Marco Andretti won’t run the total IndyCar schedule this season because the third-generation driver reprioritizes his racing profession.

Andretti will compete within the Indianapolis 500, the historic race his household has gained simply as soon as, and help Andretti Autosport with preseason testing and growth. He shall be in a automobile subsequent week testing in Sebring, Florida.

Past that, his schedule is open.

“Marco and I’ve mentioned this at size. I help and respect his determination to take a deal with different areas of life, and perhaps even different types of motorsport,” staff proprietor Michael Andretti stated Friday of his son.

Marco Andretti, 33, adopted his grandfather, father and cousins into IndyCar racing however has by no means discovered the identical success as others in his famed household. Mario Andretti, his grandfather, ranks second on IndyCar’s all-time win checklist with 52 victories, together with the 1969 Indy 500. Michael Andretti gained 42 races.

Marco has two profession victories in 15 seasons, his final in 2011. He gained the pole in August for the Indianapolis 500 however did not lead a lap and completed thirteenth.

He was twentieth within the remaining season standings, lowest of all full-time IndyCar drivers.

“I believe for any multigenerational athlete, it may be actually difficult to search out your personal floor and make your personal identify on prime of your loved ones’s,” Michael Andretti stated. “Marco has at all times had the braveness to chart his personal path, and I am pleased with the profession he is constructed for himself and the particular person he is change into. I do know this determination wasn’t straightforward.”

Each father and son confused that Andretti will not be retiring.

Marco stated he hoped to compete in sports activities automobile racing alongside his cousin Jarett and in marquee occasions such because the Rolex 24 at Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring and Le Mans.

“I positively am going to maintain driving,” he stated. “I nonetheless have a deep ardour for it and have unfinished enterprise to handle and a few packing containers that I wish to examine earlier than I contemplate retiring as a driver.

“I stay very hungry to win the Indy 500. It’s our largest stage and the place that I really feel I deliver probably the most to the desk as a driver.”

As a rookie in 2006, Andretti was handed whereas main on the ultimate straight by winner Sam Hornish Jr. in his Indy 500 debut. He completed second, his finest end in 15 races. He was third in 2010 and 2014.