“Before COVID, at least he was getting out, doing stuff he liked, and then he lost all his endorsements and he was just sitting at home and he’s there by himself. And when all the racetracks were closed, his world became very, very small. There is no bigger star at a racetrack than Mario Andretti, the only driver to win the Formula One championship, the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500. It came about six weeks before the pandemic brought the world to a standstill and Andretti suddenly had nowhere to go. His beloved nephew John Andretti lost his three-year fight with colon cancer in early 2020, a death that shook the family. His sister and his wife died months apart in 2018 and maybe those back-to-back losses, and the hardness toward death that is inherent to racers accustomed to losing fellow competitors, should have prepared Andretti for 2020.īut the blows were just too deep. One of the greatest racers of all time is struggling, not unlike so many people around the world during this pandemic that has devastated families and claimed more than 3 million lives. Mario Andretti is loneliest at night, when he’s home alone in his sprawling Pennsylvania mansion, and there’s no one to talk to but Gonzo, his 34-year-old Amazon parrot. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

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