Mario Andretti says that "too conservative" strategy cost Marco at Pocono on Sunday

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Mario Andretti, like a lot of people, thoroughly enjoyed IndyCar's return to Pocono Raceway this past weekend.

Well, he enjoyed everything but the latter part of Sunday's Pocono IndyCar 400.

He was in the pit of his grandson Marco Andretti and experienced first-hand the disappointment along with the rest of the team as Marco's car, the fastest of any all weekend, had to reduce speed to conserve fuel over the final quarter of the race.

Marco led 88 laps, but had to surrender the lead on lap 122 of the 160-lap race and was never in contention from that point.

"I hate to point fingers, but the team just played it way, way too conservative ... they just played it too safe," Mario said on Monday while en route to Canada. "He was leading and they brought him in early [for fuel] to be safe. And then the yellow [caution flag for the incident on pit road between Ryan Hunter-Reay and Takuma Sato] couldn't have come at the worst time because the guys running behind him were able to benefit and conserve fuel for an extra three or four laps. They were golden with their fuel the rest of the way and Marco was shy by about three or four gallons."

Mario said that over the final 40 laps or so, Marco was forced to drive "half-throttle" to conserve fuel unless he got another caution, which never came.

"He was relegated to what he had and they were asking him to make incredible mileage and he was screaming and saying he didn't have enough [fuel] to hold his posiition," Mario said. "He had a car capable of winning, but you can't win when you're relegated to driving at half-throttle. It was the worst scenario he could have had. My heart really went out to him. He, as a driver, did everything he could to win. But all of the elements played against him. He had a great car. He just wasn't allowed to drive it enough to win."

Mario said that Marco's car was so good that "in retrospect, they could have pulled him back in for more fuel at the end of the caution and let him go to the back of the field and let him drive through it. He could have driven right through the field and still won the race. Of course, that would have been a much bigger risk. At the point, they were thinking that we're sure we're going to get another yellow [flag] before the end of the race, but a yellow never came."

Mario said Marco was disappointed. They exchanged text messages.

"How many times do you go into a race knowing that you have a car that's going to win unless something mechanical happens?" Mario said. "It was the strategy. They just played it too safe."