Planet-F1

Vitantonio Liuzzi

Wednesday 14th February 2007

Tonio Liuzzi is one of the brightest talents to emerge from International Karting in recent years.

He was a resounding winner of the prestigious 2001 FIA/CIK Karting World Championship series before progressing to single-seater cars.

He finished second in his debut season in the 2001 German Formula Renault Championship before moving to the German Formula Three series the following year.

From there he switched to the FIA International Formula 3000 Championship, finishing fourth in his first season.

Liuzzi's second season - 2004 - saw his progress culminate in championship glory with the Arden International team.

During that time he also earned a test drive with the Williams team and in 2005 was snapped up by Red Bull Racing as their official test driver.

Intent on letting all their drivers gain a bit of F1 experience, Liuzzi replaced Christian Klien at four of the European races and earned his first F1 world championship point when he finished eighth in San Marino.

But overall it has to be said that the underwhelming Liuzzi was something of a disappointment.

At the end of the year he was handed a permanent race seat by RBR thanks to the team's decision to purchase rival outfit, Minardi, with the aim of running it as junior team named Scuderia Toro Rosso.

And the Italian made the most of his break, scoring Toro Rosso's only points-finish of the season with his eighth placed finish at the United States Grand Prix.

Regular runs in the top ten also suggested that given the right machine, Liuzzi could be one of Formula One stars.

However, his 2007 didn't follow up on the promise. After finishing the opening two grands prix well out of the points, Liuzzi then hit a string of nine consecutive retirements, which were either related to the unreliability of Toro Rosso's STR2 or to error he himself made.

His dismal results soon led to rumours that he could be on his way out at the end of the season, and that was finally confirmed on August 10 when the team revealed that Sebastien Bourdais would be replacing him.

Ironically, though, Liuzzi's results improved after that and the Italian even claimed the team's first point of the season at the Japanese GP. However, he was later handed a 25-sec penalty for overtaking Adrian Sutil under yellow flags, which dropped him down to ninth place and out of the points.

Liuzzi fought back to finish sixth in the very next race, the Chinese GP, earning himself and Toro Rosso three World Championship points. But as his then team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who replaced Scott Speed earlier in the season, finished fourth, it overshadowed Liuzzi's achievement.

The Italian is now looking for a new team to race for next season and has put his hopes in Force India, with whom he has been testing.