They say that for Formula 1 to be a truly global sport, it must have a round of the World Championship in the United States. If you apply the same logic to the line-up on the grid, then F1 also needs an American driver. In Scott Speed, 2006 has seen the first Grand Prix racer from the States for 13 years. Which makes it timely to reflect on his predecessor Michael Andretti, the son of the great Mario and a US racing legend in his own right, who incidentally drove 13 races for McLaren in 1993, a baker's dozen that most regard as being nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. With a podium 3rd place finish in his final race before he escaped from Grand Prix racing in a mixture of relief, unfulfilled expectations, and gravel-strewn humiliation, Michael is of course ineligible for a full profile on this website. Not that that has stopped him from being the most submitted driver in this site's history. In short, how could a man who came to F1 with a fearsome reputation of being a late-braking racer's racer, with 27 Indycar wins to his name and a dominant 1991 CART championship under his belt, fail so miserably in F1. Quite simply, what went wrong?

The early 1990s were a period of unprecedented F1 interest in North American drivers. CART was in its big-name heyday, and apart from just Andretti, Williams showed interest in Al Unser, Jr. and Benetton in Paul Tracy. There always seemed an air of destiny, however, that Michael would follow in his father's footsteps and progress to F1, whereas 'Little Al' or Tracy basically did not have Grand Prix racing in their bloodlines. Mario also had the contacts in F1 to make it happen, and in Tyler Alexander at McLaren, Michael had a family friend who could provide a link to one of the best teams around.

Early 1991 sees Michael in a McLaren. He would become CART Champion that year.

That was all the F1 experience Michael had until September 1992, when Dennis flew to Detroit to meet him. Ron was in a quandary; he was losing Honda engines at the end of the year, as well as Gerhard Berger to Ferrari. In addition, it was clear that Senna had eyes for Williams, which was in the process of destroying all comers that year. Andretti, meanwhile, had not managed to defend his 1991 CART crown, but he was a consistent enough performer to show that he was the real deal. Dennis came away having signed him for 1993, with an option for two further years.

For Michael, it seemed like an opportunity to jump into F1 in competitive machinery and be in the fight for points, podiums and victories straight away. But in a short space of time, a sequence of events and decisions would stack the odds firmly against him. In October 1992, the FIA ruled that for the following year, in-season testing would be limited to a track in the team's home country. There would also be a limit to the number of tyres available during race weekends, as well as limits to the number of practice laps a driver could do. Learning tracks would be a greater challenge than first thought.

Andretti in December 1992 at Barcelona, testing the McLaren Honda V12s, soon to become McLaren Ford V8s.

The electronics were also shaping up to be a source of concern. Not only did Michael have to get used to the concepts of active suspension, traction control and semi-automatic gearboxes, features completely foreign someone used to passively-suspended Lolas with manual gearshifts, but McLaren also chose to honour their long-standing relationship with TAG rather than change to Ford's own electronics systems. Getting the TAG software to synchronise properly with the Ford V8 would be an ongoing issue throughout the season.

Not only was the uncertainty unsettling, but in hindsight it created a highly-charged, highly-competitive atmosphere within the team that did Michael no favours. If Senna did not race, then Andretti would be up against a hard-charging talent desperate to prove himself in a leading car. But as it turned out, Ayrton chose to compete and Andretti found himself paired with the very best in the business. That also meant Hakkinen remained lurking in the background, and if Michael faltered in any way, there was a ready-made replacement. The pressure was on.

On debut at Kyalami. It was not a happy weekend, and ended in a collision with Derek Warwick. From Motorpics.co.za.

The answer was probably a mixture of the two. On being asked about where he would live soon after he was signed, he said, "Hopefully, I'll be able to do it without living [in Europe]. I think it's very important to have a home to go home to." Mario had managed to commute during much of his F1 career, so why couldn't Michael do the same? Mario supported his son's choice: "All he needs is one or two tests. He doesn't need to grind away. Michael's not a test driver like some of those other guys, you know, there to do the donkey testing. He's there to go for it."

Michael made it clear that, if the team wanted him to test, he was a phone call and a six-hour flight away. That, he thought, was commitment to the cause. In the eyes of the team and its mechanics though, a six-hour flight and accompanying jetlag was very different to someone who was half an hour's drive away, and who would drop in at the factory from time to time. That, they thought, was commitment and team spirit. Michael dropping in on race weekends was akin to arrogance. Alexander told Michael that he should live in England and visit the factory a few times a week.

Andretti at Interglago - his race would last barely one corner as he was catapulted into the barriers and taken to hospital.

Perhaps it was not only just a case of Sandy being over-anxious for her husband, but also a fact that she liked the limelight herself. Her outfits, more suited to a day at the Kentucky Derby than the F1 pits, attracted disdain. Despite her eventual divorce from Michael, the way she swooned over son Marco in front of the media scrum after he came within metres of winning the Indy 500 as a rookie perhaps gives an insight into her personality. Legend has it that Dennis especially employed someone to take her shopping to get her out of the way on race weekends.

The semi-automatic gearbox then played up as the lights turned green, leaving Andretti as one of three cars left stranded on the line. Eventually his crew got him going a lap down, and although a disastrous way to start one's F1 career, at least it was a chance to explore the car and set some fast laps with no pressure. But after four laps, a concertina effect saw Michael hit the back of Derek Warwick's Footwork, knocking off his front-left wheel and suspension. Even then, it could all be cast aside as simply a troubled weekend to forget, with a fresh start at the next race in Brazil.

The jewel in the crown of F1: Monaco. Michael had an interesting weekend, including a contretemps with Fabrizio Barbazza.

By the time he did this, he was swamped by Karl Wendlinger's Sauber and Berger's fast-starting Ferrari. Wendlinger starting cutting across Andretti's bows, forcing the McLaren to the right into Berger's path. Clipped into a spin by the Ferrari, Michael hit the tyre barrier, the inertia launching the car straight up into the air where it gyrated wildly and almost flipped before landing heavily the right way up. Andretti was taken by helicopter to hospital for observations before being cleared. It had again been more a case of bad luck than bad management, but that pressure was starting to mount.

Three races down, four racing laps completed, and very quickly the raw lack of results overshadowed whether or not things were entirely his fault, particularly when Senna had won two of the first three races and was leading the championship. Perceptions are reality, and this was the time when Andretti needed to be seen to be getting things right. Mechanical and especially electronic software problems that pitched him into spins were attributed to driving errors. The fly-in, fly-out approach then only heightened the sense amongst increasingly-jaundiced crew and critics that he wasn't trying hard enough.

Andretti at Montreal attempts to un-lap himself from Johnny Herbert in the Lotus.

The European press, always keen to stereotypically take a bite out of an American, were having a field day. In Spain, despite an oversteering car that he qualified over 1.5s slower than Senna, Andretti brought it home in a lapped 5th to record his first points. But it did not stop crazy rumours from circulating that the equally-underperforming Riccardo Patrese at Benetton would either retire or be fired, Nigel Mansell would return from CART to join Benetton, Andretti would resume his seat at Newman-Haas, and Hakkinen would take his race seat at McLaren!

There he hit Fabrizio Barbazza's Minardi at Loew's Hairpin, and the pit stop to change his front wing put him a lap down instantaneously. No-one cared that from there his race pace was solid and he climbed to 8th, the fact was that Senna had won again and Andretti had failed to score again. Likewise in Canada, where a difficult qualifying for the entire McLaren team saw Michael qualify 12th, only half a second behind Ayrton in 8th. In the warm-up, Andretti's alternator failed, and then a flat starter battery on the warm-up lap cost him three laps at the start. An anonymous 14th kept the critics on his back.

A potential 2nd place in Hungary went begging thanks to a throttle failure.

Once again, the damage was done. A storming drive up to a points-paying 6th, with the 7th fastest lap of the race and some excellent cornering speed that was more reminiscent of the CART champion he was, made little positive impression. The fact that in follow-up testing at Magny-Cours he then went 2.5s faster than he had during the race weekend, and was only a tenth off Senna, also went unnoticed. With a higher-specification pneumatic valve engine from Ford at Silverstone, no-one remembers that he dropped four places on the grid when he encountered rain on his quick lap.

On lap four he clashed with Berger yet again, this time bending his steering arm and putting him out. Dennis summed it up by saying, "Michael made another mistake", which may be true, but was it not fair to also say that had his MP4/8 been reliable in practice then Andretti may not have been battling with Berger at all? Likewise, from 11th on the grid in Hungary he had bolted up to 6th in the early laps, and was comfortably holding off Michael Schumacher who was recovering from a spin when his fly-by-wire throttle failed. In the final reckoning, with other retirements, 2nd was there for his taking.

When Andretti arrived at Monza, it was clear this would be his final GP. And he made the most of it...

Spa was little better. Despite getting the Series VIII HB engine from Ford, his difficulties coming to grips with this daunting track left him 14th on the grid, and when he stopped for tyres, another electronics glitch cut his engine out when he chose neutral, costing him 30 seconds and leaving him a lapped 8th at the end. Then in Andretti's last hurrah at Monza, he started 9th after yet another troubled practice, spun on lap two at the Roggia chicane, and after stopping for new tyres and to clear the grass from his radiators, he resumed in 20th.

So how does one fairly evaluate Andretti's 1993 season? Any even-handed analysis must start with the machinery and opportunities at his disposal. The McLaren MP4/8 with the underpowered customer Ford engine was not a bad package, but it was no consistent world-beater. Add to that poor electronic reliability, especially on Michael's car, and the lack of testing and practice allowed by the regulators, and it was not uncommon to hear the American saying even after qualifying that he was still learning the circuit. It was hardly possible for Andretti to extract the maximum from the car, let alone transcend it.

A great way to go out - a 3rd place podium finish at Monza, alongside Jean Alesi (left) and winner Damon Hill (centre).

But it was in how he responded to all this that did him no favours. His refusal to relocate even in the face of adversity created the impression, rightly or wrongly, that here was a man so proud, so self-confident that he felt he could just saunter in and get on the pace, but when it was clear that he couldn't, he made no perceivable effort to change, to work harder with the team. If one makes his own luck in F1, Andretti did not help his own cause. Invariably, more glitches, more mistakes would follow. To say that something was a vicious cycle is a cliché, but it certainly applied here.