America may never have another F1 champion

Mario Andretti was America's last F1 champion in 1978, a feat that may never be repeated due to the bias in Europe

It's been 38 years since Formula One had an American race winner or world champion. Jimmy Carter was president, Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys were Super Bowl champions and Pete Rose had just recorded his 3,000th major league hit writes Nate Saunders of ESPN.

The driver who claimed both was Mario Andretti, winning the 1978 world championship with the iconic Lotus 79. He became the second American after Phil Hill to claim the F1 title, though his triumph — and final victory at that year's Dutch Grand Prix — precipitated a nearly four-decade long drought for drivers from his country.

There are several tragic parallels between Andretti and Hill's championships. Both men wrapped up their championships at Monza after their teammates suffered fatal accidents. For Andretti, the loss of Ronnie Peterson has always left a cloud over his finest achievement.

"Of course, it's bittersweet," Andretti tells ESPN about the memory of 1978. "It could have been the happiest day of my career but I couldn't celebrate, I lost a friend and teammate, one of the best teammates I ever had."

That day in Italy should have been the realization of a life's ambition at the place the dream began 24 years earlier. As a youngster living in Italy, Andretti had become transfixed on motorsport in 1954 after he and his brother Aldo watched Alberto Ascari beat Juan Manuel Fangio at the 1954 Italian Grand Prix, just months before his family journeyed the Atlantic for a new life in the United States.

Andretti arrived in America dreaming of being Dan Gurney in a Ferrari. But in America, all paths led elsewhere. In his new country Andretti split duties between midget racing, NASCAR and national championship racing, making part-time appearances in F1 between 1968 and 1972. He claimed pole on his F1 debut, the 1968 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.

"Let's put it this way," Andretti says. "If that had been happening today I would have got a lot more attention than back in the '70s. We had a press following and there was a certain appreciation but no-one really, but no-one realized what I was really going through and how I was mixing up the disciplines. At the beginning of the '70s I was going from a dirt track to a Formula One, doing that and Monza in the same weekend!

"If I'd been doing that today I would have got a bit more appreciation for what I was doing! I always had such tremendous passion for all of it, but Formula One was always in the back of my mind and a very strong goal for me because that's where it all started in my mind. I was just very thankful that I was at least satisfy that part of my career, even though I started a little bit late on a full-time basis. I consider that time in F1 very precious."

Though the sanctioning bodies have now changed, Andretti thinks the mindset in North American racing has remained the same.

"Here in the U.S. you have two major disciplines, IndyCar and NASCAR, where a driver can have a full career and be satisfied pretty much by staying here. You probably don't need a passport! It's probably the only country on the planet that has disciplines that are that strong as far as their own country.

Andretti in the Vels-Parnelli in 1975 leading on the streets of Montujich before crashing

"The dream across the board globally for a racing driver is to be a Formula One driver. I don't think that's necessarily the case here. The few that have that ambition I think are being totally overlooked by the Formula One contingent. It's always been particularly difficult to break through that.

"I look back at my case, my passion for the sport began when I was first living in Italy: It was Formula One, Formula One, Formula One for me. When I came here I started racing locally and built a reputation, but my idea was still to somehow get my career to Formula One.

"I had that passion that was with me from the beginning, so even in Formula One I had opportunities early on in my career but things were going so well for me here that I could just abandon it. Especially because even in those days, financially Formula One was not very rewarding. That was my case."

Before committing to F1 full time midway through the '70s, Andretti claimed the Daytona 500 (1967) and Indy 500 (1969). He remains the only man to win those two events and the F1 world championship. Having grown restless at switching disciplines, Andretti finally completed a full season of F1 with American outfit Parnelli in 1975. He then accepted an offer to drive for Colin Chapman's Lotus team when Parnelli folded early in 1976, a successful partnership that would eventually lead to a world championship.

Though he saw many of his American counterparts stay home to race nationally, he is still baffled by the limited amount of home-grown drivers who enjoyed major success in the pinnacle of motor racing.

"I'm only the second guy to come away with a championship, yet look how much racing America has to offer. But only two of us have done it. I think Dan Gurney, if he hadn't been playing around with his own cars and maybe gone to a Lotus or a more established team he would have been a champion.

Michael Andretti in the McLaren in 1993 – F1 changed the rules just that year to ensure he failed – recall Ecclestone was worried CART was showing up F1 so Bernie had the rules changed to make sure he would look bad

"But there's only two of us and I'm the only one standing, which seems odd for a country that has so much to offer here, but that's the case."

After Andretti, success for American drivers in F1 was hard to come by. Eddie Cheever, who debuted in 1978, failed to win a race in 132 attempts between then and 1989. Nine years later, Cheever would win the Indy 500 back in America.

The next great hope was another Andretti: Mario's son Michael, CART champion two years prior, joined McLaren in 1993. His name and success across the pond meant instant success was expected at a team which had dominated the late 1980s and early 1990s. But it was a team in decline. The iconic red and white livery remained but the Honda engines did not, having been replaced by Ford.