After his recent plane crash Brazilian Emerson ...

Published on 02 October 1997 by Verstappen Info Page

After his recent plane crash Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi, F1 driver from 1970 until 1980, decided to retire from active racing. Fittipaldi said that the recent plane crash in which he suffered a spinal cord injury has caused him to rethink his life and give up racing and other extreme sports. Although retiring from active racing he said: "I want to get involved on the other side of the wall ... on the safe side of the wall." He is thinking of setting up his own team, which he also did in F1 in 1980 for one year with Skol-Fittipaldi-Ford.

Another ex-F1 driver, Nigel Mansell, on the other hand is thinking of returning to active racing. Nigel Mansell is a possible driver for Patrick Racing in the Indy-car series. Jim McGee, who worked with Mansell at Newman-Haas in 1994, now works for Patrick Racing and said: "He expressed a desire to get back in one of these cars and see the difference between when he drove them in 1994 and what they feel like now. To see, as he put it, if he had the fire and desire to do it."