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60-year-old Fittipaldi to test Ferrari-powered A1 GP race car
Former two-time Formula 1 champion and Indy 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi has announced he will come out of retirement to test the new car being built by Ferrari for the A1 Grand Prix. The 60-year-old Fittipaldi, who is currently the head of A1 Team Brazil, never drove for Ferrari (he won his F1 titles with Lotus and McLaren) but is excited about getting seat time in a single-seater powered by the Prancing Horse. He also has high hopes that bringing Ferrari to the A1 GP will increase people's awareness of the racing series. "The Ferrari name alone is incredible and people are going to give A1GP more respect and we are going to be much bigger," he stated. Fittipaldi admitted that he has no intention of racing the car in the series, and will limit his time behind the wheel to purely testing. Follow the jump for the press release.
[Source: A1 Grand Prix]
PRESS RELEASE
London, Great Britain - Emerson Fittipaldi has vowed to come out of retirement to test the new Ferrari-powered A1GP World Cup of Motorsport car next season.
The 60-year-old A1 Team Brazil boss is so excited about A1GP's involvement with Ferrari that he has confirmed he will get back behind the wheel to test the contemporary single-seater.
Following last week's historic announcement that the Italian sports car manufacturer will supply all engines to A1GP from next season, Fittipaldi, who never drove for Ferrari in his Formula One career, will not race the car but instead will look to get behind the wheel at the earliest opportunity.
'When I was told about the possibility of Ferrari coming on board I thought it was brilliant,' Fittipaldi said.
'The Ferrari name alone is incredible and people are going to give A1GP more respect and we are going to be much bigger. When Ferrari's people visited us in Zandvoort they loved our A1GP weekend and they are very enthusiastic to get involved with A1GP.
'Ferrari will help design a beautiful car. I always wanted to drive for Ferrari and now I can! I will at least test the car. I won't race it, but I want to test the car. I'm very excited about it.
'The partnership with Ferrari will make more drivers want to get involved in A1GP too. It will be an exciting formula for the racing.'
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Anthony 10:23PM (10/18/2007)
Uh, Emmo's sixty? When the hell did that happen?
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Nick 4:35AM (10/19/2007)
Well he was born on Dec. 12th, 1946, so since it became October 19th, 2007 I would assume.
HotRodzNKustoms 2:04AM (10/19/2007)
The King's English A1GP is roughly translated to American English as IROC. IROC just sounds much more badass.
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Galley 8:46AM (10/19/2007)
Perhaps they could increase awareness for the series if we could get some regular TV coverage on Speed!
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tjodleiv 12:20PM (10/19/2007)
How much will this cost the teams, ferrari will not come for free.
The problem with this series is that there are too many poor drivers in it. Some of the more heftige readers of Autoblog are problably better than 1/3 of the drivers on the grid.
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