport team locked out the top four positions. After leaving full-time duty in IndyCar, he dabbled in stock car racing and won the 2022 season of Superstar Racing Experience. Though, as it stands, the Andretti curse will remain in place at the Indy 500 for the foreseeable future.
