![\"COTA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/XPB_1378181_HiRes.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA sign at the newly named Mario Andretti corner, with a glaring mistake omitting a great American F1 driver. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA sign at the newly named Mario Andretti corner, with a glaring mistake omitting a great American F1 driver. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n
Turn 20, a sharp left-hand bend that leads onto the main straight before the uphill climb to Turn 1, is now officially known as \u2018The Andretti\u2019.<\/p>\n
The naming ceremony took place on Thursday, with Andretti, 82, in attendance.<\/p>\n
The Italian-born American, who remains the most recent U.S. driver to win the F1 World Championship, was also the first driver to complete a lap of COTA ahead of its inaugural race in 2012.<\/p>\n
Over his career spanning five decades, Andretti claimed 111 victories across multiple disciplines including Formula 1, IndyCar, NASCAR, and the World Sportscar Championship, earning accolades such as Driver of the Century by the Associated Press in 2000.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Andretti\u201d sits alongside key vantage points for fans, with the Main Grandstand and paddock bordering the corner.<\/p>\n
The turn provides a technical challenge for drivers, while offering spectators a view of high-speed action heading onto the straight.<\/p>\n
Andretti attended the ceremony shortly after completing a demonstration run in a 2013 McLaren MP4-28 at Laguna Seca, arranged by McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown.<\/p>\n
Though initially scheduled to perform demo laps at COTA itself, the event at Laguna Seca allowed the 82-year-old to get behind the wheel of modern F1 machinery before heading to Austin for the official corner naming.<\/p>\n
A plaque unveiled for the corner appears to have incorrectly referred to Andretti as \u2018the only American to win the Formula One World Championship,\u2019 overlooking Phil Hill, who won the title in 1961.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sign at the newly named Mario Andretti corner, with a glaring mistake omitting a great American F1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,129598,817,813,816,134807,85],"class_list":["post-221630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-circuit-of-the-americas","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-mario-andretti","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}