Pietro Fittipaldi is competing in his first full season in INDYCAR. (Photo: Luis Torres | The Podium Finish)
LONG BEACH, Calif. — After years of competing in different disciplines of motorsports around the world, Pietro Fittipaldi has found a proper home in the world of open wheel racing. The 27-year-old Brazilian is competing in his first full-season in the NTT INDYCAR Series, driving for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Fittipaldi will be competing in his second points-paid race for RLL in Sunday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, a circuit the family never conquered over the near half-century history of the race in Southern California. Pietro’s uncle, Max Papis, scored a podium back in 2002 when he finished third while his grandfather Emerson Fittipaldi finished second twice in 1985 and 1990.
With his Long Beach debut around the corner, Fittipaldi is looking forward to racing at the 1.968-mile circuit and fully kick off the season after a slow calendar start to the year as far as races are concerned. After not competing in INDYCAR in nearly three years, his focus is on playing a role in bringing RLL back into contending form.
Between his 15th place finish at St. Petersburg and ending up 12th via disqualification in the non-points-paid race at Thermal Club, the driver of the No. 30 Honda discussed his young season after competing full-time in various series such as the FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series.
“I think all those years is a benefit for me because I gain experience in many different types of racing and INDYCAR is a series that you need a lot of different experience because you need to be good on street circuits,” Fittipaldi told The Podium Finish Thursday.
“You need to be good on road courses, you need to be good on ovals. To be able to learn in different types of racing what you need to do to extract the maximum from a car, I’m able to really apply that here in the different types of racing we do in the INDYCAR Series, like a street circuit, road course or ovals.”
Additionally, Fittipaldi has been a reserve driver for the Haas F1 Team, which has kept him busy throughout his racing career. Notably, he made two F1 starts in 2020 when he filled in for Romain Grosjean following his well-known crash in Bahrain. As much as his focus is now on INDYCAR, Fittipaldi remains busy in motorsports and has had time to reflect on how much he has grown since the sport last saw him in the 2021 Indianapolis 500.
“I’m super happy to be in INDYCAR and to be having my first opportunity to race full time,” Fittipaldi explained. “It’s something I wanted for a very long time. So super happy with this opportunity. It’s five seasons now with Haas as reserve driver, but I’m still doing a lot of endurance racing.
“I’ve been able to learn a lot through the years in F1 and as well in the World Endurance Championship last year with Team Jota. We won the race at Monza and you know, they’re a great team so I learned a lot from them as well and just being able to apply everything I learned and all that experience into this first full-time season in INDYCAR. But there’s still a lot for me to learn this year.”
Fittipaldi during Friday practice at Long Beach (Photo: Luis Torres | The Podium Finish)
Qualifying well is an absolute premium at Long Beach, arguably more than any other venue on the INDYCAR calendar. Knowing this, Fittipaldi is aware of what is ahead despite never racing at the circuit before.
Fortunately, Fittipaldi has Graham Rahal and Christian Lundgaard as teammates with the latter being no slouch on road and street courses since joining the series full-time in 2022.
With that in mind, his teammates are trying to improve on last year’s performance with Rahal finishing 12th and Lundgaard taking 14th. Fittipaldi’s approach is taking each session one step at a time and making the most of his Honda-powered machine.
“Qualifying is super important here because like it’s very hard to overtake,” said Fittipaldi. “So track position is important and having teammates like Christian and Graham to be able to rely on and understand from them. I think they did struggle a little bit last year, so they’re coming into this weekend trying something new and for sure they’re gonna be the reference in terms of trying to take the car to a better place.”
Such challenges fuel Fittipaldi, but it goes beyond Long Beach as it is one of 16 remaining rounds in a six-month span. His experience will once again factor into his motivation of what lies ahead.
“To be able to bring some of my experience to the table and the tracks that I know is gonna be super important,” Fittipaldi commented. “I think we’ve been able to do that already early on in the season. The more mileage I get in the car, the more confident and the better I’ll be.”
If there is a racer whom Fittipaldi has learned a lot from over the years, it is four-time ChampCar champion Sebastien Bourdais playing an important role in his growth as a racer. This was especially true during Fittipaldi’s time with Dale Coyne Racing in both 2018 and 2021.
“Sebastien is very technical, he is very good with the setup and passing along the information to the engineers in a way that they understand,” Fittipaldi on Bourdais. “I think that’s something I learned a lot from him on what you need in a car from an oval as well to produce lap times. I think that’s something as well that was new to me and I learned from him also.”
As race day draws near, several drivers have different approaches to how they get themselves focused on the grand task at hand with Sunday’s 85-lap race being a prime example. For Fittipaldi, music used to be involved but times have changed. Gone are the days of hip-hop and now it is pure ambience and setting himself up to concentrate on his performance over anything else.
“I used to like to listen to a lot of hype music before I get in the car, but now I don’t really need that,” said Fittipaldi. “I just kind of just stay on my own and focus on the things I need to execute in the race and then just jump in the car.
“As time goes things change and the way you want to be in the car also changes. So that’s something that happened naturally.”
