Vitantonio Liuzzi will drive for the Hispania team in the 2011 season. The Italian had an opportunity to impress in 2010, driving for a mid-performing team Force India. Unfortunately, he was off the pace of his then teammate Adrian Sutil, scoring less than half the number of points, and it surprised few that he was dropped at season end. Hispania had a terrible debut season in 2010, and they are unlikely to have miraculously produced a great car for 2011, consequently all but the greatest Liuzzi fan would concede that he has missed his opportunity to drive for an elite team.

Vitantonio Liuzzi began his racing career in Karting. He won the 1993 Italian Karting championship, and in 1995 was second in the Karting World Championship.

In 2001Liuzzi raced in the German Formula Renault finishing second in the championship. Red Bull hired Liuzzi for the 2003, F3000 season, in which he finished fourth. He moved to the Arden team for the following year, where he won seven of the ten races, securing the title with one race left.

Liuzzi was contracted to the F1 Red Bull team for 2005, he started the season as the test driver with an agreement he would replace Christian Klien for the San Marino, Spanish, Monaco and  European Grands Prix. Liuzzi scored his maiden point on his debut after both BAR drivers were disqualified at San Marino.


Red Bull purchased the Minardi team for the 2006 season. The team was renamed Scuderia Toro Rosso: Team Red Bull in Italian, the team was to be Red Bull Racing's 'B' team.   Liuzzi was given a seat in the team for the 2006 season, and he scored the team's first point and Torro Rosso's only point of the season at the United States GP.

Liuzzi continued with Toro Rosso in 2007, but seemed distracted and under pressure from the speculation that he was about to be replaced. His early season races were plagued by mistakes. He did drive well in China for a 6th place finish but by that time his position in the team for the 2008 season was already lost.

Liuzzi moved to Force India as the test driver for the 2008 season and was not expecting to move to a race seat until 2010; however, in September 2009 Giancarlo Fisichella was released from Force India to drive for Ferrari, (replacing Luca Badoar who had filled in for the injured Felipe Massa). Liuzzi was promoted to a race seat for the remaining five races of the 2009 Formula 1 season.

Liuzzi continued with Toro Rosso in 2007, but seemed distracted and under pressure from the speculation that he was about to be replaced. His early season races were plagued by mistakes. He did drive well in China for a 6th place finish but by that time his position in the team for the 2008 season was already lost.

Liuzzi moved to Force India as the test driver for the 2008 season and was not expecting to move to a race seat until 2010; however, in September 2009 Giancarlo Fisichella was released from Force India to drive for Ferrari, (replacing Luca Badoar who had filled in for the injured Felipe Massa). Liuzzi was promoted to a race seat for the remaining five races of the 2009 Formula 1 season.

Vitantonio was retained by Force India for the 2010 season. Driving for a mid ranking team gives drivers an opportunity to impress the power brokers of F1. The first and best measure of performance is a comparison of season long results against the drivers' teammate. Liuzzi had to better Sutil, but in most races his teammate was on top, scoring 47 points to Liuzzi's 21. Whilst he was not in any sense dreadful, for example finishing sixth at the Korean GP, his relative performance made him vunerable and unsurprisingly he was dropped at the end of the 2010 season, to be replaced by F1 rookie Paul di Resta.

Liuzzi seemed to be without a drive for 2011, he was considered by Lotus Renault GP as a replacement for the injured Robert Kubica, but lost out to Nick Heidfeld.

Hispania racing came to Liuzzi's rescue and offered him a drive for 2011 alongside Narain Karthikeyan.


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