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Parts of this interview have been edited and condensed for clarity.
“Knowing is half the battle.”
G.I. Joe may not have been thinking about racing when he said this, but Enzo Fittipaldi is bringing the phrase to life in motorsport as he prepares for his debut in the American series Indy NXT.
“I know that this year is extremely important for me in Indy NXT to not only learn as much as possible but also be competing at the front,” he said as we sat down to talk about his preparation for what will hopefully be an excellent first season in Indy NXT.
“My goal is hopefully to be in contention for the championship towards the end of the season. But obviously I know there's still a lot that I need to learn. And so I'm just trying to gather as much information as I can before the season starts, so I'm as prepared as possible when I get to the first race at St. Pete.”
But this learning wasn’t something that started just from the moment he signed with HMD Motorsports. It began long before–from his time in open-wheel series like Formula 3 and Formula 2–and kept going through to his recent stint in endurance racing. From his on-track experience to the people he is surrounded with, Fittipaldi has developed the thorough knowledge base he needs to hit the ground running in this next step of his career.
Open-wheel vs. open-wheel: How F2 and Indy NXT compare
Driving professionally since 2016, Fittipaldi established himself as a competitive driver in F2 with two victories and 13 total podiums between 2022 and 2024. We immediately got into the meat of how he has put his experience from the series into action in the pre-season as he preps for Indy NXT before cars have even hit the track.
“I feel like a lot of the prep is very similar to how it was when I was in Formula 2,” he said. “So, it's things that I'm used to.
“Last year, I was racing endurance racing. So it's quite different how you prepare for endurance. You want to be as light as possible. So, you do a lot of cardio and very low weight.
“And then in Indy NXT, or open wheel in the US, the steering is quite heavy. It's quite physical. So, you want to be a bit heavier and start pulling or pushing more weight and, yeah, still doing a lot of cardio. So no big surprises up until now.”
But while the preparations for Indy NXT may be reminiscent of those for F2, the driving styles of the two series could not be more different. Fittipaldi took the time to explain where exactly the two diverge, saying, “The biggest difference [is] for sure the tires. Because tires are what you're feeling when you're driving through the car. The only thing that's touching the asphalt is the tires on a race car.
“So, when you race with Pirellis in Europe and you go from Pirellis to Firestones, it's a massive change and it's a whole completely different approach on how you drive the race car as well and how you warm up the tires.
“I feel like in Europe the Pirellis are very sensitive. The window is very small, the working window of the tire. And [it’s] very important how you bring the tire in. So, how you warm up the tire… you have to be super smooth. You can't slide on the tire on the warm-up laps. If not, you could risk damaging the surface of the tire, and then that will affect you performance-wise.
And then in the US [using the Firestones], it's just like the opposite. Just like, send it, which is pretty cool.”
Fittipaldi’s first time driving on the Firestone tires came when he tested with Dale Coyne Racing at the Sebring International Raceway in 2023, long before he signed with HMD Motorsports to join Indy NXT. Since then he has also tested with Arrow McLaren at The Thermal Club in California in November, 2024 and again the following year at Sebring. These tests gave him some invaluable insight which will certainly come in handy as he prepares for the year to come.
“It’s very helpful because IndyCar is obviously the next step to Indy NXT, but they also run the same tires, which are Firestone. So being able to have a feeling of how the Firestones are and having some experience on Firestones was helpful when I did my first test in Indy NXT.”
He spoke with confidence now, but in the moment, the different approaches to tires in IndyCar and Indy NXT compared to F2 surprised Fittipaldi, as he recalled an exchange with his team before going out for his first run for IndyCar in 2023.
“I said, ‘So guys, what is, like, the warm-up and whatever?"
“And they're like, ‘No, the warm-up is just drive fast,’”
This contrast was refreshing for Fittipaldi, who described the approach as, “just more raw. I feel like they just focus more on straight up driving and driving fast, and I really enjoy that.”
Lessons from endurance racing
F2 is far from the only racing series that Fittipaldi is bringing in critical learnings from as he prepares to take on the Indy NXT calendar. In 2025, he raced in the LMP2 category European Le Mans, where he drove for CLX Motorsport alongside fellow Brazilian Pipo Derani, Manuel Espírito Santo of Portugal, and Sebastián Álvarez of Mexico. CLX finished sixth overall in the LMP2 Team Championship, as did Fittipaldi in the Drivers Championship, an excellent result for his debut season.
On racing as part of a multi-driver team, Fittipaldi said, “In endurance racing, you learn a lot about teamwork, and having to have a very good relationship with your teammates that you're sharing the car with, because you want to move forward and make the car better so you guys can get better results.
“And I know that in open wheel, there's kind of a history where your biggest rival when you get into a team is always going to be your teammate, because people are always comparing and they will always compare you to your teammate because you guys have the same equipment.
“But I think something that I can bring from endurance racing, which is helpful, is that I'm able to work together with my teammates–especially on test days and stuff–to get the maximum out of all the cars in the team so we get as much data as possible, so we can be ahead of Andretti, Abel, Ganassi, because you need to work together with your teammates in these moments.”
Support from his brother, Pietro
Indeed, having the support of the people around you can only help in achieving further success. And for Fittipaldi, one of the closest sources of that support has been his older brother, Pietro Fittipaldi.
The younger of the two spoke very highly of the relationship the brothers have, saying, “[Pietro] has obviously been very helpful throughout my whole career. He's always been supporting me.
“He's five years older than me, so he has quite a lot more experience on his shoulders. He's someone that I can always lean on if I have any doubts or questions. So, obviously I'm very grateful to have a brother like him next to me and supporting me always in my career.
But at the same time, me and him, we have very different approaches to racing, and the way we approach our preparation and our race weekend, which I think is very good because then we're really able to learn from each other.”
The brothers also raced together for Pratt Miller Motorsports at the Rolex 24 at Daytona at the end of January. Being on the same team brought out a bit of sibling rivalry between them as well as the opportunity to learn from the debriefs afterwards.
“In the Daytona 24, we were competing against each other, but it was hard to compare [during the race] because we'd always go out at different time of day and everything,” Fittipaldi recalled.
“But we were very close to each other at Daytona 24. I think he's going to say he was half a tenth quicker, but I was half a tenth quicker,” he said with the classic grin of a younger sibling who knows they’ve one-upped their elder.
“But no, we obviously had a super great time there at Daytona,” Fittipaldi continued. “Being able to share notes together, that was very good and very helpful.
“But like I said, we're also very different... There's some ways that I approach a race weekend that he doesn't agree with, and there's some ways that he approaches a race weekend, and I don't agree with it, and then we're able to talk about it and find the solution.”
The unknown challenge: oval racing
While he may be as ready as he can get, the start of something new always brings a few unknowns with it. When it comes to Indy NXT, for Fittipaldi, the biggest unknown will be the oval circuit.
“It’s going to be [my] first time racing in an oval,” he said. “So, that's going to be a big challenge for me. And I can't wait to have my first lap on an oval and just see what it feels like.”
Still, he is doing everything he can to be prepared for the moment.
“That's something I'm going to have to adapt myself to as fast as I can,” he said.
“I've done oval racing on iRacing, and I really enjoy it. But obviously I know that there's no risk factor when you're on the simulator. I know it's completely different when you're on the oval track and driving at 200 miles an hour with the brick wall right there. So, if you make a mistake, it's going to be costly. “
“I know there's a lot of confidence that goes into oval racing and stuff. So, that's something I'm very excited for.”
As he gets ready for the next stage of his racing career, Fittipaldi is drawing on all the experiences he has had in other racing series.
If knowing is half the battle, using all of the knowledge he has gathered so far when he arrives at the Streets of St. Petersburg for the Indy NXT season opener at the end of February will get him halfway to the finish line, and to his goal of contending for the Indy NXT title.
He just has to drive himself the rest of the way there.
Images courtesy of Indy NXT and Penske Entertainment.
