CART MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 15, 2000

Christian Fittipaldi

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Good afternoon. Thank you.

T.E. McHALE: Christian, the driver of the No. 11 Big Kmart Route 66 Ford-Lola drove to his first career FedEx Championship Series victory last season at Road America, one of three top four finishes he's recorded in the past three appearances at the venue. The others were a third place result in 1998 and a fourth place in 1997. This season, Christian has scored championship points in 7 of 12 FedEx Championship Series starts and comes to Road America off a podium performance of third in last week's Miller Light 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. He also finished third at Portland and owns a top qualifying performance of second at Nazareth. He's also qualified among the Top 10 drivers 10 times in 12 starts. Heading into Sunday's Motorola 220, Christian stands 14th in the Championship with 52 points. The Motorola 220, Round 14 of the FedEx Championship Series, will be televised via taped delay by ABC TV this Sunday, August 20th, beginning at 4 p.m. eastern time.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Absolutely, yes. I'll never step into a car on an oval without the HANS.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: It's very hard to say. I'm not educated enough to know that, let's put it this way. I think even like a doctor, someone that really designed the HANS, would be very hard to say that. The only thing I can say is that I think it's the best available out there in order to keep you safe. I will go for it. I was for it ever since the beginning. I will use it all the time.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Friday was very bad. Like thank God they had Mr. Herta there on hold in case I couldn't hop into the car. I managed to go through Friday morning, and then I got out of the car, didn't say anything, but it was bad. Friday afternoon it was okay. I went back home, it was really bad. Then on Saturday, it was a little bit better. Then Saturday qualifying was even better. Then Sunday it only got better. Only like improved during the whole weekend.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: I'm doing some needles on my back. That's the only thing that I'm doing. Apart from that, I was feeling a little bit junk on Monday.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Yeah. Plus I didn't sleep very well because I lost my flight, and I couldn't get back home until Monday morning. I only slept about four hours. So that didn't help me a bit. After that, it got better. I went through the needle session yesterday. That helped a little bit. I don't see that I will have any problem in the next race.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Yeah, I must think that that is very wise what you said, especially over there. You're going a lot quicker down the straights. Mid-Ohio is also tough. I think if you manage to go through the whole race without any huge problem, I don't see where you can have a problem. Like Mid-Ohio is, amongst us drivers, I think, one of the worst places to go to as far as really physical. I honestly don't see why I should have a problem there.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: No, for sure it isn't.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Well, let's divide your question. As far as going back there, a track where I went well there last year, honestly deep inside me, it doesn't add any pressure because I love the place and I always went well there. It's not that I'm going to do a little bit better or do a little bit worse because I went well there the last couple of years. I have to give it my very best all the time. This is what I'm really striving for. As far as the track is concerned, it's very quick. I would say a little bit on the really not dangerous, but because of the speeds and everything, it's like you really don't want something to go wrong in a place like that. As far as Emerson is concerned, the days he was racing there, I really didn't follow Indy cars much. I don't remember if he went that well over there. The only thing I can say is I always went well there. As I said before, I like the place very much. Every single year I went there, I always ran in the Top 3, apart from '97, I went from 20th on the grid until fourth.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: I think it's always important for you to be up there. It makes your life I wouldn't say easier, but less hard (laughter). Elkhart, pit strategy basically doesn't exist because the lap is so long that you can't pit like two or three laps later, you can't run lean to do this or that. Very seldom you see people pitting a little bit earlier or later, something like that. You basically have to run together with the guys that are really running up there. I guess that if you start in the Top 3, Top 4, there shouldn't be any problem.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Well, I think, believe it or not, if you ask me like "Compared to last year, how is your season going," I think we're stronger than last year. We have done very well qualifying. We definitely have the speed. I think my average qualifying performance is like fourth or fifth, something like that. We definitely don't lack any speed. Unfortunately, for a bunch of different reasons, we haven't been able to put the races together, and that cost me a lot. I think that I am stronger than last year, but last year I was going very, very well. I finished a bunch of races. This year the fact that I can't really -- or I couldn't, let's put it this way, I couldn't finish a bunch of races has been very, very bad for me.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: No. It's up at the end of the year.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Yeah. We're open to other things. We have been also talking like to other teams. Other teams came over after my works. Let's put it this way. I'm very happy where I am. Maybe I can move on to some other place, but I would be a little bit surprised if I did. My deal is not carved in stone yet. But if I went somewhere else, I would be surprised.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: No. Right now I tried it in the Detroit race, but it was really cramping up my shoulder after like a couple of laps. I didn't like it very much over there. I'm really using it on the ovals. It's very important to use it everywhere, but I think the ovals are really critical. On the ovals, you don't have the same physical stress as you do on the road courses. It's a lot easier for you to use it on all of like maybe oval racing as opposed to like the road courses.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: We haven't started that yet, but he already knows about the problems. We talked about them already. We came up with some like primary solutions, but we don't know if those are the correct solutions yet. Answering your question, we haven't really started. We're at a point right now that we're really happy that it's working on basically half of the tracks and the places where it's really critical. I think that we came a long ways. Believe it or not, last year in early November when I sat in the car, I wasn't comfortable sitting in the car statically in the workshop. Just to make it work like on a full race, it's something very good.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: I really think it's going to be the same as anywhere else. It's not because it's Brazil it's going to change anything. What I can say is it's going to be unbelievably hot. You guys don't understand how hot it's going to be (laughter). I think it's going to be the first race of the season, really hot, road course. It's going to be one of those real survival races. If you go reasonably well and your car doesn't do something really wild, you survive until the end of the race, the chances of finishing in the Top 3 are very big.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Well, I think it's important for everyone to have a lot of testing prior to the first race in order to get everything ready for the year. At the same time I think that we should limit our testing or have very small amount of testing during the season and really concentrate on everything, as you said, like from the end of the year until early February or March of like the next year.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Is when we're going through those batch of three races together and testing in the middle of the way. It's really demanding. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm almost sure that up to my Chicago race, I had been inside a racing car for the last 15 weeks, something like that, for at least two to three days like every single week inside the racing car. That's really, really hard on us. It's very hard on the boys also.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Well, I hope I don't have to use that anymore (laughter). I hope that you guys saw the last of that, like in the last race. I think a lot of it is in your head. Obviously, the physical is involved. But when you lose only one race, it's not that critical because it's only one race that you're off. You're still physically very fit. The problem is when you're losing like a bunch of races, like when you start losing five, six races, you have to come back in real top form, then it can sometimes be a problem. But as far as the rest is concerned, as I said, it's all in the head. If I wasn't motivated anymore, you would be sure that I would be hanging up and doing something else.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Pretty good actually. What can I say? I'll have to pay for the winner and a guest, provide them tickets from whichever part of the world they come from, hotel rooms. The site has been something that has really picked up this year. I put a lot of effort into it. Sometimes I think we could do some things that would make a difference, but as far as right now, I think that we got to a pretty good level. We're already thinking on some great things that we're going to do like for the next season. But if you guys want to check it out, Fittipaldionline.com.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Thank you very much. I hope I'm here next Tuesday to talk to you again. You know why.