(born
January 18 ,
1971 ,
São Paulo ,
Brazil ) is the son of former Grand Prix driver and team owner
Wilson Fittipaldi , and the nephew of two-time
Formula One and
Indianapolis 500 Champion
Emerson Fittipaldi . Christian was a highly rated young racing driver in the early 1990s, who drove 40
Grand Prix for
Minardi and
Footwork between 1992 and 1994.
Fittipaldi graduated to Formula One following a
Formula 3000 championship winning season in 1991. Opportunities to test and impress were limited at
Minardi , though, and despite a number of points scoring positions early in 1993, Christian fell out with the team management and was dropped with two GPs to go. He had one final crack at F1 in 1994 driving for the Footwork team, scoring two 4th places. Disillusioned with GP racing, however, Fittipaldi moved to America to race where he has been ever since.
Competing mainly in
Champcars , Fittipaldi was a slow starter, noted for his consistency rather than his outright pace, although by the time he won his first Champcar event at
Road America in 1999, he was a championship contender due to his consistent finishing, among which was a second place in the 1995
Indianapolis 500 , which earned him
Rookie Of The Year honors in the race. However, just as Fittipaldi's American career looked to be taking off, he incurred the first of the two broken legs he suffered whilst racing Champcars. Although he was able to return both times and win further races, he never regained the consistent form that makes Champcar champions.
With his Champcar career on hold, Fittipaldi shifted his focus to
NASCAR . He made 3 appearances in the
Busch Series during
2001 and
2002 . Although he wasn't impressive in those races, he caught the eye of
Richard Petty , and he was signed to Petty Enterprises near the end of '02 and made his
Winston Cup debut at
Phoenix . In
2003 , Christian made his first
Daytona 500 start, in a one-race deal with
Andy Petree , then made a handful of appearances for Petty in
ARCA . In the summer of 2003, Fittipaldi became the driver of the illustrious 43 car after
John Andretti was let go. Christian struggled and was reassigned shortly after the start of autumn, but remained with the team, driving the 44 car.
After leaving Petty Enterprises, Fittipaldi co-drove the winning car during the
24 Hours Of Daytona in
2004 . In
2005 , he migrated into the Brazilian Stock Car Series and reappeared in
Grand-Am winning a race at Phoenix and announcing he had signed for
Eddie Cheever 's new team for
2006 . He currently races for
A1 Team Brazil .
Fittipaldi scored a total of 12 F1 championship points.
(Note: grands prix in denote '''points scoring''' races.)
