Michael Andretti Casts Tall Shadow : Auto racing: Anticipation of his return to Indy car racing next year dominates season’s final event.

Michael Andretti isn’t here this weekend for the final Indy car race of the season, but his presence is being strongly felt.

Andretti, the winningest American Indy car driver of the ‘90s, recently dropped out of a disappointing venture into Formula One and announced that he will return to America’s No. 1 open-wheel formula next season with the Chip Ganassi team.

“The best American driver is now back in our series and we need him,” Ganassi said, alluding to the first four in the PPG Cup standings: Nigel Mansell of England, Emerson Fittipaldi of Brazil, Paul Tracy of Canada and Raul Boesel of Brazil.

“Everyone I talk to in the paddock seems to want to know how Michael will do against Mansell. It’s going to make a great year out of 1994.”

Mansell clinched the Indy car title--which Michael Andretti won in 1991--two weeks ago.

Even though it appears that Michael has given up on his Formula One career, he says he probably will return some day to pursue the world championship won by his father, Mario, in 1978.

“After what I went through, gathering experience you might say, I think I would have been competitive next year, especially with a good winter of testing,” he said from his home in Nazareth, Pa. “With what I’ve learned, it would be foolish to think that I would never go back. The reason I’m not going back in ’94 is strictly a business deal.”

Andretti says the major reasons for his lack of success in Formula One were a lack of seat time and the attitude of the European racing fraternity toward Americans.

“Going from an Indy car to a Formula One car is much more difficult than going in the other direction,” he said. “An F1 car is 400 pounds lighter, and with their carbon fiber brakes, it takes a totally different mind set to go into the corners the way they do.

“Both cars can go better than 200 on the straightaway, but where your braking mark for a heavier Indy car is 200 yards, you can take a F1 car clear to 75 yards before braking and still make it through a corner.

“It takes seat time, and that’s what I didn’t get. Before my first race, I got exactly a day and a half to adjust to the car, and a lot of that time was taken up by making myself at home inside the cockpit. Then, when the team tested, they used Mika (Hakkinen) because they were paying him a lot of money and when Ayrton (Senna) came aboard, he didn’t have a car to race.

“Mika actually has more miles in the car than I do. That hurt me a lot, more than anything else perhaps.

“I think my showing at Monza (third place in his last race) showed that I was beginning to get the hang of it.”

The coldness of Grand Prix racing also frustrated Andretti--the lone American on the world circuit.

“Look at this year, when Nigel came over here, the Indy car crowd welcomed him with open arms,” he said.

“That’s the United States way, to make people feel comfortable. Over there, they close the door in a newcomer’s face. They are very insecure, they feel very threatened by anything American, so they go out of their way to make you feel uncomfortable.”