Yep. When aked about whether he'd like to drive in Formula One, Marco Andretti came out with this gem, claiming that he is well aware of the sort of underhand tactics that come as part of a drive in Formula One.

There is no denying that Formula One is far from squeaky clean. You only have to look at last years Stepney-gate fiasco between McLaren and Ferrari and the fighting between the teams at the back of the grid to try and get each other kicked out due to percieved idea that customer cars are illegal (Note: they're not, but soon will be). However, trying underhand back-stabbing to try and get one over on your competitors in a multi-million pound sport is nothing new. I could cite hundreds of cheating cases that would prove that for just about every sport going, but sabataging your own team. Now even for Formula One that seems a bit extreme.

The story goes like this. Micheal Andretti was brought over to F1 by McLaren in 1993 after 10 years in CART and a place as a runner up in the 1992 Championship. At the time McLaren were one of the big teams, having finished second in the constructors title to the dominant Williams team whose drivers took 1st and 2nd in that years drivers championship. To follow up they paired up multi-world champion Aryton Senna with Michael Andretti.

One thing about the following season is certain. Senna finished second in the drivers race and Andretti garnered only 7 points, and was replaced by a yound Finn called Mika Hakkinen for the final three races of the season.

Conventional wisdom is, like many drivers who have moved quickly from one form of racing to another, that Andretti struggled to come to terms with the differences in the Indycar's he was familiar with and the Formula One cars. Even in 1993 Formula One cars were massively spohisticated with a dazzling array of electrics and driver aids.

However, this is where Marco's opinion comes in, did McLaren use these electonics to sabotage his dad. Micheal did have a shocker, retiring in 7 out of his 13 races. Marco insists that the sabotage only stopped when Senna himself, who apparently knew what was going on, stepped in.  Admitedly, Michael's performance picks up. An 8th in Belgium, before at podium in his final race at Monza. Had Senna got the team to stop doing what ever skull-duggering they were up to, or was the Monza result because of the high attrition rate that day - with 6 out of the 10 drivers eventually to finish above Andretti in championship retiring and champion Alain Prost coming home 12th.

Either way the damage was done. Andretti was fired before the last three races of the season, to be replaced by Hakkinen, who had been the team's test driver and was (according to Marco) going to be paid far less. Andretti went back to the US and was never heard of again in F1.

McLaren are being predictably tight lipped about the whole thing, and any record of Senna's part in the story was lost into the wall at Tamberello corner in 1994. Even Michael has stayed silent so far.

What to make of it. The Truth? A young man taking advantage of a media opportunity the week before his biggest race of the year? A Formula One question that stirred the memories of a bedtime story that was told to a 6-year-old by his dad when he couldn't find "The Little Engine That Could".

My guess is a combination of the last two.