Indy Champ Fittipaldi Shares Billing on Team

NEW YORK —  Emerson Fittipaldi is quite happy to share top billing with two other ace drivers, Danny Sullivan and Rick Mears, in the “World Championship Racing Superteam” that is expected to dominate this season’s Indy circuit.

“We are all No. 1 on the team,” the 43-year-old Brazilian driver said in a telephone interview.

As the reigning CART-Indy champion and winner of last year’s Indianapolis 500, however, Fittipaldi knows that he will be the driver everyone will be trying to beat when the season opens Sunday in Phoenix.

“The pressure will be on me being the defending champion,” said Fittipaldi, who won five races last year. “I hope I can cope with the pressure. I have had that kind of pressure before in Formula One.”

Before making his Indy debut in 1984, Fittipaldi raced to Formula One world championships in 1972 and 1974 and was runner-up in 1975. By winning the overall Indy title last year, Fittipaldi joined Mario Andretti as the only other driver to win the championship of both circuits.

Fittipaldi believes that the team’s policy of sharing information about the practice runs will benefit all three drivers. He knows, however, that once the starting flag drops, he will have to handle the burden of defending his crown alone.

“I have to be mentally prepared,” Fittipaldi said. “I know that in May at Indianapolis, the pressure will be great. Everybody will be asking me questions about this and that. I can’t lose my focus.”

Fittipaldi is aware that he will be hard-pressed to duplicate his successes of last season, when he became the first Indy driver to surpass $2 million in career prize money.

“Last year was a very special year, and it will be very difficult to repeat, but that’s my challenge,” Fittipaldi said. “I have to realize that I’m just driver Emerson and that I cannot be thinking I’m the driver who won the world championship or Indy last year. That would build up the pressure.”

He is not ready to slow down yet, however, and is eager to increase his tally of 10 Indy circuit victories.

“I’m still motivated to continue here,” Fittipaldi said.