Tony Kanaan reflects on loss of lifelong friend Gil de Ferran: 'It's kinda a wakeup call'

The pair last spoke on the phone Thursday night, chatting about the future of their own slices of the McLaren Racing family – the lifelong mentor and mentee scheming, plotting and dreaming about what looked to be a potential-laden 2024.

The two retired Brazilian drivers last texted on Christmas, exchanging affectionate pleasantries that grew out of living together during May 2003.

‘Merry Christmas, honey.’

‘Merry Christmas to you, honey.’

But when Tony Kanaan thinks back to the final weekend he shared with Gil de Ferran, amid the sage advice and the gut-busting jokes across the busy Las Vegas Grand Prix kickoff in mid-November, Kanaan is left wondering about something de Ferran said, almost in passing.

“I don’t feel good.”

Was it all related to the sudden, fatal heart attack the 56-year-old de Ferran suffered Friday afternoon, behind the wheel of a car at The Concours Club? Painfully, Kanaan knows, he’ll never know.

But just as Kanaan was always eager to learn from one of his closest, truest, friends during their decades’ long companionship, the 49-year-old (his birthday was New Year’s Eve) is clinging tight to a few final lessons.

“My wife is like, ‘Yeah, you know, you feel bad for him, but when is the last time you’ve been to a doctor for a check-up?’” Kanaan told IndyStar this weekend. “So basically, sure enough – I’m not kidding you – she said, ‘We’re going to Mayo (Clinic).’ So I guess we’re going to Mayo.

“It’s kinda a wakeup call. We’re all getting older, and we all think we’re athletes, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do check-ups. I’m pretty sure Gil didn’t, and then you get angry, because, well, ‘You’re smart enough to.’”

'Helio, what happened to Gil?'

Unfortunately, Kanaan has been uniquely trained in grief over the last 30-plus years. His father lost a four-year cancer battle when Kanaan was just 13. Two of Kanaan’s closest friends in the IndyCar paddock – Greg Moore (1999) and Dan Wheldon (2011) – lost their lives in on-track crashes in the finales of those seasons.

Kanaan attempted to describe the pain as he prepared to board a plane for Miami to link up with countryman Helio Castroneves to be near for whatever the de Ferran’s family needs.

“People are always like, ‘Time will heal,’ but the pain will never go away. You just get used to it,” Kanaan says rather matter-of-factly. “You just learn to live without him. You know he’s not replaceable, and you’re going to remember him every now and then. This is going to be one of those things forever.”

But you can hear the tenor in Kanaan’s voice change, as he describes the almost unimaginable way he learned the news Friday.

A legend gone too soon: Gil de Ferran, the 2003 Indy 500 winner, has died at 56

The text came from fellow Brazilian racing legend Rubens Barrichello: Is everything okay with Gil?

Immediately, the comforts of Kanaan’s eight-hour flight from Brazil felt almost prison-like. Making an urgent, frantic call thousands of miles in the air was impossible. Inches over sat one of his young sons.

Barrichello had scant details, knowing only that de Ferran had been taken to the hospital.

“Your heart really jumps,” Kanaan said. Hoping Castroneves would know more, while fearing the worst, the 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner punched out the same text: Helio, what happened to Gil?

Quickly, Kanaan’s phone flashed that one message no one wants to receive.

Call me.

“You’re like, (expletive),” Kanaan retells, the despair in his voice impossible to hide. He begs the news out of his lifelong friend, who finally relents.

“And now I’m on a plane, and my 7-year-old is right next to me, so I can’t lose my (expletive), but I’m stuck on this bloody plane and can’t call anyone," Kanaan said. “It was shock. Everyone’s in shock, but at the same time, you go, ‘Well, what happened?!’”

Exact details are hard to come by, but as best as Kanaan understands, de Ferran was in the driver’s seat of a high-powered road car at the private, automotive country club in Opa-locka, Fla. His son Luke was in the passenger seat. At some point, the elder de Ferran told his son he wasn’t feeling well and pulled over.

“And I guess he had a heart attack, passed out," Kanaan said, "and they tried to revive him.”

A statement from the Brazilian Automobile Confederation late Friday night confirmed de Ferran indeed suffered a heart attack and was taken to a local hospital but didn’t survive.

“Gosh, (Gil) even went out in style, because if you ask me, we all know we’re going to die. It’s just a reality,” Kanaan said. “So if you say, ‘Hey, TK, if you can choose how’, I’d say, ‘Just like that.’

“He was driving a bloody race car.”

de Ferran's lasting legacy

Like when they were 20-somethings trying to make a name for themselves in the late-90s in CART, de Ferran spent his final days lending an ear to his dear friend. Kanaan privately wondered if he was good enough for his latest racing chapter. Just two months before, Kanaan had been elevated from Arrow McLaren’s ‘special advisor’ to its sporting director, taking on a larger and far more official role in the day-to-day operations of McLaren’s IndyCar team.

In May, de Ferran was named to a consultant role on McLaren’s F1 side, two years after his contract as McLaren Racing’s sporting director, spearheading the team’s return to IndyCar, had not been renewed at the end of the 2020 season.

As Kanaan describes, much of the pair’s conversations in Vegas not centered around what was going on on-track for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, involved injecting the younger Brazilian with the confidence needed to embark upon his first full-season out of the cockpit and in a managerial role.

“It’s a big team, and it’s not like everyone loves you when you come in and start doing things," Kanaan said. "He talked to me about how you work on people to try and get them to work for you and believe you’re in the right place and not just here because (McLaren Racing CEO) Zak Brown has known you for 40 years and you guys raced together and you’re ‘TK’ and everyone thinks you’re entitled to have a job.

“It was just so cool. You have one of your best friends, and it’s like you’re in school and not in the same class, and all a sudden, you are. We’re working together, exchanging ideas and making things happen together and helping each other on our decisions.”

Last fall, Kanaan had been somewhat noncommittal about attending the Vegas race. It was de Ferran’s masterful people skills, working on one of his best friends no less, that drew Kanaan there. Kanaan hopped on a flight halfway around the world from Brazil to Abu Dhabi after a Brazilian stock car race weekend to spend less than 24 hours in the UAE for Pato O’Ward’s F1 Young Driver test.

“Gil was one of those guys who was able to take the best out of you, without being a (expletive), but he could get his point across, like, ‘This is what I need you to do for me, because it’s what you’re supposed to do,’” Kanaan said. “Immediately after Zak told me what he wanted me to do (moving forward), I called Gil. ‘You’ve got to help me out.’

"At first, I really wondered, ‘Can I really do this?’ I guess I knew I could, but you’re looking for confirmation, and between him and Zak, it was like, ‘I didn’t ask you because I think you’re a good dude. I just think you can do the job.’ Gil was big in that.

“’Just do your thing.’”

And so, de Ferran’s protégé will press on in the coming weeks and months, facing head-on the challenge of returning one of the biggest names in racing to IndyCar’s Victory Circle after an empty 2023 campaign, while nursing the heavy weight of the loss of those who helped him get here. Never one to heap unnecessary praise on those who have passed away – “When somebody dies, everyone says what a great guy they were. You just become ‘great’” – Kanaan will continue to clutch to de Ferran’s unwavering, unmistakable confidence.

After all, it was de Ferran who, months removed from his 2003 Indy 500 victory for Roger Penske, retired from the sport at just 35, telling reporters at the time, “It was important for me to stop while I was at my best and still enjoying what I do.”

Kanaan, who entered the month of May multiple times, thinking it would be his last before what he says is a true and final retirement following last May’s 500, wonders now if he’d had that level of resolve.

He can only hope to summon it now, in memory of his “confident,” “opinionated,” “leader” of a dear friend.

“Zak has already said it," Kanaan said, "but this next win, it’s for him.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Tony Kanaan calls Gil de Ferran's death at 56 to heart attack 'a wakeup call'