Emmo, 'Mad Max' for second Conquest?

Rumours doing the rounds in CART Champcar circles at present are linking Max Papis and none other than Emerson Fittipaldi to a possible second car to run out of Conquest Racing's hauler in 2003.

While it is widely known that both 'Mad Max' and 'Emmo' are talking the talk in search of Indy action this summer, neither had been linked to Eric Bachelaert's Conquest operation which, contrary to popular trend, left the IRL for CART over the close season. Papis has been linked to a number of vacant rides over the winter, most notably that at Paul Gentilozzi's Rocketsports operation, while Fittipaldi's desire to start up his own team originally had him connected to running a second car at Patrick Racing.

With sponsorship being as hard to find in CART circles as it is anywhere else in the racing world, the two have now seemingly graduated to Conquest, where the rumourmill atseventhgear.com believes that they could wind up for the coming season. According to reports, one of Papis' former Sigma Autosport engineers has already joined the team in advance of a possible announcement.

However, Fittipaldi's Brazilian links could see a second South American - or even Portuguese favourite Tiago Monteiro - joining Mario Haberfeld at Conquest in 2003.