by Ana Carolina Lopes

Today was the final race of the 2023 Formula 1 season. The championship was set and Dutch-Belgian driver Max Verstappen is a three-time World Champion for Red Bull Racing.

This post is also about me combining my two loves: music and Formula 1.

The sport has a historical relationship with music, not only for its currently famous theme song, created by composer and conductor Brian Tyler in 2018 (one of the very few good things about the “new F1”), but also for the friendship developed between George Harrison and Brazilian racing driver Emerson Fittipaldi.

Being a major motorsport fan, the musician met Fittipaldi in 1972, at Brands Hatch, England. Also friends with other drivers like James Hunt and Sir Jackie Stewart, and team principals like Williams Racing founder, Frank Williams, George was the first Beatle to visit Brazil. It happened in 1979 during the São Paulo F1 Grand Prix at Interlagos.

In 1996, almost 30 years into their friendship, an intense crash at the Marlboro 500 in Michigan, United States, left Emerson with a with a fractured vertebra and a partially collapsed left lung. He was 49 years old at the time and survived the accident, though he may have thought the was going to die. While hospitalized, he received a very special message from his Rock and Roll Hall of Famer friend, in the form of a song, to a rhythm very well-known: the Beatle’s ballad “Here Comes the Sun”.

“Hello, Emmo. You’ve been through a difficult time these last couple of months. Hello, Emmo. So good to see you well again. So, let’s go to the beach drink twenty caipirinhas each! It’s alright…”

Fittipaldi could have been acquainted with many celebrities that attended the paddock – and I’m sure he was and I’m sure there were many, even back then. But he was friends with, a Beatle, yes, but a Beatle who was an actual enthusiastic of the sport, not just a random superstar who knew nothing about Formula 1 (like the countless influencers we annoyingly see in the garages these days).

When George passed away, in 2001, the Brazilian driver emotionally said he had spent the entire morning talking to the guitarist’s family and friends.

“I’m sure George died believing in eternal life and that we will be together again”, said the two-time F1 World Champion.

And they will be. Drinking caipirinhas, going to beach, singing and of course, watching the sport they both love, that created one of the most truthful friendships in music and Formula 1 history.