CART MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 10, 1999

Christian Fittipaldi

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Thank you. Hello, everyone, and I am happy to be with all you guys.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Yeah, I am a lot better.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Well, very sad and very happy. Sad because of everything that was happening with me like this season - everything was going really well. And very happy on the other hand because the danger, it could have been a lot worse and maybe I couldn't even be here with you guys speaking today. So it goes both ways. It is real strange and at some stages it is real happy and at sometimes it is very, very bad.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Well, in a way, no, because what I suffered then was completely different to this - was more of a mechanical break and it was more of getting the leg back together again; welding it in one piece and being able to sustain all the car -- maybe like all the car forces. And what I have right now is -- in a way is something beyond my control. It is something that only time will make me get better.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Well, I think that everything there is a reason in life. If God wanted it to be this way, maybe he is showing me some other things in life or maybe he is preparing me like for my future. I honestly do believe that it had to be this way. I am sure that the day I was testing I was doing everything correct and the team had a very competitive car for me, running over there and no one was really working in a bad way so I really do believe that there are bad things that come for good in life.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: It is a difficult -- a little bit difficult to comment on that. I am really only worried about myself right now and obviously what happened to me wasn't in a perfect timing situation. But as far as we are concerned, I think we should try and improve the safety in general - like don't ask me what we have to do - but just try to make the racing cars safer and make the race tracks a lot safer; that would be a lot better for everyone.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Well, I think there are a couple of next tracks that will definitely favor maybe Dario and I think that he has a small advantage. Now we will have to see how Juan works like under pressure. We always saw how he did work which was very, very good, with no pressure at all. Now we see how he is going to react under pressure. I tell you, it is something completely different. But nevertheless, both guys that are up there are two excellent drivers and whoever wins like the whole series is -- definitely the series is going to be in very good hands.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Yes, definitely it was like it was a lot harder for us in the beginning of the season; especially after we went to Long Beach, we thought that we were going to be really, really competitive at Long Beach and we were not very competitive at Long Beach. Then we went back home and we said, ooh, we need to do serious homework over here. We started working on it and we got a lot better during all of the road courses and all of the street courses and it is very, very sad, at least in my case that I am not going to be able to take part in all the other events because like the whole team and the whole system of how we were working; how we were working with the tires and setting up the car was getting a lot better. And a lot better by every race.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Definitely no and they were two complete different injuries and I don't want to fall into any competition in that sense.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: No. Nothing. I only remembered when I opened my eyes in the hospital, believe it or not. I don't remember nothing at all. If someone told me I had had an accident in Turn 3 instead of Turn 1, I would honestly believe you.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: No, no, that is far from like -- they are big rumors. I don't know who really started them. That never went through my mind and the day I start thinking seriously on that and the day it starts going really serious through my mind, I won't have any problems in taking that step and saying that is it, guys, I am quitting today and I had enough. Thank you very much. And hope to see you soon in the near future. But definitely it is not the time for me yet.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: What maybe caused the accident was a malfunction in the gear shift. I went into Turn 1, I went from fifth gear to fourth gear and apparently what happened I was having similar problems to that in the prior laps to my shunt and what happened is fourth gear didn't really engage. It took a little bit longer than what I was really, really thinking that it would take when I was in the car. And suddenly when it engaged, it basically locked both my rear wheels and then the car spun very, very quick.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: It is difficult to answer. But in our case it could have been sort of a hardware problem because we were trying a new shift that is completely different from what we have been running this season. But it is still stages (inaudible) to say a little bit - what I am apparently not completely in favor of is the downshifting on the ovals, like, especially when you are coming from a very high speed to a very low speed which is the case in St. Louis, we are at the end of the straight about 210 miles an hour around and we are going into Turn 1 about 140 miles an hour so we definitely have to go down one gear and sometimes if we get caught up in a problem like this, it can really maybe result into a big heavy accident.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Yeah, that is correct. Actually I have a small constant small headache like the whole day and as soon as I move my head to the right and to the left, it hurts a little bit. Basically I am going to try and go swimming a little bit further on like this week, a little bit towards the end of the week and then start from there. But I am not really worried with my exercise right now. I am really worried in myself getting better as quick as possible and then I am pretty sure that all of the exercise will come naturally.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: It felt very good. Vibration-wise it felt better than this one that we are running nowadays. It vibrated a little bit less. Power-wise, not a big different because obviously it wasn't the latest and greatest spec that we were running over there as it was the first time that we were running the engine, but there were a couple of things on the engine that really surprised me and really made me very, very happy when I was in the car driving because it was a brand new engine, first time on the track and we had managed to run apparently 80, 90 miles completely trouble-free.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Realistically speaking, I don't think it is going to be any sooner than that. I think it is going to be around that. It is going to happen around Houston and Surfers. Hopefully around Houston because it will be earlier; especially because I know the track and I like the track very much over there. And so then I can get a shot at the street courses before I go to the last race of the year.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: I am going to start testing when we are about a week to two weeks prior to my first race and then I will have to go through a couple of tests in the car and that working out everything okay, then I will have to work with a couple of tests with the doctors also outside of the car. And hopefully we won't have a problem with those and then I will be ready to drive the racing car for my first race back again.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Well, sometimes you do get bored. Like I will give you a perfect example of that. Last week I left the hospital on Thursday and then I went back home. Then I felt very sleepy and then I slept the whole afternoon from two o'clock in the afternoon until 7. I woke up, eight something; then I slept again until the next day. You just feel sleepy during the day. You have a constant small headache during the day. This morning I woke up with a small headache and I woke up, I had breakfast, after about 45 minutes I went back to sleep again. Then I slept for another three hours. Then I woke up again. But it is strange because it is different from the leg - I think the leg you had more control over it. You knew exactly when the leg was going to hurt; when it wasn't going to hurt; when it was hurting; what did you have to do in order to make it hurt less and right now, it seems that sometimes I am a little bit out of control and I don't like that feeling.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Well, I would love to see them come back together again especially because of Indy. I think we are all missing out on that race, us as drivers, all the team owners, all the fans that go there every year and it would be great for us to be back at Indy as quick as possible. But as far as the political issues are concerned, that is a little bit beyond my control and a little bit beyond of what I can say or of what I can get really involved over here, so I hope that it comes back in a way that it can be very good for both parties. And that everyone can be happy and we can start racing back there again.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Maybe it could be a little bit too many, like already having 20 races per year is pretty tight schedule and technologically speaking the cars, the way they are set up nowadays, and the amount of testing you need in order to make progress in the cars maybe 24 to 26 races could be a little bit too much.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Thank you very much, and I look forward to seeing you guys as quick as possible. Hopefully this weekend, I am going to be over there just watching the race, but hopefully in the car, as everyone said, by Houston.

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Thank you.