Chico Serra

After taking up karting, he took titles in the lower categories and eventually won the São Paulo Championship three times then the national title. In 1976, he switched to single-seaters and contested the local and national Formula VW championships, where he dominated and won the title against the best drivers from Brazil. Then came a move to England in 1977 and, racing a Van Diemen RF77, he dominated the Townsend Thoresen Formula Ford 1600 Championship in his first year, winning nine of the twenty two races plus the prestigious FFord Festival, despite having just moved to a new country and driving on unknown tracks. He later stated that “when you come to England, you’ve made a big commitment. You look around you and you know you are a long way from home. When I arrived at the airport, without a word of English, there was a moment when I thought I’d just turn right around and go back home. Luckily I was just married and that helped a lot as did being in a good team, as did winning. When you win everything is much easier.”

He moved up to Formula 3 the following year and at the time, two separate championships were held in England. Contesting them both with Project Four’s March 783 he won three rounds but a heavy crash at Mallory Park left him with a severe concussion, which forced him to rest and he missed several races. Although his title challenges were effectively over, he won the final round at Thruxton and finished third (to Nelson Piquet and Derek Warwick) in the BARC championship, with 3 victories (he finished on 72 points, the same number as Warwick) and third (to Warwick and Piquet) with one win in the BRDC championship. His results through the year included victories at Oulton Park, Silverstone, Brands Hatch and Thruxton, second at Silverstone (twice), Thruxton (twice), Mallory Park and Oulton Park plus third at Silverstone, Thruxton, Brands Hatch and Donington. Chico decided to stay in F3 in 1979 and was on the front row sixteen times, taking five victories in the Project 4 March, and won the Vanderwell British F3 Championship, beating Andrea de Cesaris and Mike Thackwell. He took victory at Silverstone in the first round and was third in the second race at Thruxton then during the season he had victories at Snetterton, Donington, Silverstone and Oulton Park, was second at Thruxton, Brands Hatch, Cadwell Park, Silverstone, Snetterton and Oulton Park plus third at Monaco and Silverstone plus fourth at Silverstone.

Then came a season in F2 with Project Four’s March 802-BMW but it was a disappointing year, with his best results fourth on three occasions, at Thruxton, Hockenheim and Zandvoort, and he finished eleventh in the standings, with nine points.

However, his performance had attracted the attention of Emerson Fittipaldi, who signed him to the Fittipaldi F1 team; Emerson had decided to retire from racing at the end of 1980 and moved into the management of the team. Racing the Fittipaldi F8C alongside Keke Rosberg, Chico qualified thirteenth and finished ninth in the season opening South African GP then was seventh in the second round at Long Beach. This would turn out to be the best result for the team over the rest of the season (Rosberg had finished fourth in South Africa but this was a non championship race). He did not qualify for eight races (though Rosberg also failed to qualify for six rounds) plus did not start in France due to an accident and did not race at Austria as the car was unavailable. His only other finish during the year was eleventh in Spain. During the year, he returned to Brazil and won the prestigious 1000 Milhas Brasileiras in Interlagos, alongside the Giaffone brothers at the wheel of a Chevrolet Opala.

Rosberg moved to Williams for 1982 though Chico stayed on at Fittipaldi, now as the team’s sole driver and they continued with an F8D for the majority of the races but later introduced a new car, the F9. He was seventeenth in the opening round in South Africa though retired due to an accident in Brazil and did not qualify at Long Beach. Then came a highlight of his season with a sixth place finish at Belgium, taking his only championship point. He was eleventh in Detroit but following this he did not qualify for Canada and France and retired at Zandvoort and Brands Hatch. After qualifying at Canada he and Raul Boesel had a short scuffle, as he was furious at him for blocking his last flying lap after waving Keke Rosberg past though Boesel denied it was intentional. He was in the F9 from the German GP onwards and finished eleventh there and in Italy but did not qualify for the Swiss GP at Dijon-Prenois and the US GP at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. However, he ought to have started as the reserve in the Swiss GP, as Patrick Tambay pulled out just before the race due to a pinched nerve, but it was decided that Ferrari withdrew Tambay’s entry so late that Chico was not allowed to take part. Emerson and Wilson Fittipaldi attempted to raise funds to continue in the following season but the team closed down at the end of 1982. He went on to contest five Grands Prix in 1983 for Arrows, taking ninth with the A6 in the season opening race in Brazil but Alan Jones drove in the next round at Long Beach. He was back in the car for the following races though gearbox issues caused retirements from the non championship Race of Champions at Brands Hatch and the French GP. His final two races came in May and saw an eighth place finish at San Marino and seventh at Monaco but this was his last race with the team as Thierry Boutsen was in the car at the following GP in Belgium. Away from single seaters, in December he drove for Joest Racing in the Kyalami 1000 km, sharing a Porsche 956 with Bob Wollek and Stefan Johansson but their race ended due to an accident.

Chico returned to Brazil though only raced very occasionally then in 1985 tried to break into the CART series but there was only a single race at Portland with Theodore Racing where he retired due to engine failure.

He then began a successful career in Brazilian Stock Cars in 1986 and, though results were not forthcoming in his first two seasons, he began to challenge for the title in 1988 and won his first race. In the following year he had five victories in ten races and narrowly missed taking the championship, which went to Ingo Hoffmann. He was second again in 1990 then fourth in 1991 while 1992 saw him contesting the Fórmula Fiat Brasileira and finishing fifth in the points. In the following seasons he was seventh in the championship in 1995, sixth in 1997 and in 1998 he came fourth plus raced a Chrysler Stratus in the SudAm Super Touring Championship. Racing for WB Motorsport, he finally won the Stock Car championship in 1999, taking seven wins in twenty races with an Omega and repeated this in 2000 (with six victories in fifteen races) and 2001 (five wins in twelve races), contesting the latter two championships with a Vectra. After defending the titles in 2000 and 2001 he finished second in the standings in 2002, behind Ingo Hoffmann but only won one race the next year and was sixth in the championship. In 2007, teamed with his son Daniel and Francisco Longo, he raced a Ferrari F430 GTC for JMB Racing at the Mil Milhas Brasileiras and finished thirteenth (and sixth in the GT2 category) then raced in Formula Truck in 2008. Chico started 2009 with victory in the 1000km Interlagos alongside Daniel and Francisco Longo with Equipe Via Itállia’s Ferrari F430 and spent a full season in the Brazilian GT3 Championship, driving Scuderia 111’s Lamborghini Gallardo LP520 GT3 with Bruno Garfinkel and they finished tenth in the standings. He contested the following year’s championship alongside Joao Adibe in a Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 GT3 and they were ninth.

He wound down his racing commitments and devoted himself to managing his sons career. Daniel, like his father, also won three consecutive titles in Stock, in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and moved up to the IMSA and WEC championships, where he won Le Mans in GTE with Aston Martin in 2017. In 2014, Chico was one of the honourees at Velocult, an event held at Conjunto Nacional on Avenida Paulista, which aimed to preserve the memory of Brazilian motorsport. In 2015 he partnered with Daniel in the Red Bull team at a Stock Car race in Goiânia and after starting twenty sixth they finished twelfth. He contested his final race in 2017, with a Honda Civic from his own Serra Motorsport team, for the Brasileiro de Marcas and was on the podium with a third place result in the second race of the double-header at the São Paulo stage, held at Interlagos. Away from the track, Chico worked as a public relations officer for BSS, a company that specialises in automotive armouring.

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