Jérôme
D'Ambrosio

Jérôme d'Ambrosio was born on 27 December 1985 in Etterbeek, Brussels. He started karting in 1999, became a three-time Belgian champion and won the Formula A World Cup in 2002. In 2003 he took the Belgian Formula Renault title with five wins, and in 2004 he joined the Renault F1 driver development programme. After spells in French and Italian Formula Renault and in Euroseries 3000, he won the International Formula Master championship in its inaugural 2007 season, taking five victories for Cram Competition.

In 2008 he stepped up to GP2 with DAMS, also racing in the newly created GP2 Asia Series. He finished runner-up in the 2008/09 Asia championship. In 2010 he won his first GP2 race at Monaco and took his first pole position at his home round in Spa-Francorchamps, although he retired from that race while leading.

In January 2010 d'Ambrosio became a reserve driver for Renault. That autumn he made four practice appearances for Virgin Racing, at the Singapore, Japanese, Korean and Brazilian Grands Prix. For 2011 he was given a full race seat there, replacing Lucas di Grassi and partnering Timo Glock. He finished 16 of the 19 races, with two 14th places in Australia and Canada as his best results. He was 17th in Belgium, the first Belgian to start his home Grand Prix since Thierry Boutsen in 1993. He ended the year 24th in the championship, and Charles Pic replaced him for 2012.

In 2012 he was Lotus reserve driver. At the Italian Grand Prix he stood in for Romain Grosjean, who had been banned for one race, and finished 13th. He was classified 23rd in the championship that year. He stayed on as Lotus reserve in 2013. In total he started 20 Formula One races.

In 2014 he raced for Bentley in the Blancpain Endurance Series. From 2014 to 2020 he competed in Formula E with Dragon Racing and Mahindra Racing, winning in Berlin in 2015, Mexico City in 2016 and Marrakesh in 2019. In 2014/15 he finished fourth in the championship with 113 points. He retired as a driver in 2020. After that he moved into team management, first at Venturi in Formula E, then at Mercedes in driver development. In October 2024 he joined Ferrari as deputy team principal and head of the Ferrari Driver Academy.

Source: Wikipedia, “Jérôme d'Ambrosio”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.