Adrian Fernandez wasn’t short on top quality team-mates during a successful career in US open-wheel racing that yielded 11 victories across CART and the Indy Racing League, then subsequently in sportscars. The 2000 CART runner-up rates Scott Pruett highly from their time at Patrick Racing in 1998, while early in his career at Galles in 1993 he worked alongside Indianapolis 500 winners Danny Sullivan and Al Unser Jr.
But for his favourite team-mate, the Mexican singles out compatriot Luis Diaz, after three years together in the American Le Mans Series culminated in the LMP2 title for his own Fernandez Racing operation in 2009. That year’s success, amid a global financial crisis that contributed to trimming a once thriving class down to a full-time entry of just three P2 cars, is not the key factor in Fernandez’s choice. He regards his time alongside Diaz as “probably the three most fun years I have ever had in racing in terms of no pressure, having fun with the team”.
