F1 News & Gossip

F1 champion lied about his age to get a racing licence

Sheona Mountford Tuesday 17 February 2026 20:42

F1 champion Mario Andretti took a trip down memory lane and relived his early racing years, where he lied about his age for his licence.

The 1978 world champion is a legend of motorsport, not just in F1, but in American open-wheel racing, stock cars and endurance racing, winning across multiple different disciplines.

Andretti remains the only driver to win the Indy 500, Daytona 500 and the F1 world championship, alongside being a three-time winner of the 12 Hours of Sebring.

However, Andretti's racing career started in dirt track racing alongside his twin brother Aldo, shortly after moving to Nazareth, Pennsylvania from Istria (then controlled by Italy) in 1955. For their first car, they bought a Hudson Hornet which they built from patchwork parts, which was ready two years earlier than they anticipated.

But, when they were ready to race at the age of 19 there was one snag. In America, you couldn't race until you were 21.

How Mario Andretti raced underage

Speaking to Business of Speed, Andretti revealed that he and his brother persuaded a news reporter to change the birthdays on their driver's licences.

"We were illegal in the sense we were underage," Andretti said.

"You had to be 21 in those days to race professionally and we were 19. We starting building the car in 1957 and we thought we've got four years until 1961 to race and in two years we were done. And we said we're not going to wait.

"So we had to fudge our way through and the local editor of Nazareth Key, we befriended them through being at my uncle's gas station, we befriended a lot of people and we said 'you've got to do something with our drivers licence, the birth date'."

Andretti then revealed he bought two Salas Sports racing suits from Italy with his brother, so that when they arrived at their first race they would look like established racers.

They both fabricated a story about competing in junior categories back in Italy, a lie that persisted until he admitted it was made up in 2016.

F1 Mario Andretti