Stewart and Fittipaldi relive their battles

In the early 1970s, Jackie Stewart and Emerson Fittipaldi were on top of the world, winning two world championships apiece.

When AUTOSPORT reunited the pair during the 2011 Brazilian Grand Prix weekend for a special feature in an issue celebrating Stewart's career, it was almost four decades on from when they occupied first and second positions at Interlagos.

"Unfortunately we were second and first," quips Stewart, wincing at the memory of his defeat back in 1973. The pair have the air of old friends and rivals, with the shared experience of one of Formula 1's great eras clearly creating a bond that remains as strong now as it was in the '70s.

Being Brazilian, Fittipaldi is a little late for their meeting - par for the course in the country. Stewart, scrupulously punctual as ever, doesn't seem too surprised. When Fittipaldi arrives, having fought his way through the heavy Sao Paulo traffic, Stewart doesn't miss the opportunity for some gentle ribbing when asked how the pair first met...

Jackie Stewart: When I first came to Brazil, I came with Ford Motor Company on a world tour because I'd won the championship in 1969. I stayed in Copacabana hotel in Rio de Janeiro, and one of the purposes of that visit was to present Emerson with a trophy. The function was scheduled to start at eight o'clock in the evening. Helen Stewart and Jackie Stewart were there at eight o'clock in the evening because we were staying in the same hotel. So we were standing around waiting. Ten o'clock this guy shows up!

Emerson Fittipaldi: Maybe I was on eastern time?

JYS: His delusions of grandeur started very early! So I duly presented him with his award and then the son of a bitch got good at driving.

EF: In the 1960s, I was crazy about grand prix racing. We had very little contact with Formula 1 in Brazil. There was no TV, so it was all through magazines and newspapers. My dream was to go to Formula 1 and when I met Jackie for the first time it was amazing.

JYS: You could have fooled me!

AUTOSPORT: Did Jackie offer you any advice?

JYS: Yes! Go back to Sao Paulo, live there permanently...

Stewart and Fittipaldi share a laugh © LAT

EF: And stay racing go-karts! But for me to meet Jackie was incredible. The story goes back to Chico Landi, who was the first Brazilian grand prix driver. He went to Europe in 1949 and my father made the first radio broadcast about him. Since when I was four years old, I had the dream to be a grand prix driver. When I met Jackie it was, 'Wow, it's Jackie Stewart'.

JYS: I think that wore off quite quickly!

AS: When you came in Jackie, the top guys were Jimmy Clark and Jack Brabham. You were the new generation with Jochen Rindt and Jacky Ickx. Then you hadn't been there five minutes when this next generation with Emerson came in...

JYS: In the late 1960s and early 1970s we had a huge collection of really talented race drivers. The Ford Cosworth DFV was so good that we were [nearly] all using the same engine so there wasn't a power advantage for anybody.

EF: It was incredibly competitive.

JYS: The fights that myself and Emerson had together were fantastic. That Brazilian Grand Prix you mentioned at the start, it was here at Interlagos on an even better version of the circuit than we have now. It was hugely rough and the first corner was a big challenge. The Tyrrell was never very good over the bumps and I was a poor second to you that day - I can't remember much but it was too much [13.5 seconds].

AS: What do you remember of the 1973 Brazilian Grand Prix, Emerson?

EF: There was a tremendous amount of pressure on me coming to Brazil as world champion for the first time. But I was motivated by it - it was a positive pressure. When you're racing at home, you have friends, family, sponsors, the public. Jackie was always respected by the public. From the beginning, if you look at the crowd, they loved the Brazilians to win but they had great respect for Jackie because of his history and his background and the way that he presented himself. He's still respected today.

AS: You had some great races together, in 1972 and '73 in particular. How did you regard each other as racing rivals?

EF: I had a very long career and raced against many great champions. Jackie was one of those guys who was very tough but who you knew was going to respect to the limit, the space that belonged to you on the track. I never had any problem with being behind him trying to pass or vice versa. We knew each other well and respected each other. Except at the Monaco Grand Prix in 1973. He didn't respect me after that race.

JYS: Ah, yes. Completely my fault.

EF: He won the race and for the last five laps I was right on his gearbox. But I couldn't pass him. After the chequered flag I came alongside him to congratulate him coming out of the tunnel and he just pushed me against the barrier. We touched wheels and I had two wheels up in the air. I almost went upside down. He tried to kill me after the grand prix!

Stewart leads Hulme and Fittipaldi © LAT

JYS: I didn't know he was there. I never felt so bad after winning a race! I had quite a big lead, but then he got on the job and kept chopping away. This son of a bitch catches me up and there are some great photographs of the two of us.

This was in my last year, so it was the last chance I would have to race there. To win the race was a big deal and I should have been very happy. Coming out of the tunnel, I was taking my gloves off one at a time and the car was moving across the track. Suddenly I felt - bang! - and his car is up there and I'm seeing the underside of it! I realised what had happened. I had not seen Emerson at all. It was entirely my fault.

EF: It was the only contact we had in all of those years of racing. The dangerous time was after the race!

JYS: If you think of what has happened recently, with all the contact we've seen between drivers, that simply didn't happen. If you raced with Jim Clark, with Jochen Rindt, with Francois Cevert, with Emerson and all of the top racing drivers, there was never a situation where you saw that type of behaviour. Partially because there was no run-off area, partially because the accidents then were so severe, the life expectancy was low, so you had respect. There were some drivers that I won't mention who weren't so easy to pass. But I think that was because they were so busy doing their own thing that they didn't see anybody.

EF: They put us in a critical position sometimes.

JYS: But there was never any weaving and change of direction. It was really clean in that respect. And it's not us looking back with rose-tinted glasses. If you see the film that is available, that's not there.

Stewart found himself interviewing Fittipaldi as a member of the media after his retirement © LAT

AS: Emerson, you raced on in F1 for a long time after Jackie. Was it still like that at the end of your career?

EF: It was still like that. After 1980 which was my last season in F1 there was still that respect between the drivers. What Jackie says about the risk factor is very important. We had a lot of respect outside the car as well.

JYS: And the GPDA [Grand Prix Drivers' Association] was very powerful. We had meetings every grand prix and if someone was misbehaving they were told in front of everyone. It wasn't a question of running over to his pit or garage; you got together and somebody said, 'This is ridiculous'. It was a different culture.

EF: The GPDA was very effective because the risk was huge. We had meetings in Geneva, always talking about how to improve the tracks. We made a union.

JYS: It was very strong and the integrity of it was right - it had to be done. Today, if somebody moves over on somebody else, they just run over the run-off area. Sometimes, they don't even get passed. Now, they can take liberties which they could not take in our day. There was a different respect between drivers.

AS: Emerson, when you learned that Jackie was retiring, what did you feel? Relief?

EF: I was relieved because he was one of the greatest champions I'd ever raced against. But at the same time I knew that the sport was going to miss Jackie. I never told Jackie this, but at Watkins Glen [when Stewart's team-mate, Francois Cevert, had his fatal crash in 1973] I thought it was your car. Did I ever tell you the story?

JYS: No.

EF: I knew Jackie was going to stop and when I saw the yellow flag, knowing that section was quick, I stopped and just saw the wing of the Tyrrell. I went over the fence to help and it was just a disaster. In Francois, we lost a great friend.

JYS: The violence of the accident...

EF: It was shocking. I thought it was terrible for Jackie to have all of his career and then this happen to him in his last race. But it was Francois.

AS: You had very different perspectives on retirement. When you stopped, Jackie, you stopped for good, but Emerson came back to have a long career in Indycars. Why were your approaches so different?

EF: Jackie started at a very tough time for grand prix racing. Tougher than when I started in 1970. If you look at the 1960s, the risk was even higher. We knew at one point there were 21 established drivers and on average three would die. When you arrive at the racetrack, you don't think it will happen to you. But many times I was leaving Switzerland to go to a grand prix and asking if it was the last time I saw my house.

Stewart with Cevert © LAT

JYS: The number of funerals, memorial services and families you were looking after was ridiculous. I was lucky, though, because I nearly retired in 1971. I had mononucleosis when I was doing Can-Am and F1 and touring cars and GT cars. Then I got over it by the end of October and thought I'd do another year. Then I had the ulcer that haemorrhaged in 1972 and I nearly gave up. Then I got fixed and thought I'd do another year.

By April 1973 I had made up my mind that, whether I won the world championship or not, I was going to retire. Me going through that crisis of 'do I race or do I retire?' was good - unlike Michael Schumacher, who never went through that; he just retired and retired too early. In my case, I had nearly retired twice so the third time was with the right frame of mind that I was categorically not going to do it.

But I also had the benefit that I had decided in April but didn't tell Helen or anybody. I told Ken [Tyrrell] and [Ford boss] Walter Hayes. I knew it was my last race everywhere, which was nice, so there was no desire to go back and I was lucky enough to go out as world champion. That was an even sweeter way to do it, so why come back? They tried to get me back a couple of times, but no.

EF: The day that Francois passed away in the crash, I went back to the pits. I was so crazy, so emotional with everything that happened. We lost Jochen in my fourth grand prix and I knew that the sport could not go on like this. I was revolting against the sport. Why should this happen?

The only place at Watkins Glen where there was nobody was right in the middle of the car park. I told Colin [Chapman, Lotus chief] I'd come back later and I was by myself thinking, for the first time ever, should I retire? I really considered retiring that day.

Then, I remember they called the drivers for practice. I was there, shocked, and they said, 'Grand prix drivers, you are back on track in half an hour.' So I did. But I nearly retired. Jackie went through this much more than I did in the 1960s. But each driver has his own way of thinking about retirement.

JYS: How old were you then?

EF: In 1973, I was 26.

JYS: I was 34.

AS: Jackie, what did you think when you saw Emerson still racing on in America in Indycars into his late forties? Did you think he was mad still to be doing it?

JYS: No. I know the bug and I was so lucky that I didn't have any withdrawal symptoms. I still love the sport to this day, but I never wanted to drive afterwards. I had done a contract with Ford Motor Company for five years before I announced my retirement, so I knew I had five years. I did the same with Goodyear, I did the same with ABC Wide World of Sports and Elf. I had four really good contracts for five years.

Fittipaldi raced on in F1 until 1980 © LAT

So my life was consumed and I was still going to grands prix. I got all of the good times without the hassles. Had I not done that, maybe life would have been different. It was a lovely separation, but I didn't lose the sport.

EF: When I stopped in 1980, it was the full ground-effect car, which I hated. It was extreme, with skirts and no suspension. Every time you got to a fast corner, you could go quicker and it would take it. You didn't know the limit. The finesse of driving was lost. I was against those rules. It was too much.

AS: What were those three years of retirement like?

EF: I came back to Brazil and then I started racing in other categories. We had twin-engine superkarts that were very fast and I was still enjoying racing those. Then I got the chance to drive in the Miami Grand Prix. I'd never been to downtown Miami even though I'd flown through there so many times. Now I love Miami. I was then invited to drive Indianapolis. When I was about 10 years old I saw a lot of documentary movies about Indianapolis and I was very curious about it. So I kept asking people about it. I asked Jochen about it, and he hated it. You either love it or you hate it.

JYS: It wasn't that out of the box in the 1960s. We all did it. I actually quite enjoyed it. It wasn't something that was considered a stupid thing to do. The other point was that it wasn't F1, which was a closed shop, so you could go back to do Indy with a top team and be competitive, like Emerson was.

AS: You had two fights together for the championship - 1972 and 1973. You can make an argument that if Jackie hadn't been ill in 1972 and Emerson hadn't had his crash at Zandvoort in'73, you might have 'swapped' those championship victories...

JYS: You play it as you get it. You go out to drive and win. I wasn't so driven to have to get the championship in order to retire in 1973 and the competition was stiff.

EF: I remember how hard Jackie was driving at Interlagos in 1973. You didn't qualify well because the car wasn't easy to drive.

JYS: It was a short wheelbase and terrible over the bumps.

EF: Jackie finished second and showed how hard he was going for the championship.

JYS: Second was a good result for me here.

EF: It wasn't a car that he should have finished second in.

JYS: Derek Gardner [Tyrrell designer] liked short wheelbase. It was a good car, but difficult to drive. And we all had the Cosworth engine, which was reliable [it took every race win in 1973].

EF: Jackie was tough. Always. He was always there at the end of the race.

AS: Emerson, you destroyed your favourite car at Zandvoort?

EF: That was my worst crash in F1 because the front-left wheel broke coming onto the straight and I went off. Then I was stuck in the car and from the dashboard forward there was nothing. It was Graham Hill and Jo Ramirez [then working for Tyrrell] that helped me out. It took half an hour.

JYS: That was a bad race. Were you still in it when the [fatal] Williamson accident happened?

EF: Yes.

JYS: That could never happen today. We were driving through smoke and flames.

The reminiscences of these two great champions are cut short by their successors on the current F1 grid firing up ahead of practice at Interlagos. But you could listen to them for hours, the respect between the pair impossible to mistake.

And you get the feeling that, if they were 40 years younger, they'd like nothing more than to be heading out on track themselves to renew a great rivalry.