Jochen Rindt shook Emerson Fittipaldi's hand over breakfast at Monza in 1970, offering the 23-year-old Brazilian a Formula 2 drive. Hours later, Rindt was dead from a qualifying crash. Fittipaldi had made his F1 debut just weeks earlier in Lotus's old 49; now Colin Chapman handed him the team leader role. "I was expecting someone experienced," Fittipaldi told Autosport. Chapman's response: "You will be our number-one driver." The pressure was immense—replacing a championship leader mid-season—but Fittipaldi won his very next race at Watkins Glen, clinching Lotus's fourth constructors' title while Rindt took the drivers' crown posthumously. Chapman, scarred by losing Jim Clark in 1968 and now Rindt, later told Fittipaldi he avoided getting too close for fear of losing another driver. Fittipaldi went on to dominate 1972 for his first championship. At 79, he and Jacky Ickx call themselves "survivors" of an era that claimed far too many.
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