EMERSON FITTIPALDI

'Emerson Fittipaldi' (born December 12, 1946, São Paulo, Brazil) is a highly successful open-wheel racing series driver Brazilian, of Italian origins, winning world championships in both Formula One and CART, and the Indianapolis 500 twice.

Contents

Family

Career history

Formula One

CART

Indy 500 results

Award

Complete F1 Results

See also

References

Family

Emerson Fittipaldi is the youngest son of prominent Brazilian motorsports journalist and radio commentator Wilson Fittipaldi Sr and his wife Juzy. He was named after American author and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Both his parents had raced production cars shortly after the Second World War and Wilson Sr was also responsible for the first Mil Milhas race in 1956, in São Paulo, having been inspired by the 1949 Italian Mille Miglia. Emerson unsurprisingly became a keen motorsports enthusiast from an early age.
Emerson Fittipaldi is the younger brother of former Formula One driver and team owner Wilson Fittipaldi. He is the uncle of former CART, Formula One and NASCAR driver Christian Fittipaldi. He was married to Maria Helena from 1970 to 1982. They had three children together, Juliana, Jayson and Tatiana. He was married again, to Teresa, in the mid 1980s. They have one daughter, Joana, and a son, Luca.
In his youth in Brazil, Emerson was known as 'Rato' - mouse, which contrasts with 'Tigrão' - big tiger - for his brother. By the end of his career he was most commonly known as 'Emmo' in the United States and the UK.
In September 1997, Fittipaldi, while recovering from injuries in a crash at Michigan International Speedway a year earlier, was flying his private plane across his orange tree farm estate in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The plane lost power and plunged 300 feet to the ground. He suffered serious back injuries. He would recover, and became a born again Christian.

Career history

Aged 14 Fittipaldi was racing motorcycles, and aged 16 hydrofoils. While racing one day, his brother Wilson took off at 70mph and landed upside down - they both decided that although he had survived, they would no longer race hydrofoils and moved onto to racing karts.^[1]
The pair moved to racing Formula Vees, and built up a company with their parents. In his second season in single-seaters, Fittipaldi won the Brazilian Formula Vee title at 21 years old. He left for Europe in 1969, with the ambition to convince team owners of his talent in three months. After some podiums and his first victories in Formula Ford, Fittipaldi was engaged by the Jim Russell Driving School Formula Three team.

Formula One

Fittipaldi continued to win, drawing the attention of Colin Chapman, who was looking for a driver to support the Austrian Jochen Rindt in the 1970 Formula One season. The team's No 3 driver, he ended up becoming No 1 driver after Rindt was killed at Monza and John Miles left the team. Thrust into the spotlight by leading F1's top team, he proved up to the task and won for Lotus in its first race post-Rindt.
In his first full year as Lotus' lead driver in 1971, Fittipaldi finished sixth in the drivers' championship as the team further developed the previous season's Lotus 72. Armed with what was arguably the greatest Formula one design of all time, the Lotus 72D, Fittipaldi proved unstoppable in 1972 as he won five of 11 races and easily won the F1 Drivers' Championship from Jackie Stewart by 16 points. At 25 he was then the youngest champion in F1 history (his record was eventually topped by 24 year-old Fernando Alonso). It appeared he might do it again in 1973. But after three wins from four attempts with the 72D, he began to struggle in the new 72E that was unveiled mid-year. It resulted in the reverse of the previous year, Stewart beating Fittipaldi for the Drivers Championship by 16 points; though the combination of the 72D and E's points earnings were enough to gain Team Lotus the 1973 F1 Manufacturers Championship.
Fittipaldi left Lotus to sign with the promising McLaren team. Driving the highly efficient McLaren M23, he had three victories in 1974, reached the podium four other times, and beat out Clay Regazzoni in a close battle for his second championship. The following season, he notched two more victories and four other podiums, but was second to a dominant Niki Lauda. However, at the height of his F1 success, Fittipaldi shocked everyone by leaving McLaren to race for older brother Wilson Fittipaldi's Copersucar-sponsored Fittipaldi Automotive team.
It was hardly a world class organization and the double champion regularly struggled, even failing to qualify for three races in his time there. Despite this, he remained with the team for five seasons but only managed a best finish of second. Emerson Fittipaldi decided to retire from racing at the end of 1980. He has since said that his last two years in Formula One were very unhappy: ''"I was too involved in the problems of trying to make the team work, and I neglected my marriage and my personal life"'',^[2] although at the time he cited the deaths of many of his colleagues as his reason.^[3] He was only 33, but had been racing in Formula One for a decade. He had failed to finish seven of the last ten races that year and had several times been outpaced by his Finnish teammate Keke Rosberg (a future champion himself). He moved into the management of the team^[4] alongside his brother. The team struggled on for another two years with minimal sponsorship, going into receivership at the end of 1982.

CART

After leaving F1 in 1980, Fittipaldi took time out from major racing for four years, returning in 1984 in CART. The 38-year old spent his first season acclimatising to IndyCars, driving for two teams before joining Patrick Racing as an injury replacement. He stayed five years with the team, recording six victories and solid finishes in the overall standings. In 1989 he had five wins and finished in the top five in every race he completed, giving him a CART championship. Among his wins was a dominant performance in the Indianapolis 500 where he led 158 of 200 laps and won by two laps, but only after a dramatic duel with Al Unser, Jr. in the closing laps of the race. With both drivers a commanding six laps ahead of third place Raul Boesel, Unser ran down Fittipaldi after a late-race restart and passed him for the lead on lap 196. Three laps later, Fittipaldi used lap traffic to his advantage to pull alongside Unser on the backstretch. Neither driver would give way, and the two cars touched wheels as they went through turn three side by side. Unser's car spun out of control to hit the outside wall, while Fittipaldi was able to maintain sufficient control to keep his car moving straight. In spite of the altercation, Unser saluted Fittipaldi from the infield with a double thumbs-up sign as he brought his car through turns three and four on the subsequent caution-slowed final lap.
Roger Penske hired Emmo for his racing team in 1990 and he continued to be among the top drivers in CART, winning a race with Penske for six straight years. In 1993 he added a second Indianapolis 500 victory by taking the lead from defending Formula One World Champion Nigel Mansell on lap 185 and holding it for the remainder, although the race was more well known for him breaking Indy victory lane tradition when he drank a celebratory bottle of orange juice instead of the traditional bottle of milk, this was due to the fact that Emmo owned several orange farms and was the second of only two people not to drink the milk since the tradition was started in 1933.
Despite approaching 50, he was still with Champ Car in 1996 when an injury at the Michigan International Speedway ended his career. Fittipaldi did not return to the series as a driver after the injury but in 2003 he made a return to Champcars as a team owner.
Fittipaldi is currently acting as team principal for the Brazilian A1 GP entry.
In 2005 Emerson made a surprise return to competitive racing in the Grand Prix Masters event held at Kyalami in South Africa, finishing second behind former CART sparring partner Nigel Mansell.

Indy 500 results

Year	Chassis	Engine	Start	Finish
1984	March	Cosworth	23rd	32nd
1985	March	Cosworth	5th	13th
1986	March	Cosworth	11th	7th
1987	March	Chevrolet	33rd	16th
1988	March	Chevrolet	8th	2nd
1989	Penske	Chevrolet	3rd	'1st'
1990	Penske	Chevrolet	'1st'	3rd
1991	Penske	Chevrolet	15th	11th
1992	Penske	Chevrolet	11th	24th
1993	Penske	Chevrolet	9th	'1st'
1994	Penske	Ilmor-Mercedes	3rd	17th
1995	Lola	Ilmor-Mercedes	Failed to Qualify

Award

He was inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2001.

Complete F1 Results

() (Races in 'bold' indicate pole position)

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Team	WDC	Points
1970	Lotus	RSA	ESP	MON	BEL	NED	FRA	GBR 8	GER 4	AUT 15	ITA DNS	CAN	USA 1	MEX Ret					Lotus	10th	12
1971	Lotus	RSA Ret	ESP Ret	MON 5	NED	FRA 3	GBR 3	GER Ret	AUT 2	ITA 8	CAN 7	USA NC							Lotus	6th	16
1972	Lotus	ARG Ret	RSA 2	ESP 1	'MON' 3	'BEL' 1	FRA 2	GBR 1	GER ret	'AUT' 1	ITA 1	CAN 11	USA Ret						Lotus	'1st'	'61'
1973	Lotus	ARG 1	BRA 1	RSA 3	ESP 1	BEL 3	MON 2	SWE 12	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	NED Ret	GER 6	'AUT' Ret	ITA 2	CAN 2	USA 6			Lotus	'2nd'	'55'
1974	McLaren	ARG 10	'BRA' 1	RSA 7	ESP 3	BEL 1	MON 5	SWE 4	NED 3	FRA Ret	GBR 2	GER Ret	AUT Ret	ITA 2	'CAN' 1	USA 4			McLaren	'1st'	'55'
1975	McLaren	ARG 1	BRA 2	RSA NC	ESP DNS	MON 2	BEL 7	SWE 8	NED Ret	FRA 4	GBR 1	GER Ret	AUT 9	ITA 2	USA 2				McLaren	'2nd'	'45'
1976	Fittipaldi	BRA 13	RSA 17	USW 6	ESP Ret	BEL DNQ	MON 6	SWE Ret	FRA Ret	GBR 6	GER 13	AUT Ret	NED Ret	ITA 15	CAN Ret	USA 9	JPN WD		Fittipaldi	17th	3
1977	Fittipaldi	ARG 4	BRA 4	RSA 10	USW 5	ESP 14	MON Ret	BEL Ret	SWE 18	FRA 11	GBR Ret	GER DNQ	AUT 11	NED 4	ITA DNQ	USA 13	CAN Ret	JPN	Fittipaldi	12th	11
1978	Fittipaldi	ARG 9	BRA 2	RSA Ret	USW 8	MON 9	BEL Ret	ESP Ret	SWE 6	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER 4	AUT 4	NED 5	ITA 8	USA 5	CAN Ret		Fittipaldi	10th	17
1979	Fittipaldi	ARG 6	BRA 11	RSA 13	USW Ret	ESP 11	BEL 9	MON Ret	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER Ret	AUT Ret	NED Ret	ITA 8	CAN 8	USA 7			Fittipaldi	21st	1
1980	Fittipaldi	ARG NC	BRA 15	RSA 8	USW 3	BEL Ret	MON 6	FRA Ret	GBR 12	GER Ret	AUT 11	NED Ret	ITA Ret	CAN Ret	USA Ret				Fittipaldi	15th	5

★ Also: Winner of the 1972 BRDC International Trophy

See also

★ Ayrton Senna and Nelson Piquet - Formula One three time world champions

★ Mario Andretti, Nigel Mansell and Jacques Villeneuve - Other Formula One and CART champions.

★ Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Mario Andretti, and Jacques Villeneuve - Other Formula One and Indianapolis 500 champions.

★ Jody Scheckter and Michael Schumacher - Other Formula One champions with brothers racing in the series.

References

1. On the Move: Emerson Fittipaldi Sunday Times - August 26, 2007
2. Ludvigsen, Karl (2002) 'Emerson Fittipaldi' p.136 Haynes Group. ISBN 1-85960-837-X
3. Fittipaldi to Retire (December 12 1980) ''The Times'' page 20
4. ''Emerson Fittipaldi'' 8w.forix.com Retrieved 28 February 2006