Obituary

Marco Campos

Given that there had never previously been a fatal accident in the FIA F3000 Championship, it is supremely ironic that one should have occurred on the very final lap of the 11th, and final, season in the category’s current guise.

Marco Campos was a calm, polite young man with a bright future, and he was on the verge of completing only his second season in car racing.

Starting in karting in 1988, at the age of 12, he won a total of 14 championships in six seasons before treading a path familiar to many young Brazilians, that to the door of Draco Engineering. Joining Italy’s successful Formula Opel specialist for 1993, he won five races on his way to the Euroseries title.

Some questioned the wisdom of his immediate graduation to Formula 3000, again with Draco, the family-run team having come to treat him like a son, but he swiftly proved that he could cope.

His best result would be fourth place in Enna. It was sometimes hard to remember, watching him, that this was a 19-year-old with fewer than 20 car races under his belt.

At Magny-Cours, Marco’s Lola rode over the wheel of a rival’s car, flipped into the air and landed, upside down, on a concrete retaining wall, inflicting a mortal head injury.

To his parents Roberto and Marcia, his younger brother and sister, Nadia and Adriano Morini of Draco and to all of Marco’s family and friends, we can but extend our deepest condolences.