Biography

Tonio Liuzzi was one of the brightest talents to emerge from karting in the late nineties. He was a resounding winner of the prestigious 2001 FIA/CIK Karting World Championship. At the same time that he was successfully pursuing the karting world title, he also finished second in the 2001 German Formula Renault Championship. His performance in his first season of car racing together with his karting world title marked the young Italian as a future star with the talent to take him to the top of the sport.

During 2002 Tonio contested the German Formula 3 Championship and established his reputation as one of the quickest drivers in the Championship. Three pole positions, three podiums and a dominant pole to flag victory in the San Marino International Formula 3 race at Imola, displayed his true potential. Even so 2002 did not meet expectation as friction within the team was a new problem for Tonio to deal with. In 2003 Tonio switched to the well known FIA F3000 International Championship to drive for Coloni Motorsport.

During the season he emerged as the top rookie. He took pole in Hungary after only nine laps on the circuit, with a margin of 0.471 over the second qualifier, but victory eluded him with a pit stop problem when a wheel nut jammed. He finished 4th in the championship. His performances earned him the lead drive with 2003 F3000 champion team Arden International. “We looked long and hard before we chose our drivers,” said Christian Horner. “We expect Vitantonio to perform strongly as our lead driver.”

The 2004 F3000 International Championship proved Tonio’s potential. Taking seven wins from a total of ten starts, including nine pole positions, Tonio stormed to the championship. The Italian holds the joint all-time record for F3000 wins along with Juan Pablo Montoya and Nick Heidfeld. This remarkable result gave him a lot of attention from several F1 teams. He tested for Sauber Petronas in September and for the newly formed Red Bull Racing team in November and December, who then quickly signed him up as their test and reserve driver for the 2005 season.

In 2005 Tonio shared his seat with Christian Klien. Despite the fact that he drove only four races in that year, he beat team mate David Coulthard and scored a point at his first ever Grand Prix, when he finished the race in eight position. He almost repeated this performance at the European Grand Prix when he came home ninth. Tonio was ready to become a full time F1 driver and everyone knew was a man to watch for. Finally his chance was there when Red Bull bought the Minardi team and renamed the team to Scuderia Toro Rosso.

During his first full F1 season in 2006 he showed his potential, by scoring four top-10 classifications and and ten top-15 results during the season. The highlight of the year was the United Stated Grand Prix where he steered his Scuderia Toro Rosso car to an incredible eight position, after starting from 20th on the grid because of an engine change. He beat his team mate and scored the team’s first and only point of the season. His performances earned him another year at the F1 team from Faenza.

Despite the fact that the Toro Rosso was effectively the Red Bull, albeit with a Ferrari engine, the 2007 car was not quick out of the box, furthermore there were reliability issues. Tonio tried his best and he should have scored a point in Japan, but he was penalized for overtaking under a yellow flag. A week later, he made up for it by finishing sixth in China, and scoring three valuable points for the team. A strong test performance for Force India in late 2007 was enough to see Tonio recruited as third driver for the Silverstone-based outfit in 2008.

The new test rules in 2008 meant that there was not as much testing as usual to do for the popular Italian, but he grabbed every chance to show his team that he was still quick and hungry. Although he did more than 1100 testing laps, he admitted that he missed the action and he wanted to race again. He drove one race at the Czech DTM championship and tested a Speedcar Series car. In December entered the Speedcar Series and showed his ability to quickly adapt to a new racing car: he won the first race and finished third in the Speedcar Series championship.

With all F1 in-season testing banned in 2009, Tonio revealed that he was looking at other projects. Therefore he enjoyed four A1GP outings, but on 7 September, he finally got the call that he had to replace Giancarlo Fisichella for the remainder of the season. Although ‘rusty’ in terms of F1, Tonio immediately made an impression and qualified seventh for his home race. Unfortunately, driveshaft failure the following day saw him sidelined after just 22 laps. He was unable to score any points in the remaining four races, but he did enough to impress Force India, who retained him for 2010.