Marco Andretti to step back from full-time IndyCar racing, out of family’s shadow

Marco Andretti will not operate the full IndyCar agenda this season as the 3rd-generation driver reprioritizes his racing profession.

Andretti will contend in the Indianapolis 500, the historic race his spouse and children has notoriously won just at the time, and help Andretti Autosport with preseason screening and growth. He will be in a car or truck following week screening in Sebring, Florida.

Over and above that, his agenda is open.

“Marco and I have discussed this at length. I help and regard his determination to choose a concentration on other places of lifestyle, and it’s possible even other kinds of motorsport,” workforce operator Michael Andretti said Friday of his son.

Andretti followed his grandfather, father and cousins into IndyCar racing but has under no circumstances observed the same achievements as his famed spouse and children. Mario Andretti, his grandfather, ranks second on IndyCar’s all-time get listing with fifty two victories together with the 1969 Indy 500. Michael Andretti won 42 races.

Marco Andretti has two profession victories in fifteen seasons, his final in 2011. The 33-calendar year-outdated won the pole in August for the Indianapolis 500 but he didn’t lead a lap and completed thirteenth.

He was 20th in the final season standings, cheapest of all full-time IndyCar drivers.

“I assume for any multi-generational athlete, it can be actually difficult to discover your have ground and make your have name on top of your family’s,” Michael Andretti said. “Marco has constantly had the braveness to chart his have route and I am proud of the profession he is designed for himself and the man or woman he is come to be. I know this determination wasn’t uncomplicated.”

Each father and son pressured Andretti is not retiring.

Marco Andretti said he hoped to contend in sports car or truck racing alongside his cousin, Jarett, and marquee functions this sort of as the Rolex 24 at Daytona, twelve Hrs of Sebring and Le Mans.

“I absolutely am likely to hold driving,” he said. “I continue to have a deep passion for it and have unfinished small business to choose treatment of and some bins that I want to examine ahead of I think about retiring as a driver.

“I continue to be really hungry to get the Indy 500. It is our most significant stage and the position that I sense I provide the most to the desk as a driver.”

Andretti as a rookie was passed though main on the final straight by winner Sam Hornish Jr. in his 2006 Indy 500 debut. He completed second that calendar year, his finest finish in fifteen races. He was 3rd in 2010 and 2014.