Mario Andretti won the 1969 Indy 500 on May 30 in a Brawner Hawk that was only his backup car. He led 116 of the 200 laps. That race remains the only Indianapolis 500 win by an Andretti driver.
Andretti came to Indianapolis that May with a new Lotus. Instead, he raced a two-year-old Hawk that the team prepared in about a day and a half.
Here is the car, the race and the long wait that followed for the rest of the family.
The backup Brawner Hawk
The Hawk was never meant to see the Brickyard that year, according to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. It had a winning record, though. The car had won at Hanford, California, a couple of weeks earlier, he told SPEED SPORT.
The Smithsonian’s object record calls it the Brawner-Ford “Hawk” and dates the car to 1968. It lists Ford Motor Company, builder Clint Brawner and Garrett Corp. as its makers. The car measures 160 inches long and 73 inches wide, the record says.
Andretti raced it as the No. 2 STP Oil Treatment Brawner Hawk-Ford, IndyCar.com reports. At the time, Andy Granatelli owned the car. Before the race, the team also had to solve a cooling problem. As a result, it moved the radiator behind the seat, with air drawn in underneath, SPEED SPORT reports.
Front row for the 1969 Indy 500
Andretti qualified second, on the front row beside pole sitter A.J. Foyt. His speed came in just under 170 mph, the Air and Space Museum says. He was 29 years old, according to SPEED SPORT. Ahead of him lay 200 laps of the 2.5-mile oval, the magazine notes.
At first, the start went his way. Andretti led the first five laps, the museum notes. However, the car soon began running hot, and he fell back, the Smithsonian’s object record says.
116 laps out front
Later, he came back to lead 116 of the 200 laps, including the last one. Meanwhile, he nursed one stubborn problem. The crew could not change the right rear tire during pit stops, so that tire ran the full 500 miles, the museum says.
Andretti finished ahead of Dan Gurney and Bobby Unser, according to IndyCar.com. Then came the photo everyone remembers. Granatelli, known as “Mister 500,” kissed Andretti on the cheek in Victory Lane. Normally, the 500 Queen gives the winner that kiss, the museum explains.
“Crossing that finish line was just the greatest moment of my life,” Andretti told IndyCar.com for the race’s 50th anniversary.
One win for the whole family
The win came in a big season. Andretti won IndyCar titles in 1965, 1966, 1969 and 1984, the Associated Press reported in October 2025. He also won the 1967 Daytona 500 and the 1978 Formula 1 title. In fact, the AP says he remains the only driver to win Indy, the Daytona 500 and an F1 championship. His 52 IndyCar wins rank third all-time.
His range went beyond open-wheel racing, too. IndyCar.com lists sports car wins in the 24-hour race at Daytona and the 12-hour race at Sebring. Meanwhile, his Lotus 79 run to that crown is its own story, which we told in our piece on the ground-effect Lotus 79.
He never won at Indianapolis again. The 1969 race was his “one and only” Indy 500 victory, SPEED SPORT notes. Also, the so-called Andretti curse dates to 1970, the year after Mario gave the family its only Indy 500 win, the AP wrote.
By comparison, his son Michael won 42 IndyCar races but none at Indianapolis, the AP says. Michael has won the 500 five times as a team owner, though. Grandson Marco came closest. As a rookie in 2006, he led at the white flag before Sam Hornish Jr. passed him by .0635 of a second, IndyCar.com reports.
Marco made 20 straight Indy 500 starts from 2006 to 2025. Along the way, he collected eight top-10 finishes, five of them in the top four, and the 2020 pole, IndyCar.com says. Then he retired as a driver in October 2025. As a result, the 2026 race would have no Andretti in the field for the first time since 2005, the AP reported.
Where the winning Hawk lives now
STP and Granatelli gave the car to the Smithsonian after the race, SPEED SPORT says. The object record lists it as a “Gift of STP Corporation.” Andretti recalled that it stood on display for 27 years before it went into storage.
It came back out for the Air and Space Museum’s Nation of Speed exhibition, which opened on October 14, 2022. There, the Hawk sits in its red No. 2 livery, on loan from the National Museum of American History. Richard Petty’s 1984 Pontiac shares the exhibit, SPEED SPORT notes. So the car that won the 1969 Indy 500 is back where visitors can see it, in its red No. 2 livery.
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