Mario Gebriele Andrettiwas born in February 28, 1940, in Montona d'Istria, Italy, now Croatia. He is an American Italian racing driver and one of the best American drivers in auto racing. Andretti competed and won in many different types of auto racing. He remains the only driver to win the Indianapolis 500, NASCAR's Daytona 500 and a Formula 1 championship and alongside with Juan Pablo Montoya he is the only driver to win a race in NASCAR, Formula 1 and Indianapolis 500.
After racing with stock cars, he promoted to NASCAR and then to formla Indy. In 1965 he managed a third place finish in Indianapolis 500, which gave him the race's Rookie of the Year award. Andretti won th series championship as well that year at the age of 25. He repeated this in 1966, winning 8 of 15 events. He won the pole position in 1966 Indianapolis 500. He finished second in the IndyCars in 1967 and 1968. Andretti won nine races in 1969, the Indianapolis 500 and the season championship. Andretti also competed in North American Formula 5000 series in 1973 and 1974 and finished 2nd in the championship in both seasons.
Andretti was promoted to Formula 1 and made his debut in a Lotus 49, at the 1968 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, where he took the pole position. Andretti was competing sporadically in Formula one the next four years, for Lotus, March and Ferrari. At the 1971 South African Grand Prix he made his debut with Ferrari and won the race. Three weeks later he won a non-championship race, the Questor Grand Prix, giving Ferrari another victory.
Andretti got to race for a full formula one season, in 1975 with Parneli. Parneli was a new team in formula one but the team was successful in IndyCar and Formula 5000 with Andretti as a driver. Andretti scored five points that season. He competed also in IndyCar missing two races in formula one to do so. After Parneli team pulled out of formula one, Andretti joined Lotus again, in the 1976 season. In 1978 he won the world championship title in the Lotus 79, by winning in six races. He clinched the championship in the Italian Grand Prix, but there was no celebration that day because his teammate and close friend Ronnie Peterson died that day from injuries suffered in a crash in the first lap of the race.
After 1978 Andretti found little success in formula one. He failed to win another Grand Prix. He joined Alfa Romeo in 1981, but that was unsuccessful. The next year he raced once for the Williams team, and then he replaced Didier Pironi at Ferrari at the last two races of the season. He retired from formula one after that season.
Mario Andretti is a very successful diver, that competed in many different types of auto racing including stock cars,midget cars, sprint cars, IndyCars, drag racing cars, sports cars, and single seater formula one cars. He also is one of the three drivers to win races on road courses, paved ovals and dirt tracks in one season. In formula one he was the 1978 world champion. He competed in 131 races winning 12 of them. He had 19 podium finishes, 18 pole positions, 10 fastest laps and 180 career points gathered in his formula one career. Other than formula Andretti has a total of 109 wins on major circuits.
