Antonio was given a kart at a very young age but was not allowed to use it unless he excelled at school. Fortunately he did and we will now be able to watch him in this years F1 championship.       

Pizzonia started racing when he was 10 and after winning the local kart championships, apparently no more than a group of enthusiasts competing on a makeshift track of witches hats and chip packets in the local carpark. He then started commuting to races in the more competitive Sao Paulo championships and by the time he was 15 he had won the Brazilian national title. He then began competing on an international level at the age of 16.       

Competing Internationally, he has achieved a total of 76 podiums from 112 races, 48 of them on the top step of the rostrum and 21 times on the second step. In 1997 and 1998, Antonio secured 12 wins in the Formula Vauxhall Junior British Championship, amassing a massive 352 points over the course of the two seasons and taking the title in 98, becoming the first non British racer to do so and, also, the youngest.       

Antonio won 15 races during his 1999 season in the Formula Renault European Championship, beating Formula One champion, Alain Prost's long standing record of 12 victories. From here he went on to the British Formula Three Championship in 2000, to take three victories, five second places and one third position.       

F3000 was next, for 2002, and there he secured one win and sixth place in the championship. He continued on the same path in 2002, adding testing duties for the BMW WillaimsF1 team to his workload. Combining the two roles often reduces a drivers effectiveness in the F3000 championship as the differences between the classes is hard to get used to because, as Antonio says, "when you drive the car for one or two days your whole body gets used to the car. Even though you try to switch that off, it doesn't really happen". Late in the season, Jaguar Racing put him behind the wheel of their R3 and once there, Antonio impressed team bosses enough to sign him up for his debut season in Formula One, in 2003.

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