Talk:Mario Andretti

Italian-American?

Most articles describe him as Italian-American rather than simply American, including the F1 world champion quiz. --2A01:36D:1201:606:34CF:4034:684E:2E6 (talk) 10:55, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, he was born in Italy to Italian parents and had exclusively Italian nationality for the first few years of his life, before his family immigrated to the USA and he obtained US citizenship. By many definitions this certainly qualifies him as Italian-American. However, the form of words used in the lead to this article emphasizes that he is an Italian-born person who is now an American citizen, and not an American-born person of Italian heritage, which is the more common implication of the term "Italian-American". To my mind, simply calling him "Italian-American", while technically correct, actually obscures his true history. Pyrope 14:13, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Andretti Hairpin

I don't know when it was done, but it should be mentioned that the front hairpin at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca is named in his honor. Wolf O'Donnel (talk) 08:18, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

@Wolf O'Donnel: agreed, but I couldn't find a source... SSSB (talk) 11:19, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Replace / upgrade infobox to 'Infobox racing driver', instead of current (F1 driver box)...

... similar to implementation in J.P. Montoya article, so as to provide a more accurate overview of Andretti's extensive career - especially in Indycar, and other U.S. autoracing series ? --GeeTeeBee (talk) 19:51, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

@GeeTeeBee IndyCar and NASCAR infoboxes have been added. RegalZ8790 (talk) 00:08, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

GA concerns

I am concerned that this article no longer meets the good article criteria. Some of my concerns are outlined below:

• There are uncited statements, including entire paragraphs.
• There are many short, one sentence paragraphs, which are not recommended in MOS:LAYOUT. These should be merged together.
• IMDB is used as a citation multiple times, which is not receommended per WP:IMDB

Is anyone interested in addressing the above concerns, or should this go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 23:06, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Forwarded these concerns to WP:F1, I'll see if I can have a look over the next few days. MB2437 01:08, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

I removed the IMDb citations. Namelessposter (talk) 15:49, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Now updated early life, amateur career, and later life, including inline citations. There is still a ways to go to improve this article to what I feel is GA standard, as the racing career section is oddly formatted, but we're making progress. Namelessposter (talk) 21:09, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Tried formatting the sections to a more appropriate order with clearer linearity and career progression, obviously quite complex given he was competing in 3–4 series at a time. MB2437 01:50, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

@Z1720: I'm nearly done renovating the article, and I believe the only area that needs upgrades is the CART section. Since you raised your concerns, the article size has increased by about 64k bytes. Would you let me know if the non-CART sections of the article still meet the good article criteria? Thank you. Namelessposter (talk) 23:07, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

@Z1720 - The article is ready for your review. I hope I've resolved your concerns and that the article can keep GA status. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for giving a heads-up before GAR and for the opportunity to contribute. Namelessposter (talk) 03:47, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

• @Namelessposter: Thanks for doing this work. I have added some citation needed tags to places that still need citations. The "Results" section seems like it is uncited, so these will need some citations. The article is also quite large: I think it needs a copyedit to remove off-topic information so that it is more concise. I am happy to conduct this edit (and, as a mildly-interested editor, I can identify what information is not necessary to understand the prose) but editors in the past think that I cut too much. Whether I do the trims or someone else does, I think the article needs to ensure that it follows WP:TOOBIG and gets to about 9,000 words. Z1720 (talk) 14:23, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

  I'd argue the scope of his career warrants going beyond 9,000, per the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material on TOOBIG. Racing drivers with successful careers typically pass this length as we do not typically create Career of splits. MB2437 14:39, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

  I can do some initial trimming to see if we can avoid locking horns over this; I'm normally pretty willing to trim, and this is 11K words right now so it's not THAT far off. Namelessposter (talk) 15:19, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

• I realise WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not an argument, but Earth is under 9,000 words. I think the scope of this article is less than Earth. If information is really important, then it can be spun out. Z1720 (talk) 15:24, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

  Most of Wikipedia is a spin-off of the Earth article, but I get your point. However, I don't think you could realistically spin off anything in Andretti except the 3600 words on IndyCar (F1 is 3000). Namelessposter (talk) 15:40, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

• If I was trimming the article, I would start by stating facts more concisely and removing unnecessary detail. For example, "By the age of five, they were racing hand-crafted wooden cars through the steep streets of their hometown." could be "At age five, they were racing hand-crafted wooden cars through their hometown's streets." I would also delete information that is not directly related to Andretti. For example, the death years of his parents and birth/death year of his sister can be removed as these are not about Andretti directly (and if they are notable, can be placed in their own article). Z1720 (talk) 15:52, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Down to 9500 or so. @Mb2437, would you mind taking a look? FYI, IndyCar is about 3300 and F1 is 2500. Namelessposter (talk) 17:07, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

• Size looks good. Once the citation needed tags are addressed, I think this article is good to be marked as satisfactory. Z1720 (talk) 17:49, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

  I've filled in the cn tags, but is there anything else you had in mind? Namelessposter (talk) 18:27, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

• Nope, no more concerns. Z1720 (talk) 18:34, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

  Many thanks. Namelessposter (talk) 18:36, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Peer review

Mario Andretti

I've listed this article for peer review. It is a current Good Article, and I would like to nominate it for featured article status. I previously rewrote much of the article to forestall a good article reassessment. Article stability should not be a major concern moving forward, as Andretti has been retired for 30 years. With respect to importance, Andretti was named U.S. Driver of the Century in 2000. During his 35-year career, he was the 1978 F1 champion and a four-time IndyCar champion. (He is also a level-5 vital article, for what it's worth.) I'd appreciate any feedback you could give.

I'd like to front that @Z1720 requested cuts to the article's length during their pre-GAR review. I trimmed the article to about 9500 words, but I'd be happy to make more cuts. I would appreciate your thoughts on whether the early-life and Formula One sections (in particular) have too much detail. I do note that Andretti has arguably the most convoluted career in motorsports history, since he raced in so many categories and kept on going until his 50s, so we should expect his article to be longer than other elite drivers'.

In addition, I would specifically appreciate your thoughts on whether there are any noteworthy aspects of Andretti's life that aren't already in the article. Some Wikipedia driver articles have sections on a driver's public persona and/or driving style, but the article is already quite long.

Thanks, Namelessposter (talk) 19:47, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Comments from Z1720

Comments after a quick skim:

• Are the sources in the "Further reading" section of a good quality? These might be used to replace some of the lower-quality sources in the article. Typically, I do not recommend FAs have sources listed in a Further reading section: either they should be used as inline citations or removed.
• IMDB (ref 226) should not be used as a reference.
• Per MOS:ALLCAPS, source titles in the references should be in sentence case, not all caps
• "Italian-American heritage" This is a weird heading title for awards he has won. Per MOS:OVERSECTION I think this can be combined with the previous section.
• I have not checked yet, but after the cuts ensure that all information in the lead and infobox are in the article body and cited.

Hope this helps. Z1720 (talk) 20:01, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi there:

Thank you for the quick response! I will review the sources in the Further Reading section to see if anything can be swapped out. In the meantime I will leave them there, but I will remove them eventually.

I addressed your other points:

- Removed the stray IMDb reference and upgraded sourcing. Thanks for catching that! It eluded my CTRL+F.

- Changed all-caps source titles (will do another round of this and other source reformatting)

- Removed the Italian-American heading

Thanks again! Namelessposter (talk) 20:42, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

It turns out that the New York Public Library doesn't appear to have any of the books listed in the article. (!!!) Do you have an idea of where I might find them, short of buying them on Amazon? Namelessposter (talk) 22:30, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

• archive.org sometimes has copies that you can borrow. Google books sometimes lets you see previews of the books, which is better than nothing. WP:LIBRARY might also have copies in some of the databases. Z1720 (talk) 22:37, 30 January 2025 (UTC)