By Losing, He Can Be the Winner : Auto racing: Michael Andretti is a charger, but caution might be the key to his bid for an Indy car title.

Ever since he came out of Nazareth, Pa., to drive Indy cars in his father’s image in 1983, Michael Andretti has been a charger, a “get outta my way” driver who slashed rather than stroked, who didn’t know cautious was in the dictionary.

Now he is on the brink of his first PPG Cup Indy car championship--only Bobby Rahal can beat him--and all reason tells him that the path to the $500,000 bonus and lifetime bragging rights is one of restraint. He can drive carefully and finish Sunday’s Toyota Monterey Grand Prix as far back as fifth place, if need be.

Michael says he can do it, but those around him doubt it. His father, Mario, says it would be a mistake to take the safe route, that he should approach the 300-kilometer (186-mile) race as he has approached the previous 16--to win.

“If necessary, I’ll lay back,” the younger Andretti said. “It’s a nice position to be in, honest, because if you have to charge (to win) it puts more pressure on you. If I can just run my own pace, whatever the car wants to run, I’ll feel a lot happier knowing I don’t have to take as many chances.

“If the car, early in the race, shows it wants to take the lead, I’ll take it, but if I have to drive very hard to stay there, I’ll probably give it up. I’ll let the car talk to me and respond accordingly. If Bobby drops out, of course, I’ll go all out to win.”

The scenario is this: If Andretti finishes fifth or better, he is the 1991 champion, even if Rahal wins the race, is fast qualifier and leads the most laps, all point categories.

Andretti took at least a partial step toward padding his lead and making Rahal’s task more difficult by breaking the track record and winning the provisional pole Thursday with a lap around the 2.2-mile, 11-turn course at 110.555 m.p.h. The record of 110.168 was set by Rick Mears in 1989.

“I don’t think that will hold up tomorrow,” Andretti said. “It will be cooler tomorrow, and I expect someone to better my time.”

If Andretti wins the pole, however, and picks up the bonus point, he can finish sixth Sunday and still win the championship.

“I want this championship more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life,” Andretti said. “It just makes it more desirable because I’ve been so close in the past and seen it get away. If it slipped away again, it would really hurt. I mean really. “

Andretti has finished second in the standings three times, in 1986 and 1987 to Rahal and last year to Al Unser Jr.

“Rahal owes me one--or two,” Michael said. “In ‘86, I was three points back going to the final race (in Miami), and I was running well when the gear box broke and Bobby won by eight points. In ‘87, I was leading here at Laguna Seca when the car broke. Bobby won and clinched the championship. That was doubly frustrating.”

Andretti has a 12-point lead over Rahal after trailing by as many as 34 points early in the season, but Rahal has won four times on the wooded hillside course between Monterey and Salinas.

“He’s won four times, but all of them were on the old configuration,” Andretti pointed out. “It’s like being at a different track now.”

Three years ago, to make Laguna Seca suitable for international events, such as the world motorcycle championships, the track was stretched from 1.9 to 2.2 miles by adding a sweeping four-turn section wrapped around an infield lake.

“I feel very good about finishing at Laguna Seca,” Andretti said. “We tested here and went very quick. Rahal was here at the same time and we ran quicker. That gives me good feelings about Sunday.”

Between now and Sunday is another race, the Marlboro Challenge, a 100-mile run for 1991 race- and pole-winners on Saturday that pays $275,000 to the winner. Andretti and Rahal, like most of the other eight starters in the nonpoints race, will be in their backup cars.

“I don’t know if it’s a help or not to have an extra race under the circumstances,” Andretti said. “If we’re struggling to find the right combinations, it is a positive factor because you get more time on the track. On the other hand, if Bobby’s struggling, then we have a negative factor. In the end, I guess it all evens out.

“One thing I know will be different: I can go all out for the win right from the drop of the flag.”

Andretti, with his CART-record seven victories and seven poles, will start on the pole Saturday.

Mario Andretti, who has won four national championships as well as one Formula One title, cautioned his son not to play it too conservatively in Sunday’s season finale.

“I think he just has to keep doing what got him this far,” Mario said. “I’ve been in this position a few times myself, and it seems that when you start changing your style is when you get in trouble.”

Although several of Michael Andretti’s victories have been wire to wire, on other occasions he has displayed aggressive behavior that reminds old-timers of a young Mario.

For instance, at Portland, where he qualified a disappointing fourth, Michael stormed between front-row starters, splitting the Penske cars of Emerson Fittipaldi and Rick Mears, to take the lead.

“There’s a saying that you can’t win a race on the first lap, but that move Michael made may have proved otherwise,” a less-than-enchanted Fittipaldi said. “I could see there wasn’t enough room between myself and Rick. Michael took a very high risk at the start. I don’t know how he got through.”

Mears was not pleased, either.

“I had to move over or he would have wiped out the field,” the Indy 500 winner said.

Then there was the incident two weeks later at Cleveland, where Andretti made such a daring move on a restart that he slid sideways through loose gravel before regaining control just in time to steal the lead.

“I thought I was going to crash,” Andretti acknowledged. “It felt like I hit an ice patch. My heart was pounding, that’s for sure. I was just hoping the aerodynamics would save me because I couldn’t get any grip from the tires.”

As at Portland, Andretti won.

“Once he gets in front, he’s a hard guy to get out of there,” Rahal said.

In midseason, Andretti had to grapple with a decision on remaining in Indy cars for another year or heading for Europe and Formula One. At one point, when he was flying back and forth to England to test drive for the McLaren team, it seemed certain he would leave.

“I thought I was going, too, but the timing just wasn’t right after (Nigel) Mansell won those three races in a row (for Williams-Renault). It became apparent that he would stay where he was, and that was the only seat (McLaren’s Ayrton) Senna would go after, so there was no opening for me.

“Gerhard Berger has one more year on his contract with McLaren, so there may be a spot open in 1993. Or I could go to Ferrari. They talked with me about racing for them next year, but I had already given Carl Haas my word I would stay with him.

“Right now, though, I’m very excited about coming back and driving another year with my dad. Hopefully, as the Indy car champion. That would mean everything to me.”

Second Fiddle

Michael Andretti has finished second in the CART national championship point standings three times since 1986. He can reverse that trend Sunday at Laguna Seca Raceway, the Toyota Monterey Grand Prix, the last of 17 races this season.

Andretti has 212 points, 12 more than second-place Bobby Rahal. A fifth-place finish or better gives Andretti the title. If Andretti gets no points, Rahal will have to finish no worse than fourth to beat him.

1986 1. Bobby Rahal: 179 pts. 2. Michael Andretti: 171 pts. 1987 1. Bobby Rahal: 188 pts. 2. Michael Andretti: 158 pts. 1990 1. Bobby Rahal: 210 pts. 2. Michael Andretti: 181 pts. 1991 1. Michael Andretti: 212 pts. 2. Bobby Rahal: 200 pts.