#99 Antonio Giovinazzi

(stats after 2020 F1 season)

Biography

Antonio Maria Giovinazzi started his career in karting career, and in 2012, at age 19, he has convincingly won the ‘Formula Pilota China’ with 50 points advantage.

In the same year he competed in Formula Abarth and Formula Abarth Euro, where he secured two wins in three appearances in each series.

In 2013, Giovinazzi went to European Formula 3 with Double R Racing team and finished 17th in the championship. He also participated in British Formula 3 where he finished second behind King Jordan with two wins and seven podiums.

Giovinazzi was driving in European Formula 3 in 2014 where he finished sixth for Jagonya Ayam with Carlin team and with the same team he finished second in 2015 behind Felix Rosenqvist, although he scored six wins and 20 podiums (Rosenqvist had 13 wins and 24 podiums).

In 2015, the Italian won the Masters of the European Formula 3 at Zandvoort with pole position and the fastest lap and in Macau he finished fourth and tested the GP2 car for the Carlin team for two days latter (total mileage of 500 km). In 2015, Giovinazzi also drove two DTM races, which he ended in 19th and 21st place.

Next year, Giovinazzi was competing in the GP2 series for the Prema Racing team and finished second behind Red Bull junior Pierre Gasly, only eight points behind, and has also participated in three races in the LMP2 endurance racing category.

Giovinzzi finally got a chance in Formula 1 in 2017 and tested Sauber’s C36 in Barcelona (151 laps in two days) and because of Wehrlein’s injury at the Race of Champions he was given a chance on the first race of the season in Australia where he qualified 16th and finished in 12th place.

But then came Chinese GP where he spun off and crashed in the same place on start-finish straight (in Q1 and in the race) while in April, nine days behind Chinese GP, he tested Ferrari SF70H in Bahrain (93 laps) .

In 2017, Giovinazzi had seven more opportunities in first free practice sessions for Haas who has very close relationships with Ferrari, and in 2018 he had six more appearances in FP1 for Alfa Romeo Sauber (738 km) and was sharing Ferrari’s test and development driver duties with Daniil Kvyat.

In 2018, Italian driver had five test days in F1 cars (three for Alfa Romeo Sauber and two for Ferrari) as he accumulated 2975 kilometers of Formula 1 experience, and also performed at the legendary 24 Hour Le Mans race in the GTE Pro category for AF Corse team and finished in the 20th place.

As Charles Leclerc was promoted to Ferrari, and Marcus Ericsson left Sauber after four seasons, Giovinazzi was confirmed as Alfa Romeo Sauber’ F1 driver for F1 2019 with Kimi Raikkonen, who will be a great reference for his debut season.

Giovinazzi got off to a good start to the 2019 F1 season, although Raikkonen was much more successful in the points he won in the first four races, but the Italian managed to finish the first nine races of the season.

His first good result was 11th place in the second race of the season in Bahrain, and for the first point he had to wait until Austria where he finished 10th. He gave up the next race at Silverstone in lap 18 because he spun and got stuck in a gravel trap, scoring four points in total.

He achieved the result of the season at the Grand Prix of Brazil where he finished fifth and scored ten points out of a total of 14 he won all season (71%), and among the top ten he finished four times in a season with 21 races.

Giovinazzi had a good qualifying ratio with Raikkonen in which the Finn was better 11:10, but in the races Giovinazzi only scored four times while Raikkonen managed it nine times.

Raikkonen finished 12th in the drivers ’standings with 43 points, and Giovinazzi was 17th with 14 points.

Alfa Romeo kept the same driver lineup for 2020, but thanks to a drop in the power of Ferrari’s engine, Raikkonen and Giovinazzi only occasionally managed to get into Q2 and win a few points.

The car was around Williams and Haas in terms of speed and Raikkonen and Giovinazzi scored only four points each, which placed the team in eighth place in the constructors’ standings.

Raikkonen won two ninth places at Mugello and Imola, and Giovinazzi won three points – he was ninth in the first race of the season in Austria, and finished tenth at the Nurburgring and Imola.

Giovinazzi had a positive qualifying ratio with Raikkonen (9: 8) in 2020, and both drivers scored a total of four points each, although the Italian won three points and the Finn twice.

The team will keep the same driver line-up in 2021 and hope, like Haas, that Ferrari will have a more competitive powertrain this year, which was the weakest in Formula 1 in 2020.