| Wilson Fittipaldi Jr. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality: |  Brazilian | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 25 December 1943 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Place: | São Paulo, Brazil | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Death Place: | São Paulo, Brazil | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Relatives: | Emerson Fittipaldi (brother) Christian Fittipaldi (son) Emerson Fittipaldi Jr. (nephew) Pietro Fittipaldi (grandnephew) Enzo Fittipaldi (grandnephew) Max Papis (nephew-in-law) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Wilson Fittipaldi Júnior (25 December 1943 – 23 February 2024) was a Brazilian racing driver and Formula One team owner. He participated in 38 World Championship Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 1 May 1972, scoring a total of three championship points. He ran the Fittipaldi Formula One team between 1974 and 1982. He also participated in numerous non-Championship Formula One races.
Born on Christmas Day 1943, Wilson Fittipaldi Jr was the elder son of prominent motorsports journalist and radio commentator Wilson Sr and his wife Juzy, who both raced production cars shortly after the Second World War. 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. Wilson Jr is often referred to as 'Wilsinho' ("Little Wilson", cf. Rubens Barrichello's occasional nickname of Rubinho or footballer Ronaldinho) or 'Tigrão'. He unsurprisingly became a keen motorsports enthusiast from an early age.
Wilson Fittipaldi was the older brother of CART champion and double Formula One world champion Emerson Fittipaldi. Like Jimmy Stewart and Ian Scheckter he remained in the shadow of his younger and more illustrious sibling in top-level motorsport. He married Suzy. He was the father of former CART, Formula One and NASCAR driver Christian Fittipaldi and has a daughter, Roberta.
Wilson Fittipaldi Júnior suffered a cardiac arrest on 25 December 2023, his 80th birthday. According to his wife, during dinner he choked on a piece of food and the resulting lack of oxygen resulted in the cardiac arrest. He was resuscitated and subsequently admitted to a hospital where he was sedated and intubated.[1] He died in São Paulo on 23 February 2024.[2]
Wilson Fittipaldi started racing the karts that he and his brother built in Brazil in the 1960s, before moving on to Formula Vee.
Fittipaldi made a brief trip to Europe in 1966 to race in Formula Three, but the opportunity fell through due to conflicts with the team he drove for in Brazil. He did not return to England until 1970, following his brother's success in Formula Two. That year he raced a Jim Russell Driving School entered Lotus 59 in British Formula Three, beating Carlos Pace and works Lotus driver Dave Walker, among others, to a victory at a BARC Championship round at Silverstone. At various times during the year he was also competing with future Formula One champions Niki Lauda and James Hunt. Combined with some other good results, particularly in the latter part of the year, including wins in two non-championship rounds, this enabled him to move up to the European Formula Two championship for 1971.
Here he scored several more good results racing alongside his brother for Team Bardahl-Fittipaldi in Lotus and March chassis, including a podium at Hockenheim and fourth places at Rouen and Mantorp Park. These results were sufficient to gain him a deal with the Brabham Formula One team for the 1972 season as a pay driver.
His Formula One career started with a podium at the 1972 Brazilian Grand Prix; however, this was a non-championship race and he was unable to repeat the performance in the world championship. He was a moderately competitive midfield runner for Brabham in 1972 and 1973. He scored no points in the 1972 championship, but in 1973 he scored his only Formula One World Championship points with a sixth place in Buenos Aires and a fifth place at the Nürburgring. His best qualifying results were ninth in Monaco and tenth at Mosport also in 1973.
Fittipaldi, tired of both being a paying driver and being a second driver on the team, without being able to challenge the team's first driver Carlos Reutemann under the boss's orders Bernie Ecclestone, took a break from driving at the beginning of 1974 to set up a Brazilian Formula One team (although he took part in the Grande Premio Presidente Emilio Medici non-championship Formula One race that year with Brabham). The team, initially known as Copersucar-Fittipaldi, did not have great success in their first racing season in 1975. Wilson was the sole driver and managed only six finishes, the highest of which was 10th, and last, place at the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, and failed to qualify several times. Wilson stepped down from driving to look after the management of the team in 1976 when his brother, Emerson, joined the team from McLaren. His career total of three points, scored in 1972 and 1973 with Brabham, made him the most successful sibling of a Formula One World Champion until the arrival of Ralf Schumacher in 1997.
Fittipaldi occasionally returned to competitive driving. In the 1980s and early 1990s he drove in the Brazilian Stock Car championship, winning several rounds. In 1994 and 1995 he was victorious for Porsche in the classic Mil Milhas race founded by his father, on the former occasion sharing the car with his son Christian. In February 1998 he announced his return to competitive driving in the Brazilian Stock Car championship. In 2000 he was a guest driver for Mercedes-Benz at the Nürburgring round of the FIA European Truck Racing Cup, finishing 8th and 11th. In 2008, Wilson and Emerson entered the Brazilian GT3 Championship, driving a Porsche 997 GT3 for the WB Motorsports team.[3]
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | WDC | Pts. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Motor Racing Developments | Brabham BT33 | Ford Cosworth DFV V8 | ARG | RSA | ESP 7 | MON 9 | NC | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Brabham BT34 | BEL Ret | FRA 8 | GBR 12 | GER 7 | AUT Ret | ITA Ret | CAN Ret | USA Ret | ||||||||||||
| Motor Racing Developments | Brabham BT37 | Ford Cosworth DFV V8 | ARG 6 | BRA Ret | RSA Ret | 15th | 3 | |||||||||||||
| Brabham BT42 | ESP 10 | BEL Ret | MON 11 | SWE Ret | FRA 16 | GBR Ret | NED Ret | GER 5 | AUT Ret | ITA Ret | CAN 11 | USA NC | ||||||||
| Copersucar | Fittipaldi FD01 | Ford Cosworth DFV V8 | ARG Ret | NC | 0 | |||||||||||||||
| Fittipaldi FD02 | BRA 13 | RSA DNQ | ESP Ret | MON DNQ | BEL 12 | SWE 17 | ||||||||||||||
| Fittipaldi FD03 | NED 11 | FRA Ret | GBR 19 | GER Ret | AUT DNS | ITA | USA 10 |
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Gold Leaf Team Lotus | Lotus 49C | Ford Cosworth DFV V8 | ARG Ret | ROC | QUE | SPR | INT | RIN | OUL | VIC | |
| 1972 | Motor Racing Developments | Brabham BT33 | Ford Cosworth DFV V8 | ROC | BRA 3 | INT | OUL | REP | VIC | |||
| 1974 | Motor Racing Developments | Brabham BT44 | Ford Cosworth DFV V8 | PRE 5 | ROC | INT | ||||||
| 1975 | Copersucar | Fittipaldi FD02 | Ford Cosworth DFV V8 | ROC | INT Ret | SUI |
Since the Fittipaldis, another six sets of brothers have competed in Formula One. Ian and Jody Scheckter, Gilles and Jacques Villeneuve Sr., Manfred and Joachim Winkelhock, Teo and Corrado Fabi, and Gary and David Brabham all failed to score points in the same race. Michael and Ralf Schumacher were the next to do so at the 1997 French Grand Prix.
Although their father was reluctant to fund racing careers for them, the Fittipaldi brothers were able to finance their early racing careers by setting up a successful custom car accessory business while still in their teens, and then businesses building karts and Formula Vee cars. There was also a Fittipaldi-Porsche project - a one-off sports car chassis with Porsche mechanicals that the brothers built and raced in 1968.
In mid-1974 Wilson had persuaded Brazilian sugar and alcohol conglomerate Copersucar to sponsor his Formula One team, and from 1976 he had retired from driving and to concentrate on the management of the team, which ran with occasional flashes of success in Formula One from 1975 until it shut down in 1982.
After then he involved himself with the family's business interests, including a Mercedes-Benz dealership. He also carried out some television work, and was involved in the racing career of his son, Christian, managing him from 1996. In 2004 he became technical director of the WB motorsport team in Brazilian V8 stock cars. This led to the younger Fittipaldi testing one of the cars in 2004 before taking part in the championship in 2005 with a different team.
All racing and championship results come from: