Wilson Fittipaldi Jr., older brother of two-time Method 1 world champion and Indianapolis 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi, and an F1 racer in his personal proper, has died in his native Sao Paulo on the age of 80.
Like his youthful brother, Wilson Fittipaldi made his approach into F1 after advancing from karts to Method Vee in his native Brazil earlier than shifting to Europe to pursue his racing profession. Wins in F3 in 1970 led to an F1 alternative with Brabham in 1972, climbing the rostrum with a third-place end on his debut, though the Brazilian GP was a non-championship race that 12 months. His greatest official outcome was a fifth place within the following 12 months’s German GP.
On the finish of the 1973 season, Wilson took a sabbatical from driving to hitch forces with brother Emerson to discovered Copersucar Fittipaldi, the primary and up to now solely Brazilian F1 workforce. Wilson drove for the workforce himself in its first season in 1975, netting a greatest end of tenth in america GP at Watkins Glen.
Wilson Fittipaldi within the Copersucar-Fittipaldi FD03 at Watkins Glen in 1975. David Phipps/Motorsport Pictures
Emerson Fittipaldi changed his older brother as a workforce driver for 1976, making a shock transfer from McLaren, whereas Wilson turned to workforce administration. However he continued to race sometimes within the Brazilian Inventory Automobile Championship, scoring a number of wins in Nineteen Eighties and ’90s.
“He introduced collectively expertise, imaginative and prescient of the long run and boldness to take Brazil’s title to a degree by no means earlier than imagined as a part of a challenge that was actually forward of its time,” Giovanni Guerra, chief of the Brazilian Car Confederation, stated of Wilson Fittipaldi in an announcement.
Wilson Fittipaldi is survived by his brother Emerson and son Christian, who like his father and uncle raced in F1 earlier than shifting on to a profitable profession of his personal in North American racing.
