Brazilian
This Emerson Fittipaldi, racing as "Emerson Fittipaldi Jr.", is a young Brazilian single-seater driver and a son of the two-time Formula 1 World Champion of the same name, not the champion himself. Born in 2006, he carries one of motorsport's most famous surnames into a new generation, with a 2026 FIA Formula 2 debut as his biggest step to date.
Junior career
Fittipaldi Jr was picked up by Sauber's junior programme during his karting days and began his single-seater career in 2020, finishing third in the Danish Formula 4 championship with two wins. His subsequent years were a steady, sometimes modest climb rather than a meteoric one: he contested Italian F4 in 2022 (23rd), the Formula Regional European Championship in 2023 (24th, with a couple of Eurocup-3 outings), and Formula Regional Middle East in 2024 with MP Motorsport.
He found firmer footing in Eurocup-3, taking fifth in the 2024 season with four podiums and adding two wins in the 2025 winter series. It was a gradual development arc that, by his own admission, was a matter of "progressing step by step."
Formula 2
For 2026, Fittipaldi Jr stepped up to the FIA Formula 2 Championship with AIX Racing, jumping straight to F2 rather than passing through FIA Formula 3. The move places him among the strongest junior field in the world and represents the most significant test yet of whether the Fittipaldi name can be carried back toward Formula 1 by a third generation of the family on track.