Fittipaldi says he “loved and admired Ayrton in equal measure” – which was in stark contrast with Senna’s relationship with the other Brazilian F1 great Nelson Piquet, as he and Ayrton shared a mutual loathing.
Emerson first met Senna as a teenaged karter, and invited him into the Copersucar-Fittipaldi garage at a test at Interlagos in the mid-1970s: “The kart track at Interlagos was right next to the race track,” he recalls. “His father brought him next to the garage, and then I called him, ‘Ayrton, come inside here!’
