Winners and Losers

It seems that those with a burning desire to win often carry that competitive spirit as excess baggage. On the race track it is a vital element of what makes them great, away from the circuit it remains unstinting. Former Lotus boss Peter Warr remembers days spent with an ambitious Emerson Fittipaldi in the early 1970s:

“We were doing a series of Formula Two races in Brazil over four weeks and in between races we went down to his beach house for some relaxation. He liked to keep himself fit and was a great one for beach tennis. But this was in conditions where you or I couldn’t even walk on the sand, which was just unbearably hot. He played four and a half hours of uninterrupted beach tennis and wouldn’t even let his wife win a game! You’d think in a social environment for a bit of fun you might let your wife win a game or two. No way, he had to win every single game, and what’s more he was desperately upset if he didn’t.”