There’s a new Fittipaldi on the open-wheel racing scene.
Enzo Fittipaldi swept the weekend’s Indy NXT races at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, showing tremendous speed and race craft in the process.
The victories were the third and fourth of the season for the HMD Motorsports driver and put him in the point lead with five races remaining.
Fittipaldi, 24, may be an Indy NXT rookie, but he’s a seasoned veteran of motorsports having competed in the European Le Mans Series and Formula 3 and Formula 2 on the Formula 1 feeder system.
He’s hoping to follow the footsteps of his grandfather, two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and two-time Formula 1 champion Emerson Fittipaldi. As well, Fittipaldi’s brother, Pietro, is a former Indy car and Formula 1 racer.
Fittipaldi showed his mental toughness by bouncing back from a rough stretch of races with the Mid-Ohio sweep.
“Racing, it’s — my grandfather always said, you lose a lot more than you win,” Fittipaldi said. “So you have to just after a race weekend or something, you get a win, you have to be happy and stuff, but obviously when you get, like, a difficult weekend like I had a Gateway, I as well wasn’t extremely sad or frustrated after the race. I always try and keep the same energy for a win and defeat.
“It’s very mental. When you are doing a championship and you’re fighting for a championship, it’s important to be competitive and mentally strong,” the Brazilian ace continued. “So having this approach has helped me quite a lot in my career, and racing is a very difficult sport. You know, it’s 25 cars, and there’s only one winner. It’s not like you’re playing basketball or soccer and it’s a 50/50 chance of winning.”
Fittipaldi, who leads Tymek Kucharczyk by 17 points and Nikita Johnson by 20 markers, is impressed by the level of competition in the Indy NXT series.
“Indy NXT is a very competitive field. It’s very easy — you know, you make a little mistake in qualifying, and you can end up being ninth or 10th, and you struggle for the races,” Fittipaldi explained. “It’s really important to enjoy the moments that you have when you have the wins and stuff, but then when the next race is coming and everything, you need to reset and be back to how — back to, like, 0-0, I guess.
“In Brazil we say it like that. I watch a lot of soccer. I’m a big fan of Palmeiras, and after they win a game, the coach, Abel Ferreira, he always says, ‘OK, after the game, now we’re 0-0.’ That’s my mentality.”
Fittipaldi summed up a weekend that included a 12.7-second victory on Sunday.
“A very nice bounceback after what we had at Gateway with the car issues and then Road America. Yeah, just a bit didn’t put everything together,” Fittipaldi said. “Yeah, super happy to bounce back like this.
“I feel great. You know, we’re in great form going into the last part of the season. Yeah, just continue working hard and doing our best.”
