From a 1993 karting title and a 2004 Formula 3000 championship to four Formula One teams in seven seasons and a later career in Japan.
Vitantonio Liuzzi, an Italian driver born in 1980, raced in Formula One from 2005 to 2011 with four teams. He scored 26 championship points, with a best finish of 15th overall in 2010, and later competed in Super GT, Super Formula and the International Superstars Series.
Vitantonio Liuzzi is an Italian former racing driver from the Bari area who competed in Formula One between 2005 and 2011. He rose through karting and single-seaters, won the 2004 International Formula 3000 Championship with Arden, and then drove for Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Force India and HRT. After Formula One he raced in the International Superstars Series, Super GT and Super Formula.
Who is Vitantonio Liuzzi?
Vitantonio Liuzzi, known as Tonio, is an Italian driver born on 6 August 1980. He scored 26 championship points across his Formula One career and later raced in Super GT and Super Formula in Japan, plus the International Superstars Series in Europe.
He was born in Locorotondo in the Bari area of Apulia. He speaks Italian, English and French, and he is married to Francesca Caldarelli. His best championship finish was 15th in 2010, a season that gave him his highest total of points.
Four Formula One teams in seven seasons, preceded by a dominant 2004 Formula 3000 title that put him on the grid.
How did Liuzzi rise through karting and junior formulae?
Liuzzi began karting at the age of nine and took the 1993 Italian Karting Championship. He finished second in the 1995 Karting World Championship and fifth in the European championship that year. He went on to win the Karting World Championship in 2001.
One of his best-known karting moments came when he beat Michael Schumacher at Kerpen, the German driver's home track.
The move to single-seaters brought second place in the 2001 German Formula Renault Championship. In 2002 he joined the Red Bull Junior Team, finished ninth in the German Formula Three Championship and won the Imola International F3 race. That year he also had test drives with the Coloni Formula 3000 team and with Williams.
Red Bull kept him for the 2003 Formula 3000 season, where he finished fourth. In 2004 he moved to Arden and won seven of the ten races, taking the title with one round to spare. The form prompted speculation that Ferrari might use him as a test driver, and he did test for Sauber in September 2004.
How did Red Bull and Toro Rosso use him in Formula One?
Liuzzi raced for Red Bull in 2005 and Toro Rosso in 2006 and 2007. He scored his first championship point on debut at the 2005 San Marino Grand Prix and scored the team's first point at the 2006 United States Grand Prix. His best drive came in China in 2007, when he finished sixth.
At Red Bull he began as test driver behind Christian Klien. The team had agreed before the season that both drivers would race, so Liuzzi replaced Klien for four races, from San Marino to the European Grand Prix. The seat then returned to Klien for Canada.
Toro Rosso was the team Red Bull created after buying Minardi, and it gave Liuzzi a full-season seat for 2006. The team scored only one point that year, the eighth place Liuzzi took in the United States. He was confirmed for 2007 at the launch of the STR2 on 13 February.
Early in 2007 his races were affected by mistakes, and he crashed into the Wall of Champions in Canada when a points finish looked likely. Speculation about his seat grew as the team courted Sebastian Vettel and Sebastien Bourdais. A post-race time penalty then denied him a point in Japan.
Performances improved once Bourdais' 2008 contract was announced. In China he qualified 11th, narrowly missing Q3, and gained three places at the start. He passed Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld, then held off a late charge from Heidfeld to finish sixth and take three points. Many consider it the best race of his Formula One career.
What happened at Force India between 2008 and 2010?
Liuzzi became Force India's test driver in January 2008 and made his race debut at the 2009 Italian Grand Prix, where he qualified seventh. In 2010 he scored points at several rounds and finished 15th overall with 21 points, a career best. Despite a contract running into 2011, he was replaced by Paul di Resta.
He had been linked to a test role with Williams, but that went to Nico Hulkenberg. Force India then released Giancarlo Fisichella in September 2009 so he could join Ferrari, and Liuzzi took over for the remaining five races of the season. He was running well in the points at Monza when a transmission problem ended his race after 22 laps.
The 2010 season opened with a ninth place in Bahrain for two points, followed by seventh in Australia for six points. At Canada he qualified sixth, a career best, and was promoted to fifth after Mark Webber's gearbox change. He finished ninth after tangling with Felipe Massa at the first corner. Later he matched his best finish of sixth at the Korean Grand Prix.
What was his time with HRT like?
Liuzzi was confirmed by Hispania Racing on 9 March 2011, having been considered by Lotus Renault as a replacement for Robert Kubica. He retired in Malaysia when the team withdrew him for safety reasons, and his best result was 13th in Canada, Hispania's best finish to date.
The results were mostly from the back of the grid. He finished 22nd in China and in Turkey, 16th in Monaco, 23rd at Valencia and 18th at Silverstone. Electrical trouble ended his German race, and he was the final classified finisher in Hungary (20th) and Belgium (19th).
At Monza he retired on the first lap after contact with Heikki Kovalainen. The impact sent him across the grass and into Vitaly Petrov and Nico Rosberg. He was again the final classified finisher at Singapore, Japan and Korea, and then Narain Karthikeyan took his seat for the Indian Grand Prix.
He returned for Abu Dhabi and finished twentieth. In Brazil he qualified 21st, ahead of teammate Daniel Ricciardo and both Virgin cars, and was running in front of Ricciardo when an alternator failure ended his race on lap 61. In February 2012 Karthikeyan was handed the final race seat, and Liuzzi was left without a drive.
How did each Formula One season compare?
Liuzzi raced in Formula One from 2005 to 2011, with race starts in six of those seasons. He scored points in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2010. The table below summarises his main results season by season.
| Season | Team | Main result |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Red Bull Racing | Maiden point at San Marino; four races as a replacement |
| 2006 | Toro Rosso | Eighth at the United States Grand Prix, the team's only point of the year |
| 2007 | Toro Rosso | Sixth in China, three points |
| 2008 | Force India | Test driver only |
| 2009 | Force India | Seventh on the grid at Monza; five races after joining |
| 2010 | Force India | 15th overall with 21 points, a career best |
| 2011 | Hispania Racing | 13th in Canada, the team's best finish; 20th in Abu Dhabi |
What did he do after Formula One?
After leaving Formula One, Liuzzi raced in the International Superstars Series for CAAL Racing in 2012, taking a win in a Mercedes C63 AMG at Monza. In 2014 he moved to Japan, competing in the GT500 class of Super GT and in Super Formula.
The Superstars Series opened with a podium in the first race of the Monza round and a win in the second. In Japan he drove for Autobacs Racing Team Aguri (ARTA) alongside Kosuke Matsuura in his first Super GT season.
Television offered a different challenge in 2013. Liuzzi and Johnny Herbert mentored six contestants in an ITV4 reality series. The aim was to take players of the Gran Turismo video games to the Dubai 24 Hour race as real drivers, and other European countries had heats mentored by Sebastien Buemi.
What were his strongest results in Formula One?
Three results stand out: the maiden point at San Marino in 2005, sixth in China in 2007 and sixth in Korea in 2010. The first came after both BAR drivers were disqualified, and the other two were his best race finishes in Formula One.
Many consider his China race the best of his Formula One career. He matched his career best finish in Korea three years later, and his 21-point season in 2010 remains his strongest overall year.
