INDY 500 RETRO: Emerson Fittipaldi

The 1993 win was very, very different. The Penske PC22 was very inconsistent at Indy that May, and it was not easy to set up. When it was right, it was fast – but to get it there was very difficult. It was hard to achieve the peak performance of that car. It was sensitive to weather, and to even small adjustments to downforce. We were struggling the whole three weeks to get the car working there. I remember I started ninth and my teammate Paul Tracy was seventh and Nigel Mansell [Newman/Haas Lola] started in between us.

But again, I picked up a very good set of tires from Goodyear – very consistent, very good stagger – and I was running third or fourth at mid-race, 100 laps. I spent most of my time right behind Nigel and he was driving Indy like it was a road circuit. Many, many times I saw Nigel putting his car on opposite lock, in Turn 2 and Turn 3. I kept getting on the radio to the Penske team saying,  “He's going to crash! He's going to crash! We're going to go together!” I was sure he was going to hit the wall, and I would collect some of his flying pieces. Every time I saw him sliding, I'd back off a little bit. Nigel Mansell always drove like it was an emergency, but he had incredible car control. Really incredible. The car would slide toward the wall, so close, but never hit it. He'd escape every time.

Anyway, on a restart, not the last one but the second from last, with 15 laps to go, I got it just right. I passed Nigel and Arie Luyendyk [Ganassi Lola] and I took the lead]. Like I said, I had good tires, and I had set number seven of the eight sets Goodyear had given us. That was the best set, and I knew with that set I would be able to go flat all the way around the circuit if I had clean air – and now that was exactly what I had. I was flat-out the whole time. Actually, I remember there was another caution, with about seven laps to go, because finally Nigel got a little high and scraped the wall with his front tire; he was able to continue but caused some debris.

I knew it would be tough to hold off Luyendyk on that final restart, but I was pretty confident with this set of tires. We got the green on lap 196, and with just two to go, I did the fastest lap of the race! So yes, that was another very, very satisfying win, fighting off two great drivers like Arie and Nigel. I had a lot of respect for them both. Arie was so fast around Indy and Nigel was the Formula 1 World Champion at the time. What a great race.

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