Pedro
Diniz

Pedro Diniz was born in São Paulo on 22 May 1970. He started karting at the age of 18 and won the Two Hours of São Paulo. A year later he moved into car racing and finished ninth overall in the Brazilian Formula Ford championship. In 1991 he contested British Formula 3 with West Surrey Racing and finished 11th. In 1992 he drove for Edenbridge Racing, took two podiums and ended the season eighth overall.

Diniz made his Formula One debut with Forti in 1995, alongside Roberto Moreno. He started all 17 races but scored no points, finishing tenth in Monaco. For 1996 he joined Ligier, where Olivier Panis was his team-mate. He claimed his first championship point with sixth place in Catalonia and added another sixth at Monza, finishing the season 15th in the standings.

He drove for Arrows in 1997 and 1998, first alongside Damon Hill and then Mika Salo. In Belgium in 1997 he ran as high as third before finishing seventh, and he out-qualified Hill there and in Japan. He ended that year 16th. In 1998 he scored points with sixth in Monaco and fifth in Belgium, and finished the championship 14th.

Diniz raced for Sauber in 1999 and 2000. In 1999 his team-mate was Jean Alesi. He scored with a sixth place in Canada and with sixth places in two further races, and again finished 14th overall. In 2000 he partnered Salo and scored no points, finishing eighth in San Marino. After the 2000 season he ended his racing career. In total he started 98 Grands Prix and scored ten championship points. In November 2001 he announced the creation of the Formula Renault 2.0 Brazil Championship.

Source: Wikipedia, “Pedro Diniz”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.