Being the first Brazilian driver to win the world championship, Emerson Fittipaldi has immense respect for his young compatriot Ayrton Senna, who carried his country’s flag with pride. In fact, the two-time world champion recalled his good bond with the Sao Paulo-born driver while looking at his mural recently.
When Senna was karting in Brazil, Fittipaldi used to test his old cars at Interlagos. As the track was nearby, Senna’s father brought him to the pits on several occasions, where he would witness Fittipaldi in action. The former McLaren driver recalled how he used to interact with a young Senna back then.
A young Ayrton Senna in his karting days.#f1 #ayrtonsenna #brazil pic.twitter.com/HFT0hJ7X7V
— Silodrome (@Silodrome) August 15, 2021
“He used to come into the pits and he was very shy. I would say ‘Ayrton, come close to the Formula 1 car’,” Fittipaldi said in a video posted by McLaren. He stated how he had a very “good relationship” with Senna and his family post that. He deemed Senna ‘fun’, once he opened up and highlighted the late-great legend as a ‘special person’.
Ditching English for Portuguese, Fittipaldi declared Senna as “Numero um” (number one).
And although greatness is subjective, Fittipaldi has good reason to make that claim. There is no debate about the three-time World Champion’s greatness. His precision in maximizing cornering speed and eking out the ultimate performance out of a car is perhaps unparalleled in F1.
He became a mythical figure in Brazil and all of the motorsport world with many having wondered how much more successful Senna would have been had he not met with the fatal accident in Imola in 1994.
How Fittipaldi wanted to work with Senna in IndyCar
Fittipaldi retired from F1 in 1980 and later shifted base to race in IndyCar in the U.S. Over there, he had a glittering stint with Team Penske, even winning the IndyCar championship in 1989. Four years later, during a test, Fittipaldi had invited Senna over to join him in Phoenix.
Fittipaldi felt that Senna could be more than handy in IndyCar, amid some uncertainty over his F1 future with McLaren. He asked Roger Penske to field an extra car for 1993, and the owner agreed without much hesitation.
Emerson Fittipaldi helped guide a young Ayrton Senna before the pair of #F1 legends forged a close friendship later on.
Fittipaldi recalls first meeting his compatriot, the time he tested an Indycar, and the set-up tip from Senna that helped him win a race ⬇️
— Autosport (@autosport) May 2, 2024
However, Senna stayed put in F1 as McLaren CEO Ron Dennis quashed the idea of him moving across the pond to IndyCar.
Senna still moved away from McLaren to Williams in 1994, owing to the Woking outfit’s poor form. While it was an ambitious switch to stay in championship contention with the Grove-based team, which was the class of the field, Senna paid a heavy price in just his third race for Williams at Imola.
His fatal crash at the Tamburello chicane put a full stop to what could have been an incredible career in F1 during the ’90s, as well as in IndyCar if he had ever decided to race there.
