Marco Andretti couldn’ t have been happier at the beginning of the year after announcing his engagement to model Marta Krupa in February.
Then the Verizon IndyCar Series season began a month later. It’ s been a struggle for Andretti to enjoy much of anything since.
The 29-year-old son of team owner Michael Andretti and grandson of 1969 Indianapolis 500 winner Mario Andretti is experiencing his worst season. It’ s not just because the Andretti Autosport driver is 18th in points. He hasn’ t been a serious contender in most of the races. His best finish was ninth at Detroit. His only other top-10 run was a 10th at Toronto.
“ I’ m not going to hide it. It’ s been miserable. It’ s been one thing after another,” Andretti said.
“ To be honest, it’ s extremely trying, man. It’ s hard to go home. I don’ t relax. My poor fiancée has to deal with that. I’ ll try to sit at the pool by her, I’ m physically there but I’ m not mentally there. I’ m on the phone with my engineers. I’ m training harder than ever, I’ m in the best shape of my life.”
He points the finger first at himself first, but concedes his struggles can’ t be attributed to only one factor. His team has made mistakes; be it a costly pit stop in the 100th Indianapolis 500 or race strategy or the shocks package. His No. 27 entry carries a Honda engine and aero kit, which has been consistently outperformed by the Chevrolets that have won 11 of the 12 completed races this season.
“ It’ s me qualifying( poorly), that’ s a big thing,” Andretti admitted.“ The team, I think our shock package is out to lunch, quite honestly. I’ m being pretty blatant about it. That’ s making life pretty miserable on bumpy tracks. I think the manufacturer is not the strongest manufacturer in the series. So there’ s a lot of things.
“ My dad just says,‘ Stay in it, keep at it.’ Right now, we’ re not the best Honda team. And Honda is behind Chevy. And Penske is the best Chevy. So it’ s like we’ re in the fourth class right now.