Liuzzi: No bull
After a season and a half on the sidelines, Vitantonio Liuzzi has been handed another chance to show the world that he truly deserves to be an F1 driver. Will Buxton caught up with the Italian, and found a man much changed from the party boy of old.
The talk of the Italian Grand Prix centered, as it always seems to do, on Ferrari. OK, so that’s a slight lie. Renault, Flavio and all of that Singapore mess was the big story in Monza this season… but if one was to put all of that unsavoury nonsense to one side, then the big news was, of course, the fact that Ferrari arrived at its home race, not only with a new sponsor in its pocket, but with a new driver. An Italian driver, nonetheless.
At the other end of the paddock, however, another local boy was stepping up to the plate. And if Fisi thought he had pressure stepping into the scarlet car at the opposite end of the field, his compatriot was in no less deep. Fisichella had just taken the Force India to its first pole position and podium at the Belgian Grand Prix. This car was then handed to a man who hadn’t taken part in a competitive Formula 1 race for almost two years.
Moreover, the last time he’d raced at this level, he’d been torn apart by his team and by the press. Thrown aside for a younger, less experienced version of himself, shunned from the driver program which had nurtured him from youth, left out in the cold, his career in the drain, his future had appeared shattered. Force India stepped into the breach, taking him on as tester.
For Tonio Liuzzi, the 2009 Italian Grand Prix was thus much more than a chance to race again. It was a chance to begin a road back to redemption.
“The fact that it was my home race gave me power because I was in front of my home fans who have supported me,” he reflects. “But for sure, after the result of Spa it wasn’t easy to get the car of Giancarlo and bring in the same result. But the team supported me a lot since the beginning of my restart and they didn’t put me too much pressure to deliver, so I think it was the right approach on the weekend and I think it paid off.”
It most certainly did. For while Fisichella struggled in the Ferrari and failed even to make it out of Q1, Liuzzi made it all the way to Q3 and lined up seventh. In the race, on a heavy fuel-load, he made an astounding start and pulled off one of the overtaking moves not just of the race, but of the season, on Heikki Kovalainen through Parabolica. And then his drive shaft broke. Considering his track position at that time in relation to the two Brawns, who on a similar strategy went on to record a 1-2 in the race, those who were paying attention in Monza had been left astonished by Liuzzi’s comeback race. After almost two years away from F1, the Italian had been on for an almost certain podium and, many believe, a potential race win.
It was the same kind of performance that he’d shown on his F1 debut back in 2005. Again it had come at an Italian track, when he stepped up for his first of four races for Red Bull Racing at the San Marino Grand Prix. Back in ’05, however, to those who were watching closely he’d made an instant impression by boldly overtaking Michael Schumacher. The last guy who’d had the balls to do that on his debut had been Montoya. Liuzzi scored a point in Imola, one of a select few drivers to have scored on their F1 debuts.
And yet, after just four races, Red Bull put him back on the bench for the rest of the season. The man whom he’d replaced and who slotted back into his old seat again, Christian Klien, only scored another six points all season and Tonio’s impressive debut was all but forgotten.
“I think many times, people they don’t want to see what’s happening in the career of some drivers,” he confides. “I think in my career I have always been a fighter and I never gave up and we always showed big speed potential.”
That speed was given what should have been a great place to shine when Red Bull bought the former Minardi squad, turning it into Toro Rosso at the end of 2005. Tonio was the perfect driver for the team’s first season and was partnered with GP2 hotshot Scott Speed. But the Red Bull philosophy back in 2006, particularly at Toro Rosso, was one of Hollywood A List, glitz and parties. It was a life Liuzzi and Speed played up to. But it was to give them both reputations as party boys rather than serious racers. Liuzzi scored just one point in 2006. Speed scored none.
By the middle of 2007, the relationship between Speed and Toro Rosso was at its lowest point and after the German Grand Prix, team boss Franz Tost reportedly punched the American. Speed was out. A young German named Sebastian Vettel was in. Vettel had scored points in his debut with BMW earlier in the season and over the latter half of the season outscored Liuzzi by five points to three at Toro Rosso.
In the clear light of day that is all people now remember, despite the fact that these points came at the same race in China, one race weekend after the young German had taken the sister Red Bull car of Mark Webber out of the Japanese Grand Prix and had his position in the sport seriously questioned by his future team-mate.
Actually when one looks back at the Liuzzi/Vettel partnership the two were very closely matched, with Liuzzi just edging him in the stats. The Italian out-qualified Vettel 4:3 and made up 14 positions on his starting position to Vettel’s 13 over their seven races as team mates. The impression that many have of Vettel wiping the floor with Liuzzi is thus a falsity. Indeed, with Vettel now fighting for the World Championship, their relative parity as team-mates begs the question of just how good Liuzzi might well be.
“This is what I mean,” Liuzzi agrees. “Sometimes people see what they want to see, but you know, myself I’m really happy because I know what I can do. It’s just that you need to get the chance of showing it. At the moment I have to thank Mr Vijay Mallya who has given me the chance to do it and is giving me this opportunity to race with a strong team because at the moment we have become a strong group. For sure it’s not an easy thing to come back and in just five races put some good results together, but we’ll try hard.”
Those five races are down to just two now. After that stunning Monza showing Tonio has suffered from two mistakes out of his hands in qualifying at Singapore (incorrect wing levels) and Japan (botched tyre pressures), but has come out fighting both times. In both Singapore and Suzuka, Liuzzi was one of the few drivers to both attempt and pull off successful overtaking moves.
“Formula 1 is always an exam. Every race. It’s not just about one race which is more important than another. I always have to perform at the maximum and try to show what I can do. Now we have two occasions left to do that. Monza was really unlucky because of the drive shaft situation because we could have had a good position in the final result. But it is always an exam.”
Liuzzi has been told by Mallya that his seat is safe for 2009, but the big question of 2010 looms large. Is Liuzzi’s F1 return to be limited to just five races, or is there more to come?
“We kept our door open on both sides,” he confirms. “Vijay and me, we said, at the end of the year we will sit down and talk about the future. We have for sure a really high chance to continue and I would be really happy to do it because I like the Force India environment and the whole group. They showed the whole world that even though we are a small team, there are a lot of good heads put together and that makes the difference. We will see. I think we have a good opportunity to continue with Force India but we’ll see how it ends up.”
Liuzzi himself has grown up an awful lot. The party boy as he was portrayed at Toro Rosso moved away from the bright lights a few years ago and today prefers a simpler existence.
“I moved to Lugano (Switzerland) since two and a half years, since my Formula 1 stopped. Italy is always a location I can get to quickly because my girlfriend is there, but I am living in Lugano. It is close to Milan, on the lake. The lifestyle is good there, it is quieter, it is better for training, for relaxing and it is on the lake… so there’s a good view. Life has changed quite a lot. People change in life. There was a moment in my career when I needed to make a change and now I just concentrated on my results.”
There’s been a look in Tonio’s eyes over the last few years; one of missed opportunity, a longing for the chances he was denied by cruel political games. He would never admit it himself, he’s far too much of a decent chap to do so, but there are many in the paddock who firmly believe that his shot at making it to the big Red Bull team, or indeed to really show what he could do in a racing car, were torpedoed by the collective destructive influence of Tost and Berger at Toro Rosso. Indeed, there’s an unsubstantiated rumor doing the rounds at the moment that Red Bull’s ultimate boss Dietrich Mateschitz has gone as far as to apologize to the Italian for the manner in which Liuzzi and Red Bull’s relationship ended as with hindsight he now regrets losing the Italian.
Liuzzi himself pulls shot of blaming anybody for the way things ended at Toro Rosso, but does admit that he found it puzzling to be told by his ultimate paymasters to play up to the party side of Red Bull in public, and then be chastised by the team for doing exactly what they’d asked of him.
“I don’t blame the situation in the past [on anybody.] The past is the past. But for sure with them it was a different environment [to Force India.] It was also a different environment to how the team is now. Since I left they changed the complete theory of the team. They wanted us to do a lot of things and then at the end they said it was our mistake. So (laughs)… it’s a bit of a balance. But I don’t regret my time there. They taught me a lot, I learned a lot and that’s why I am also a different person now. I would never regret my time with them, but now it is two years after and I want to show again what I’m made of and what I can do in the track. That’s the most important thing.”
He leans in, and with a burning intensity in his eyes, firmly concludes: “I’m back and I have more hunger than before. My aim has always been to win the world championship and that’s what I am here to do.”