Antônio
Pizzonia

Antônio Pizzonia was born in Manaus on 11 September 1980. He raced karts from 1991 to 1996, then moved to Britain in 1997 to compete in Formula Vauxhall Junior, finishing second and winning the Winter Festival. In 1998 he took the title in that series and won the Formula Renault Winter Festival. He won the British Formula Renault 2.0 championship in 1999, also finishing second in the Eurocup, and in 2000 he became British Formula 3 champion with five victories. In 2001 he stepped up to Formula 3000, winning a race and finishing sixth overall. In 2002 he was a Williams test driver and ended the Formula 3000 season in eighth place.

He drove for Jaguar alongside Mark Webber in 2003 and started 11 races before being replaced late in the season by Justin Wilson. In 2004 he was back at Williams as test driver and, from the German Grand Prix, took over the car from Marc Gené, who had been standing in for the injured Ralf Schumacher. Pizzonia finished seventh in Germany to score his first points and repeated the result in Hungary. In Belgium he briefly led a race, but retired from third place with a gearbox failure. He scored again in Italy, where he reached 369.9 km/h, then the highest speed recorded in a Formula One race, a mark Juan Pablo Montoya beat in 2005. His run ended when Schumacher returned. From four races he finished 15th in the championship, his best final position.

For 2005 the second Williams seat next to Webber went to Nick Heidfeld, and Pizzonia stayed on as test driver. After Heidfeld was ruled out following a crash in Friday practice at Monza, Pizzonia got his chance and qualified 16th. He took part in five races that season and ended up 22nd in the standings. Nico Rosberg replaced him for 2006, and he found no other Formula One seat. His record stands at 20 starts and no podiums.

Afterwards he raced for Rocketsports in Champ Car at Long Beach in 2006, and in 2007 he drove in GP2 for Fisichella Motor Sport, where Adam Carroll replaced him after five races. From July 2007 he competed in Stock Car Brasil, as well as in Superleague Formula and the FIA GT1 World Championship. In 2012 he won both Auto GP races in a guest appearance at Curitiba, and in 2023 he won both races of the BOSS GP season opener at Paul Ricard.

Source: Wikipedia, “Antônio Pizzonia”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.