『Emerson Fittipaldi: Young gun, old masterFrom the archiveLotus 72: the most successful GP car ever?From the archiveThumbs up from Emerson Fittipaldi as he's reunited with title-winning Lotus 72』のカバーアート

Emerson Fittipaldi: Young gun, old masterFrom the archiveLotus 72: the most successful GP car ever?From the archiveThumbs up from Emerson Fittipaldi as he's reunited with title-winning Lotus 72

Emerson Fittipaldi: Young gun, old masterFrom the archiveLotus 72: the most successful GP car ever?From the archiveThumbs up from Emerson Fittipaldi as he's reunited with title-winning Lotus 72

無料で聴く

ポッドキャストの詳細を見る
Emerson Fittipaldi's language dates him, reminding you of a time in motor-racing more violent and dangerous, yet also gentler, less hard-nosed. 'Dice', for example, is a favourite word of his, yet it has fallen into disuse in contemporary Formula One. These days the drivers tend to refer to 'a fight' or 'a battle', which is ironic, really, when one considers that the potential consequences are so much less than in the days of the simple 'dice'.
"People ask me about my career," says Fittipaldi, "but, really, I had two completely separate careers. When I retired from F1, at the end of 1980, I thought I was retiring from driving for good. By 1984, though, there I was, on the grid at Indy."
His rise in motor-racing was swift. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1946, he made a name for himself in local karting and touring car events, and by 1969 had moved to England, where he so impressed in Formula Ford, and then F3, that by mid-1970 he had been invited by Colin Chapman to join the Lotus F1 team. In the German Grand Prix, only his second race, he finished a remarkable fourth in a Lotus 49.
This car was obsolete by now, and for the Italian GP, at Monza, Emerson was entered in a 72, Chapman's latest masterpiece, and the car with which team leader Jochen Rindt was on course for the world championship.
It was my first year in F1, and I quickly began to realise how fragile life was
"On the first day of qualifying, I crashed – and it was a huge accident. I just looked in the mirrors, because Jack Brabham was coming up behind me, and I missed my braking point – when I looked back, there was Ignazio Giunti's Ferrari in front of me. I went over the back of it, landed on the sand, went over the bank, and into the trees. The toughest thing, though, was to walk back to the pits and tell Colin what had happened.
"That car was going to be Jochen's for the following day, the Saturday. It was brand-new, and Colin had wanted me just to bed everything in, but now it was destroyed. He asked me what had happened, and I told him: I was 100 yards deeper into the comer than I should have been. We were running without wings, looking for better straight-line speed, and… I just locked up, and hit Giunti. I had to be honest, and say that I just screwed up. Then, in the afternoon Jochen had his accident."
In the final qualifying session, approaching Parabolica, the corner at which Fittipaldi had crashed the day before, Rindt's Lotus suffered a mechanical failure (almost certainly a broken front brake shaft), plunged off the road, and hit a guard-rail post at more than 150mph.
En route to hospital, he died.
For Emerson, not yet 24, and on the cusp of his F1 career, this was a massive blow. Rindt, as well as being his team-mate, was a man he had idolised.
"Emotionally, it was devastating," he says. "Very tough. I had breakfast with Jochen that morning in the Hotel de la Ville in Monza, and he invited me to drive for his F2 team the following year – he and Bernie Ecclestone were going to have this team between them. I said, 'Sure, I'd love to drive for you', and he said, 'OK, well, we'll do the contracts later' – and a few hours after that he was dead. It was my first year in F1, and I quickly began to realise how fragile life was – the odds on getting killed were so high back then. I'm so happy to have survived."
Naturally, the remaining Lotus cars were withdrawn from the race at Monza, and Chapman did not take his team to the next grand prix, in Canada, either. On the horizon loomed Watkins Glen.

"After Monza, there was a month with a lot of pressure," says Fittipaldi. "First, Colin didn't know if we were going to the States or not. Finally he called me, and said, 'Emerson, I'd like you to go to Watkins Glen as number one driver', and for me that was a big surprise."
What happened when they got to the Glen, he was expecting even less. First, he qualified a superb third, behind only Jackie Stewart's Tyrrell and Jacky Ickx's Ferrari. And then he won the race, on...

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
まだレビューはありません