Sitting on the Sidelines at a Reunion : Michael Andretti Takes Break From Formula One Education to Watch His Family Drive in the Indianapolis 500

When the green flag drops today on the 77th Indianapolis 500, three Andrettis will tromp on their throttles.

But the one who dominated last year’s race, charging from sixth place to the lead on the first lap and leading 160 of the 200 laps before fuel-pressure problems made for another agonizing Andretti non-finish, won’t be one of them.

Michael Andretti, who had a 25-second lead when the fuel problem struck with 11 laps left in the ’92 race, will have to do one of the hardest things a driver can do on race day--watch.

He will try to make himself comfortable in the Newman-Haas team’s suite at the track and watch his dad, Mario; brother, Jeff, and cousin, John, try to win “the greatest spectacle in racing,” the one big prize that escaped him in an otherwise successful Indy car career before he decided to test his talents in international Formula One racing.

“It’s going to be strange,” he said, then joked, “I’ll be out on the balcony with my drink and my feet up. . . .

“Obviously, I wish I was out there, in a good car.”

On the other hand, he pointed out, if there is such a thing as a good 500 for a driver to miss, this might be it. He has seen the reconfigured track, with its new warm-up lane, its new grassy dividers between the warm-up lane and the track itself, its new rumble strips marking the grassy dividers, and is not favorably impressed. Those changes were made where the old track apron used to provide extra racing room.

“They’ve taken all the fun out of it,” Andretti said. “From ’89 (when drivers began using the apron below the white line as part of the track) to last year was the most fun I ever had at this place. Instead of holding your breath and (gulping) every corner, you were able to relax a little bit because you had a buffer there.

“Now, they’ve taken that away and actually made it worse.”

Several drivers have said that the kind of dicing that Andretti and Rick Mears indulged in late in the 1991 race will never be seen at Indianapolis again. Andretti passed Mears in a corner with a daring outside move, then Mears returned the favor a few laps later, using the same outside move, and beat Andretti to the checkered flag.

Andretti not only agreed, but suggested that any kind of passing in the corners will be an invitation to disaster.

“The race is going to be everybody holding their breath,” he said. “I watched qualifying, and it was really scary. The first lap is going to be really scary. Let’s hope that everybody uses their heads and just gets through (the first turn.)”

Andretti knows exactly what the Indy car drivers are going through. His Formula One career with Team McLaren has been one long learning experience.

Unlike Nigel Mansell, who won the Formula One championship last year, then abandoned the series to replace Andretti with Newman-Haas and won his first race in an Indy car, Andretti has looked very much like the new boy.

For a while, it seemed, he was crashing every time he set wheel on track. And although some of those misadventures were none of his doing, he said, some of them very much were the results of his misjudgments. He has completed only two of six races, his best finish a fifth two weeks ago in Spain.

“Unfortunately, what’s a killer is that the things I’ve learned here don’t work at all there,” he said. “It’s just the opposite on some things. I have to learn things all over again and be thinking all the time. You really have to be a lot more precise.

“But I knew that going in. Talking to Nigel going in, that’s exactly what he told me.”

The ultra-sophisticated suspension system of Formula One cars makes them different vehicles from what he grew up with, Andretti said.

“They can actually adjust the car per corner,” he said. “You spend a lot of time debriefing when you’re finished running. We spend at least half an hour debriefing, and you document every single lap. Then after debriefing, they can change the car to match the corners by programming it into the car’s computer. So you have to maximize that by maximizing every corner. It’s pretty interesting. I like that.”

What he doesn’t like is the lack of practice time afforded him and everyone else.

Drivers get only 35 laps a day during the two days before a race, 23 each morning in practice, then 12 each afternoon during qualifying.

“That’s all you’re allowed,” he said. “And that includes your in and out (warm-up and slow-down) laps. That cuts almost a third of those laps out.”

The season still is young, though, and Andretti is not ready to come running back to Indy car racing.

“You’re never happy unless you’re winning every race but, realistically, when I look at it, I’m halfway satisfied,” he said. “You have to look at the total picture--my qualifying, what I’m up against, limited track time. Obviously, I wish it were better, but it’s not horrible.”

Andretti said he had no complaints about his team.

“You get help from the team, and Ayrton (Senna, his hot-running teammate) has helped me out a little bit, but mostly you’re on your own,” he said. “That’s the way it always is. The only time you learn is when you’re in that cockpit by yourself.”