"FROM 1972 THROUGH 1991" "THREE BRAZILIANS DOMINATED THE F1 SCENE" "WINNING 8 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS" ""3 CHAMPIONS"" "Imagine owning a Porsche here in Brazil in the 60 ' s." "It was a dream very few people could make come true." "Very few." "Very few." "I was one of the lucky ones." "I bought the third Porsche that arrived here in Brazil." "I remember that when I parked it in my garage its odometer was marking 7 kilometers." "It was brand new, a brand new Porsche." "It was a beautiful car." "And it was one of those typical Sao Paulo drizzly nights." "He asked me if he could take it for a ride." "And I said yes." "I couldn ' t say no to him." "Of course he could take it for a ride." "So I tested the car driving it up Morumbi." "A half an hour had gone by and I started worrying." "The car started sliding sliding, and I said," "" I ' m gonna crash, " as a lamp post approached." "I was going to hit the lamp post near the driver ' s seat so all I could do was lean forward a bit and I hit the lamp post mid car." "When I reached a corner and I saw the car" "I felt like dying." "How was I supposed to explain that there was a lamp post inside the Porsche?" "He had this look on his face, he was speechless." "I got out of my car and said, " What happened? "" "He said, " Well, I hit the lamp post. "" "I said, " I can see that, but you borrowed it just to take it for a ride not to crash it on a lamp post. "" "I was so upset, so upset, that we started fighting." "It wasn ' t easy." "I was dying to smack him around because I was very upset." "He had wrecked my brand new car." "I had it for 5 hours and the odometer was marking 7 kilometers." "A year and half, two year later, I sold the Porshe ' s remains and gave Emerson the money so he could race in the European" "Formula Ford championship." "He ' s as slippery as they come." "He ' s slippery and sly." "He slips one way, then the other, talks a lot but says nothing, nobody knows what he ' s saying, but everyone is fond of him." "My name is Emerson Fittipaldi." "I was born December 2nd, 1946, and when I was 5-years-old was the first time my dad took me to the Interlagos circuit, where for the first time in my life I watched from up close the F1 cars, sports cars, racing." "There was a garage called Camber where people involved in racing gathered." "Go kart, motorcycle and car racers, we even built cars there." "Bras'lia was a race circuit." "There were no traffic lights," "No cops..." "There were six patrol cars and we knew all the cops." "Every time I had some sort of car problem," "I ' d go to the Camber garage to talk to a mechanic, who was no one else other than, at the time he was just a mechanic, Nelson Piquet." "I had a competition engine, and on Fridays I ' d take my mother ' s car, equipped it with the competition engine and raced with that car." "The next race would take place in Belo Horizonte and three days prior to the race she used her car to travel." "So I didn ' t have a car." "Everything was set, the engine was prepared, and I was lucky that Mrs. Clotilde, Alex ' s mom," "brought her car to the garage for brake maintenance." "He didn ' t think twice." "He installed the competition engine in my mom ' s car and raced it in Belo Horizonte on that weekend." "I told her she could leave the car and that it would be fixed by Monday." "So we got lucky." "I removed her engine, installed mine, replaced the front axle with mine that had disc brakes," "and went to Belo Horizonte to race." "It was great because I won in my category," "I finished fourth overall, and I recall that I won 2,500 cruzeiros, which helped out at the garage that week, because we were broke." "One day he forgot about the plates." "Since he had to drive the car to Goiânia to race he forgot to take the plates off during the race" "He did well in the race and a picture was published in a newspaper showing the plate." "His sister was stunned when she found out he had raced with her car." "My name is Nelson Piquet Souto Mayor and I was born in Rio de Janeiro on February 17th, 1952." "I started racing go karts at the age of 17 or 18." "Why did these three racers won so many championships, people wonder." "Why Brazilians won so many championships in such a short period of time has no reasonable explanation, no logical explanation unless you believe in numerology, soothsaying..." "When Jackie Stewart was inquired how could so many good Brazilian racers emerge at once?" "Well, are you familiar with the traffic in Rio de Janeiro?" "Anyone capable of driving in Brazilian traffic will find it easy to race on a track." "Brazil was very fortunate to have the go kart category." "The go kart category was an affordable and effective means for Brazilian drivers to learn quickly and become competitive." "a school that is excellent kart" "Ayrton Senna once told me a very interesting thing." "I asked him that question and he said," "" The big difference lies in the fact that once you go to Europe your focus is exclusively on racing. "" "A kid from a small town that goes to university at a big city, you can be sure that he will turn out the best student." "Because he lives at the university dorm, he doesn ' t have money to date girls," "he can ' t afford to buy a TV, so the only thing he can do is study." "That ' s what happened to us Brazilians that went to England, that went racing abroad." "We went exclusively to race." "The motivation I had watching Fangio and Chico race, and obviously the way I motivated Ayrton and Nelson to race, is the same motivation that impels so many other" "Brazilian racers to race." "I think that urges a lot of people to participate in racing." "I think it all started with Emerson and I." "We were the first Brazilians who decided to race in Europe." "The international racing scene was kind of a ghost to me, which we were unfamiliar with." "Emerson or I would be hired, because we had a small sponsorship." "Bardhal was our sponsor at that time." "We decided that Emerson should be hired because he was single and his operational cost in Europe would be lower than mine." "I have to take my hat off to Emerson, because he was the first." "And the first always opens the floodgates." "Then it became easy to follow in his footsteps." "In those days the idea of racing in Europe was much more like a dream, a distant dream, motivated by reading magazines." "I started reading magazines in those days, because then we only had access to documentary films." "The film " Grand Prix " motivated a lot of people." "But racing abroad was but a dream." "Reality was racing here in Brazil in DKV ' s and Berlinetas." "One racer who motivated me a lot was Chico Landi who went to Europe race in the F1 category." "He did very well racing a Ferrari and motivated me a lot to race in Europe." "Actually, if you compare the Brazilian racers of those days," "Chico was undeniably the best." "I would state that he was the Ayrton Senna of that time." "He was, no doubt, a great racer." "The first Brazilian racer to win a F1 race abroad was Chico Landi, at the Bari Grand Prix in 1949, which was broadcasted by my father on Radio Panamericana." "Both my father and my mother raced as amateurs." "My mother raced at Interlagos in those days." "She didn ' t feel comfortable telling me not to race cars since she raced at Interlagos." "In 1952 she raced a Mercedes at 24 Hours of Interlagos." "She and a friend of hers finished in 5th overall." "A 24 hour race." "I was there at Interlagos watching my mom race." "And how did she do?" "She finished ahead of my dad." "Racing cars was much more romantic in those days." "You mainly had to build your own parts." "We had the " Mini " team, a go kart we designed." "Wilson and I raced for our team, in separate go karts." "I always had the urge to build, not only to race." "This car was raced by Francisco Lameirao, by Emerson, by Rodolfo Olival Costa and by José Carlos Pace." "We raced several long-distance races, he and I, and we won those long-distance races." "12, 24 hour races." "We won many races with this car." "What did you feel driving this car?" "It was fantastic!" "I was unused to switching gears." "30 years went by since I last switched gears in this car." "The experience was very emotional because..." "In 1967 Wilson and I built a car called " FittiPorsche. "" "It was a Les Mans type prototype." "It was a two liter Porsche, the fastest car in Brazil." "We were always way ahead of everybody else." "But it always brake down." "The gearbox couldn ' t take it." "I didn ' t finish or win any race with that car." "It was a time when a new generation of racers emerged, all of them very talented, very competitive, racing cars that were very competitive, built by companies that competed to see which would sell more cars in Brazil." "Brazilian sports cars racing was not focused on F1." "Our focus was on the pleasure in racing." "Actually, we lacked..." "Today we know the protocol, but in those days we were inexperienced." "The idea of racing in Europe was great, but where were the means?" "The first attempts were isolated attempts by drivers that went without proper support just to get the feeling of it." "They were all frustrated, literally." "Drivers such as Ricardo Rossi, Gil, Ascar." "They were frustrated." "In 1969 I went to Europe to race." "I started in the Formula Ford category." "There was doubt regarding how well would a Brazilian driver do competing internationally." "I raced in six races, won four, and in mid-season I was invited to join the British F3 championship." "I raced 11 races and was champion that year." "I was British F3 champion in 1969." "We were better at setting up the cars." "Since in Brazil it was much harder to get the setup right, there were less technical resources available than you had in Europe, it was easy for me to set up the cars in Europe." "Emerson was called the " Velvet Ass. "" "In those days, it was very important that you had this part..." "The seat is very low in a race car." "In those days the seat was even lower." "So every reaction you felt in the car, if it slid, or if it bumped, you felt it on your butt, on the upper part of your thighs, and Emerson was great at detecting those things." "So he was called the " Velvet Ass. "" "He detects everything and knows how to fix the problems." "My first test was at Statstone, and I was the fastes in my group." "So it was a surprise for everyone, and for me too." "Emerson went, and actually saw and won." "Suddenly people were wondering who was Emerson, who is this Brazilian racer winning all the races?" "In F3 his career was meteoric." "He excelled extremely fast." "He had raced 8 or 10 F3 races when he was invited to race in F1, to test." "" Let ' s find out how you do in a F1 car. "" "He tested a F1 car and did very well." "I signed with Lotus to race in F2 and debuted at Hockenheim, the same circuit where Jim Clark had died two years earlier." "He was lucky to, in relatively short time, be sponsored by the pope of British sports cars racing." "Colin Chapman invited me to his office and said," "" Emerson, I want you to race for me at the Netherlands Grand Prix. "" "That was two weeks after my debut in F2 at Hockenheim." "I was stunned." "I told Colin..." "When he invited me, Colin Chapman was my idol." "He was the great F1 car builder of that time." "The F1 genius." "So I went to Silverstone thinking to myself," "" I may not do too well, but I can ' t be slow," "I have to be fast, show that I ' m good. "" "If I made a mistake, maybe my career would end right there." "I hit the track, drove as fast as I could, my lap time was excellent, for those days." "Jochen Rindt was so enthusiastic that he showed me the sign." "I have a picture of him showing me the sign." "The next morning, Jochen Rindt who was leading the championship had a fatal accident." "The suspension arm of the car he was driving broke, the Lotus spun and hit the guardrail killing him instantly." "I was in shock." "I had had breakfast with him at the hotel and two hours later he was dead inside the Lotus." "Then I dawned on me how dangerous F1 was and all the stamina I ' d need to withstand the risk," "to tolerate the risk of imminent death." "I asked Colin who would replace Jochen, because I was going to race my fourth grand prix." "Two days later he called me saying that he wanted me to be Lotus ' s number one driver." "And my first win was at my fourth race in F1 at Watkins Glen at the U.S. Grand Prix." "I recall that I started switching gears and turning the steering-wheel delicately, aware that the guy in second place was right behind me." "I thought, " I have to be careful to win this race." "I can ' t make a mistake." "I have to win this race. "" "On the last corner of the last lap just before getting the checkered flag" "I see Colin Chapman running holding his cap, which he usually did, since the Jim Clark days, and he jumped right next to the car and threw his cap in the air." "I saw that from inside the cockpit while I was winning the U.S. Grand Prix." "It was a dream come true." "I was totally overwhelmed." "I continued competing in F1 for ten years, nearly 10 seasons." "In 1972 I was world champion, in 1973 vice-champion, champion again in 1974 and vice-champion again in 1975." "In 1972 came out the John Player Special, a car painted black with golden stripes" "that amazed everybody because there had never been a F1 car painted black in the history of sports cars racing." "It was a great year for me." "Five wins, a year in which everything worked out right." "A perfect year, a year a racer wishes will come true." "I turned the last corner on the last lap, entered the straightaway and saw Colin Chapman running holding his cap and jumping as I became world champion." "It was a great feeling, another great occasion in my career and the most important one, my first world championship." "No doubt about it." "Here comes the winner of the race!" "Brazil wins the F1 World Championship!" "Emerson Fittipaldi wins!" "What a celebration!" "We had a lot fun." "Braguinha was there." "We threw a party at the IBC, the Brazilian Coffee Institute in Milan that lasted all night long." "Many Brazilians attended." "It was a great party." "Fantastic!" "In 1973 the season started very well for me with three wins, the Argentine Grand Prix, the Brazilian Grand Prix" "and the Spanish Grand Prix." "Obviously winning in Brazil was another great experience." "The first time I won the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos was awesome." "It brought me back memories of me racing motorcycles at Interlagos and then I was winning the Brazilian Grand Prix there." "I thought I was dreaming." "It didn ' t seem real." "Brazilians knew very little about F1." "We only heard about F1 or sports cars racing when a Brazilian driver won a race, like when Emerson won at Watkins Glen in 1971, I suppose." "It was the first time I got in touch with the sport, that I saw a picture of F1 car." "When I arrived in Europe, when the European season began, from the Spanish Grand Prix on I didn ' t finish a single race." "At the Monza Grand Prix, at the end of the season," "I had enough points to become champion if I won the race" "Ronnie Peterson, my teammate, won and I finished second." "I couldn ' t overtake him in the last 10 laps and that was when Colin and I became estranged." "Because before the race we had settled that if Ronnie were in first 20 laps before the end of the race, we would switch positions, because if I ' d win I could win the championship." "I kept waiting for Colin to give the sign, but he didn ' t." "I was very disappointed with Colin Chapman ' s attitude, who didn ' t do what we had settled and that day I decided that next season I would race for another team." "I resigned from Lotus and signed with McLaren." "I knew that whoever finished ahead of the other would be the world champion." "It wasn ' t a race between all the racers, it was just between Clay and I." "I was under a lot of pressure." "It was the only night ever that I didn ' t sleep well prior to a race." "I overtook the Ferrari on a corner to the right, slowly gained advantage throughout the race, and won the championship finishing in fourth place." "But it was a very tough championship to win." "Then in 1976 I signed with Copersucar and raced for the team until 1980." "My best result was at the Brazilian Grand Prix in Rio de Janeiro in 1978 when I finished in second place." "I raced a little more than fifty races and my best result in F1 was a fourth place at an Austrian Grand Prix." "Then Emerson and I decided to build our own car." "I don ' t know if I could have won a world championship, if I was qualified to do it." "I ' m not sure." "My dream was similar to other drivers ' , such as Jack Brabham, to own my own team." "At first, the expectations were high." "In my case, when I was hired to race for the Fittipaldi team in late 1975, the prospect was that Wilson would be the number one driver and I would be the second." "In theory, that was great." "We spent a whole year developing the car and the next year Emerson decided to become one of the drivers." "It was a rash decision at the time, because I think we should have waited another one or two years." "A guy who had been vice-champion and champion for the Lotus team, vice-champion and champion for the McLaren team, interrupted his brilliant career to try to become the savior of a bankrupt company." "On our first test at Interlagos," "Emerson tested the car for two laps, stopped at the pits, opened his visor and he seemed very upset." "I was scared to ask him the question but I had no choice." "How did the car respond?" "And he said, " It seems like a baked banana. "" "The car is totally unstable." "After a short while things turned ugly and I realized that we were in big trouble." "Then our team became the laughing stock thanks to the media." "They published cartoons on newspapers depicting a turtle painted in the car ' s colors." "Then we developed a modified model, the F5-A, and with that car we achieved exceptional results." "In Rio de Janeiro, for instance, Emerson finished in second place, behind Carlos Reutmann." "We had good moments, but we had more difficult moments." "What were you complaining about?" "What did you expect?" "Everybody has to be patient." "Brazilians are naturally impatient." "I was expected to win races as soon as possible." "When I started racing in F1," "Emerson was worried because he was decadent, the Copersucar team wasn ' t performing well, and if another Brazilian racer in another team was doing well it would be disastrous for him." "So every Brazilian racer that started doing well he tried to sign them up with Copersucar, Ingo, for instance." "The first foreign racer to sign with Copersucar was Keke Roseberg." "He was a very fast racer and became champion the next year." "Keke overtook Emerson at the end of the straightaway at Interlagos, which caused a big commotion." "He shouldn ' t have done it and stayed behind Emerson." "At the height of the fourth race we were team championship vice-leaders." "When Copersucar withdrew its sponsorship we started having problems." "Then Ricardo Divila designed the F8, the best car we ever built." "Chico Serra qualified the Fittipaldi second on the grid, but the car behind him touched his rear wheel and Chico ' s car cartwheeled and was totally wrecked." "That was the end of the F8, we ran out of money, the dream was over, and our debt added up to approximately 7.5 million dollars." "It wasn ' t scheduled, the team was simply extinguished one day and I was jobless." "I moved into a small, two bedroom apartment, and Emerson also rented a small apartment in the same building." "We handed the bank everything we owned." "There was nothing left of twenty and so years of hard work." "Peter Warr was a great team boss." "He was my team boss at Lotus for several years and Keke Roseberg was the..." "A lot of Brazilian racers went to Europe." "I didn ' t achieve the results I expected in F1." "I wasn ' t competitive as I ' d like to have been." "I didn ' t win any races..." "I only experienced the downside of F1." "A lot of pressure, hard work..." "As I said, I was very inexperienced when I raced in F1." "It took me 10 years to compete in F1." "It was very frustrating." "My career was never easy." "As Alex just said, he, Chico and I were in the wrong teams at the wrong time." "The next year I signed a one year contract with March and raced all the grad prix, better yet, I attended all the grand prix but the car simply didn ' t perform." "It was a very bad year and I got burned in F1." "At the end of the season I lost my sponsorships." "I had good sponsorships and ended up out of a team the next year." "I was totally pessimistic, completely broken-down." "I was very upset, frustrated and depressed." "Those two years I was forced to abandon sports cars racing were devastating." "So I took up other activities, coaching Christian Athletes for the past 16 years." "Then there was a kind of a void until another great name in Brazilian sports cars racing emerged, Nelson Piquet." "I started racing go karts at the age of 17 or 18 and was champion..." "In 1974 I joined the Super-V category, and became Sao Paulo and Brazilian champion in 1976." "I moved to Europe in 1977 and raced the European F3 championship." "In 1978 I was British F3 champion, having won 13 of the 17 races I competed in." "The same year I debuted in F1, racing for the Ensign team and late that year I signed a 3 year contract to race for the Brabham team." "So he debuted in a small team, then he slowly prospered." "Meeting Bernie Ecclestone was probably the decisive moment in his career." "Bernie bumped into me and said, " Look, I ' d like to talk to you tonight at my hotel. "" "He gave me the address, I went there and he asked me if I wanted to race for the Brabham team next year." "I said, " I do. "" "He said, " It ' s a 3 year contract. " I said, " Fine. "" "He said, " You have to sign here. "" "" Can you read English? "" "And I said, " I can, but I ' ll sign whatever you want me to. "" "He told me to write down that I had read and understood." "I did that and signed." "He asked me if I ' d like to know how much I would be paid." "I said, " No. "" "My first win was at Long Beach." "I qualified in pole position." "That was at the beginning of the 1980 season." "I qualified in pole position, leaded the race from start to end and Emerson finished third." "Emerson and I shared the podium on my first win." "Nelson was very good at setting up the car." "He ' s an exceptionally talented racer." "1981 was an extremely difficult championship to win." "My contenders were Alan Jones and Carlos Reutmann." "But I won the championship anyway, by one point or two." "What matters is that I won the 1981 championship." "Nothing changes." "The next day you wake up hungry, your stomach aches, you fart..." "Absolutely nothing in your life changes." "So Nelson helped develop the team, overcoming several problems and resulted in a very well integrated and efficient team capable of wining championships, with the advantage that one of its racers was an ace at irreverence." "I remember that some journalist asked me to whom would I dedicate the championship." "I said, " To myself. "" "I won it, so why should I dedicate it to anyone else?" "He would simply open fire in any direction, regardless of who or what he would hit." "The problem with TV commentators, namely Reginaldo Leme and Galvao Bueno is trying to guess what is going on." "In my case, when I had partied the night before and was snoozing in the cockpit for 15 minutes before the race started, because I can sleep anywhere, and they ' d say, " Check out how concentrated Piquet is! "" "Of course they meant me well, that I was concentrating." "Actually I was very sleepy." "Nelson Piquet is an expert." "He ' s a great mechanic." "Of the three world champions, he ' s by far the best mechanic." "He fixed things, invented things..." "I met Piquet when we raced slot cars." "I was 16 or 17-years-old and raced slot cars, and he was 13-year-old pain in the ass that was constantly hassling us when he managed to be faster than us during a lap." "" Who ' s the man?" "I ' m the man! " What a pain in the ass!" "I never dreamt or anticipated that I would some day sit in a cockpit or become a professional racer." "It all happened by chance." "When I set up my garage, called Camber," "Piquet started working there as a mechanic." "I worked at the garage so I could afford racing go karts." "That ' s how I began racing." "They pulled off whatever sham necessary to race and always used pseudonyms." "Nelson raced under a pseudonym, which he changed now and then so his mom wouldn ' t find out." "I changed the plate numbers." "My plate number was 4-4-4-1." "We used tape to change the number to 4-1-4-1." "The cops wrote us down but we never got the fines." "It was a secret at home." "Dad couldn ' t know about it." "You can imagine how hard it was for me when I decided to race professionally." "My father was a doctor, then he was congressman for 24 years," "Health Secretary..." "Currently it ' s embarrassing to even state that." "I don ' t even like to talk politics." "Dad, when he died, was broke." "he didn ' t own a thing." "And when Nelson had to race or work at a garage he would enroll in all sorts of courses conceivable." "Cooking, office clerk, fireman, whatever course you can think of, Nelson enrolled himself in." "Why?" "Because the courses were at night." "He could only leave the house at night if he told his mom he was attending a course." "In my days you could watch TV, there was a Western movie at 8 or 10 p.m., Bat Masterson, on Fridays, there was only one TV channel in Brasília, so or you read something or you went nuts." "At what time would a boy go to bed?" "Or he jerked off all day long, because at that age..." "He actually never did attend or enroll in courses." "He would always spend his time at the garage, setting up the car." "He was always kind of an outsider." "One day they built a car, a prototype to race in Bras'lia, to race in long-distance races." "Then he raced with Alex, which did not go well." "He was always involved in some kind of mess." "The Brabham team had invented water-cooled brakes." "Brabham ' s car was lighter than allowed by regulations, so they installed a container up front, of course it an empty one, and at the end of the race, you were allowed to replace the liquids the car had lost during the race" "in order to weigh the car." "Let ' s say I started off with a full container, three laps later it was empty." "So you were 20 liters lighter." "So the Brabham car was 20 so kilograms lighter than allowed in the regulations." "So when the race ended, they filled the container and the car met the regulatory requirements." "But the way we did it was according to regulations." "As I said before, Nelson was a great mechanic." "I see him as an extremely fast mechanic." "I think he took advantage of several gaps in the regulations, forms of interpretation..." "I have no doubt that he won races by not complying to the regulations." "Nelson was the race officials favorite subject to check his car for violation of the regulations." "I told them that we needed to straiten the car." "So we narrowed the wheels in approximately one inch." "We took out the rearview mirrors." "There were no regulations regarding the mirrors." "We made small mirrors out of Araldite adhesive." "I placed the fire extinguisher further up front, lowered my seat..." "My car was 12 kilometers faster than the rest on the straightaway." "I won the race easily." "Everyone thought I had tampered with the engine, so they took it apart." "He was fantastic, a very sensitive driver, excellent at setting up cars, a great mechanic, and above all, extraordinarily creative." "When racing in Formula 3, Nelson invented things" "F1 had never heard of." "We invented brake balance levers inside the cockpit." "I adjusted the stabilizer bars from inside the cockpit." "And the pit stop in F1, which Gordon suggested." "I told him that we could only do it if the tires were preheated." "Because it takes a lot of time, two laps, to heat up the tires." "So he also made the heating blankets." "1982 was a season when the car broke down a lot." "A lot of development was done..." "And in 1983 we dominated and won the championship." "In 1984 Ayrton tested at Brabham, because he was testing at most of the teams and was faster than the official drivers." "Bernie made a bet with me." "I bet one-hundred thousand dollars that I ' d lap faster than he would." "" He won ' t lap in the same second I will. "" "" If he laps in the same second as I," "I ' ll pay you one-hundred thousand dollars. "" "I knew that the car was very hard to drive and very fast." "Ayrton lapped 1.9, almost two seconds slower than I at Paul Ricard." "He was terribly upset, because every car he drove he was lapping faster than the official drivers." "And I beat his ass." "Then he was hired by the Williams team... where he met the great passion of his life..." "Nigel Mansell." "He ' d jump out of his car in a hurry, ran to the bathroom, put his gear back on and back to the car." "I was wondering what the..." "Someone said he had diarrhea..." "He went in and out of the bathroom and there was no smell at all in there." "So I went to the bathroom, removed all the toilet paper and waited outside the bathroom." "Then he ran to the bathroom, stayed there for a while, came out..." "When training was over, and I hadn ' t trained because my car had broken down, we went to the meeting held after training, when you talk to the engineers and so on..." "So I said, " Before we start, what ' s with the diarrhea thing, that you were using the bathroom constantly? "" "Were you having diarrhea?" "Yes, I was." "" How did you wipe your ass if I removed all the toilet paper from the bathroom to know if you were actually shitting yourself in the pants? "" "I didn ' t understand why he would do that." "I guess people took pity on him since he was going to lose the championship anyway." "Nelson teased Nigel Mansell from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. nonstop." "The best story involving the two of us was when I won the world championship in Japan," "I went to England because there was going to be a reception with the Williams team and Honda, because Honda used those events for marketing, so Mario Uoka, that commentator who says a lot of nonsense," "interviewed me live for TV." "" What ' s the big difference between you two? "" "" There are many, " I said." "" First of all, he plays golf and I play tennis." "In second place, he likes ugly women and I like pretty women, and in third place, I ' ve won three world championships and he ' s already lost three. "" "Nigel Mansell never spoke to Nelson again." "And in 1987 I won the championship because I was smarter than he was." "I was as bold as I could be, plotted all sorts of things inside the team in order to win the championship, otherwise I would never be champion at Williams." "A British team, with British mechanics, a British engineer, a competing British racer..." "Nelson was lucky that Nigel crashed during the training session and couldn ' t race." "So Nelson had won the championship even before the race started." "But if Mansell had raced, I don ' t know, because the team favored Mansell totally." "But I think that after my accident in 1987 I was never the same." "I wasn ' t the same racer." "I didn ' t lack the will, but my reflexes and eyesight were impaired." "I had some experiences of that kind in my career" "that reflected the downside of sports cars racing that made me feel like quitting." "If you watch a F1 or Formula Indy race, you don ' t want to watch cars racing you want to see an accident, cars going off track, spinning, crashing, catching on fire." "Everybody goes..." "When you go to a circus act you want to see the trapeze artists fall on their faces." "Only the old ladies are rooting for the guys." "The rest just wants to watch the shit hit the fan." "When I reached the straightaway I saw a car flipped over and I could tell it was Jo Siffert ' s, who was in first place." "As I approached, his car was close to a corner" "I lifted my foot off the accelerator, started braking, and as I came closer I could tell his head was still moving, the car flipped over..." "Twelve racers died in my ten years in F1." "Twelve F1 racers." "A lot of people died." "My front wheel hit his back wheel and when that happened my car took off..." "They were at approximately 300 km/h, the air dynamics launched Christian ' s car upward" "seven to eight meters in the air and started to loop..." "The only thing that crossed my mind was that if the car didn ' t fall right-side-up" "that would be the end of me." "He passed by me, the car upside- down, his arms dangling outside the cockpit..." "The car, thank goodness, due to the speed was capable of completing the loop and fell right-side-up, as incredible as it may seem." "The monocoque, the chassis with the engine was dragging on the track and Christian took the checkered flag his car dragging itself down the track and finishing in seventh." "I thought, " Is all this worth the while? "" "The urge to compete is so strong, the sport is so compelling, that when you ' re back on a circuit you dismiss whatever happened and start all over again." "ON MAY 1ST, 1994, AYRTON SENNA DIES" "WHEN HIS WILLIAMS CRASHED AT 300 KM/H" "AT THE TAMBURELLO CORNER AT THE IMOLA CIRCUIT" "Ayrton, to me, was branded " immortal " ." "Every driver seems somewhat immortal to me, and I thought that with a career like his, the way he raced, he would never die in a crash." "No way!" "Maybe he would die flying a helicopter, or in a traffic accident, victim of a robbery, but under no circumstance would he die racing a sports car until I saw the crash." "When I saw him crash the wall, the car come to a halt, his head twitching twice," "I turned the TV off certain that he had died." "Senna was a force of nature." "Something very unique." "He was a fast machine." "A human computer." "He ' s difficult to describe." "He was different from everybody else." "Then he told me that he slowed down, and that he would retire from the race because he had no brakes." "What could he do?" "Then he remembered that he only used the brakes at two corners, so he ' d try to finish the race even without brakes." "He overtook one guy, then another, and won the race." "After the race he told me he had lost the brakes." "I said, " You ' re full of shit." "No brakes... "" "So I went and checked the disc, the disc brake." "If it works it heats up." "His car ' s front disc brakes were freezing cold, like they had been in a refrigerator." "For Senna, racing a F1 car was like a painter giving the finishing touches on a masterpiece." "My life is awesome, thank goodness, and always has been." "I enjoy everything in my life." "I ' ve always had everything I wanted." "Both materially and emotionally." "I have an extraordinary family." "I owe nothing to anyone and there is nothing that I want that I haven ' t achieved up to this day." "On Mondays he ' d drive..." "he ' d forget to switch gears." "The car would stutter and I ' d say, " What are you doing? "" "His mind was elsewhere." "Ayrton was racing in the Formula Ford category." "The European Formula Ford championship." "I took Ayrton to visit the best teams." "I took him to Ferrari, to McLaren, and said," "" His name is Ayrton." "He ' s Brazilian... "" "" World champion material, " we say in English." "" He can be a world champion. " And they stared at me." "They thought, " Emerson introducing another possible world champion? "" "They pondered over that." "Actually I met Ayrton racing go karts, competing in the Brazilian championship." "We knew he was one of the few who would compete in the world championship." "My team was well organized and we met in Porto Alegre in 1978." "He arrived in a white Chevrolet Caravan, the back was totally packed with tires, karts, engines..." "He and his mechanic Robertinho, just the two of them on the job." "He started leaving his go kart in my truck..." "He won that Brazilian championship and I finished in second." "I had a great relationship with the first team I raced for, whose boss was Ralph da Van Diem, a major team in Formula Ford, and Ayrton was a go kart racer who had never raced a car." "It was quite amusing, Ayrton had decided to race in Europe." "When he called me, I set up a dinner with him, Ralph and I." "As we talked, Ralph would say to Ayrton," "" You can compete in this championship, and I ' ll throw in a few more races without any additional cost. "" "And Ayrton said, " I want to compete in more races. "" "So Ralph would stare at me and end up agreeing." "So Ralph would say, " Tell you what" "I ' ll give you 20 training sessions. "" "And Ayrton would say, " I want 40 training sessions. "" "And Ralph gradually conceded." "When Ayrton went to the bathroom," "Ralph asked me, " Who does he think he is? "" "His career was brilliant." "He was Formula Ford 1600 champion," "Formula Ford 2000 champion," "F3 champion, all of this in England, and when he won the F3 championship he was invited to test a Williams F1 car..." "He did very well the very first time he tested a Williams car." "Ayrton had an outstanding quality I repute necessary to those who want to be the best all the time." "He hated finishing in second place." "Many don ' t recall that during his first year at McLaren, several times when leading a grad prix," "Ayrton would crash, when leading by 30, 40 seconds, one minute ahead of the racer in second." "And he would crash!" "How could that happen?" "Ayrton took tremendous risks." "You didn ' t see it on TV, because when he took those risks the TV didn ' t show it." "It occurred when he was lapping slower cars." "He took unbelievable risks, because he couldn ' t stand slow cars disturbing his race." "" Slow cars are annoying." "They have to get out of the way! "" ""And that´s that." "And if it doesn't get out of the way," "I'll runit over."" "And he overtook them." "He didn ' t tolerate anybody disturbing his race." "I am naturally very impetuous." "In all those years racing go karts I crashed so often, got involved in so much turmoil, lost so many championships for being so impetuous, I ended up learning." "So nowadays, using the knowledge I acquired in those days," "I try to make less mistakes, or not to repeat the same mistakes." "In certain occasions, when I ' m behind someone," "I feel like overtaking him at that corner, and I could, but there would be a risk, so I ' m forced to restrain myself." "That ' s the hard part, having the self-control, to wait for a calmer, safer opportunity." "To restrain the urge to start and lap everyone as soon as possible." "When Ayrton first raced in F1, he joined the worst team, the worst team in F1, because its cars had 4 cylinder engines." "Exactly." "It didn ' t stand a chance to compete with the other teams." "So when could he do well?" "He could do reasonably well..." "When it rained." "In slow circuits or when it rained." "He was always the fastest on the first lap when it rained." "And it wasn ' t by little, he was five seconds faster than the rest." "If during the race, something unexpected happened, he would excel." "When everybody was changing to rain tires, he would do three more laps on slicks." "It was his only chance to do well." "When he saw that it was starting to rain, that was his chance to perform well." "If he didn ' t perform well then, he might never have the opportunity to do so again." "The Toleman car ' s maximum potential was this much, when he finished second behind Prost." "That was the big opportunity in his life." "He could sense that." "But he performed much higher than the car ' s potential." "His performance was much higher than was conceivable." "In certain occasions, it seemed like he was racing on a dry circuit" "and the rest on a wet one." "It was incredible." "And that was when the Lotus team invited Ayrton to come onboard." "First he raced with a Renault engine." "And with that engine he did just that." "His car wasn ' t state-of-the-art, but it had a powerful engine." "The Renault engine used in training sessions was awesome." "It broke down a lot but it was very powerful." "So he started to do a series of..." "So what was his strategy?" "What was his marketing strategy?" "As you said, the racer ' s marketing." "" How can I market myself?" "Securing pole positions." "And with an inferior car Ayrton secured many pole positions." "So how could he win races with such a car?" "By taking advantage of certain circumstances." "Slower circuits and when it rained." "He raced at Estoril in the rain and won the race." "His first win in F1." "Thanks to those good results," "Renault left the team and Lotus brought in the Honda engine." "The car became a bit more competitive, the chassis improved a bit, and with Honda ' s competitive engine," "Ayrton could be competitive in the qualifying sessions and could perform well in the races." "In 1986 Ayrton was racing a Lotus/Honda and we were racing a Williams/Honda." "And..." "And I was way ahead of everybody and when I did my pit stop" "Williams ' pit crew took 25 seconds to change the tires and Senna took the lead." "I approached him fast because my car was faster than his." "So I caught up with him." "I tried to overtake him the first time and he shoved me out on the dirty part of the track" "I hit the brakes, didn ' t go off the track and he maintained the lead." "The next lap I cleaned my tires as I chased him and when I pulled out from behind him to overtake him," "he started shoving me towards the dirty part of the track." "So I decided to go straight and overtook him on the outside." "When he moved back to the right and saw that I wasn ' t going that way, there was nothing he could do." "We almost touched wheels, but he saw that I didn ' t go off the track and I hit the brakes 30 to 40 meters later than I should have" "I overtook him on the outside with the car sliding" "and respectfully gave him the finger." "Piquet had a lot of respect for Senna though they had no personal relationship." "Nelson respected Senna ' s racing skills, he acknowledged Ayrton ' s skills." "The rest was just hearsay from the opposition." "Since his early days in F1 Ayrton was focused on the Japanese." "He dreamt of racing with a Honda engine, knowing it was a very good engine." "He did everything he could to join Honda and MacLaren and one day he managed it." "Honda joined Mclaren because the Japanese loved Senna." "Honda would have joined any team Ayrton joined." "The training sessions ended at 13:30h, Ayrton entered the pits and only left them at 21:00h." "He ' d spend the whole time talking to the mechanics." "The reporters were waiting outside..." "I remember Berger..." "I know Gerhard Berger, and he ' d say to me," "" He ' s totally nuts." "Totally nuts! "" ""I'm going back to the hotel and he's going to stay here very late."" "" I ' m leaving." "See you. "" "Only in the last years of his career Ayrton amused himself more." "There ' s this funny story involving Ayrton and Galvao Bueno in Mexico." "They were coming back from..." "He had won a race, and on a Monday morning" "Galvao and he were leaving the hotel at the same time." "And they started kidding around with the rental cars in Mexico City." "The started bumping lightly into each other." "That evolved into tearing off either ' s rearview mirrors, then they started pressing each other against the guardrails." "Making a long story short, when they reached the airport the cars were totally wrecked and they were laughing their heads off." "" I hit you harder right there... "" "The amusement was over when the Hertz clerk showed up." "In those days rental cars in Mexico didn ' t have insurance coverage." "So Ayrton had to write a ten-thousand dollar check on the spot to get the cars fixed." "The only thought that crossed his mind was winning." "That was all that mattered to him." "In 1988 his career improved." "He signed a three year contract with Ron Dennis." "They signed it at my house." "They discussed it for hours, a three year contract without options for either of them." "Ayrton ' s final request was an extra half a million dollars per year but Ron Dennis disagreed." "They were arguing over 1.5 million in three years." "So they decided to do a toss-up." "They tossed a coin in the air and guess who won." "The Englishman." "Ron Dennis won the toss-up and Ayrton lost 1.5 million in three years." "So Ayrton was handed a package comprised of an outstanding engine and a very good car, that was improving throughout the years, which that year had become state-of-the-art in technical terms." "Then he met Alan Prost." "Alan Prost was this guy that had won several races, a very loathsome guy... who had divorced three or four times while racing in F1 because he hit on other people ' s wives." "Since he was very ugly physically, he became friends with guys to screw their wives." "Senna and Prost made a deal." "Whoever took the first corner ahead would not be overtaken by the other." "On the season ' s third race, at Imola," "Prost takes the first corner ahead of Senna." "Later Ayrton overtakes Prost, breaching the deal, and wins the race." "From then on war was declared." "Ayrton won two championships in his first three years with McLaren." "Then he renewed his contract and won another championship." "A funny thing, which I never quite understood, is that he always wanted to race for the Williams team." "He always said that." "I ' m not sure if it was because of the first test he did at Williams, or because he was fond of Frank Williams." "Ayrton didn ' t know how to set up cars." "He always joined teams that had cars well set up, and always wanted to join the winning team." "At that point the Williams team was dominating again and he exerted so much pressure that Honda left the McLaren team and Ayrton managed to join the Williams team." "The irony of fate was him joining the team he dreamt of, secures three pole positions and ends up dying in the car he always dreamt racing." "I never could understand that." "He never won a single point racing the car he always dreamt of." "He always used the cars set up by Prost." "When he found himself all alone at Williams, he had a very hard time." "He couldn ' t set the car up right." "The car was high-strung, was this and that..." "That was the year he died." "On the Thursday prior to the Imola Grand Prix we talked and he was very optimistic because Williams had made a new wing, the car would be more stable turning the corners and Ayrton said, " Now we ' re going to beat that ' krout. ' "" "The " krout " he was referring to was Michael Schumacher." "Every ten years two or three good racers emerge." "And the last ten years would have been Schumacher and Senna." "I left Ayrton ' s house in Angra dos Reis that summer," "I had sailed my boat there, and he told me," ""Kid, be careful with those walls." The oval circuit walls." "Those were his last word to me." "In 1974 I went to Indianapolis to test the circuit for the fist time." "And Emerson was champion in both categories." "He was champion in F1 and in Formula Indy." "And everybody that didn ' t do well in F1 joined the Formula Indy." "I raced from 1985 to 1996 and won the Indianapolis 500 twice, in 1989 and 1993," "and was Formula Indy champion in 1989." "IN 1996, FEW MONTHS FOLLOWING" "HIS LAST WIN IN FROMULA INDY," "EMERSON RETIRES." "Before winning the championship I had signed with the Lotus team." "The atmosphere was unbearable." "The atmosphere was very bad." "When Piquet signed with Lotus, it was still using the Honda engine." "And when he signed the contract he thought Lotus would still use the Honda engine." "But Honda decided to follow Senna and join McLaren." "The Lotus team found itself without an engine to race and was forced to use an absolutely worthless engine, a Judd engine, which was a disaster, but Piquet, you must understand, ruined his career right there." "That happened because he was unaware that Honda was leaving the Lotus team, and because at the time Lotus had offered Nelson a load of money." "Piquet made more money signing with Lotus than he ever did throughout his entire career." "Lotus... paid me approximately one-million dollars a month." "It was absurdly joyful." "IN 1990 PIQUET FINISHED THE CHAMPIONSHIP IN THIRD" "RACING FOR THE BENNETTON TEAM" "AND RETIRED FROM F1 THE FOLLOWING YEAR" "After I quit racing in F1 I fulfilled some of my dreams." "One of them was to race in Indianapolis, where I had a nasty crash, but I managed to race there another year, and I raced in Les Mans twice but didn ' t manage to win." "My last race was the Michigan 500 in which I had an accident." "But, thank goodness, I ' m still alive." "So everything is fine." "So that was a magical period." "Every baby boy still in his mother 's womb heard the cars ' noise on TV and wished to become a F1 racer." ""3 CHAMPIONS"" "There ' s no explanation." "Brazil was very lucky, throughout 20 years, to have won so many world championships." "An exceptional occurrence." "This picture was taken at 6 p.m. at Paul Ricard, when night fell." "When you lifted your foot off the accelerator these flames flew out the exhaust pipes." "If one day I could race in a F1 grand prix" "I would happily die the next day." "My dream would have come true." "When there ' s an accident." "That what people like to see." "The difference between a great racer and the one that will win a championship is tiny," "but the consequence is huge." "That tiny difference makes all the difference." "Racing behind..." "For those who always raced up front, racing in the slower pack sucks." "The start is very risky." "You ' re on the grid next to a De Cesaris, next to some guys that don ' t have a clue of what they ' re doing, you totally lose the urge to race." "I raced with racers, their sons, their grandsons..." "THE END"