Personal Facts:

DOB: 06/08/1981
Place of birth: Locorotondo (BA), Italy
Single, 0 children

Achievements at a glance:

First F1 season: 2005
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Pole positions: 0
Front row starts: 0
Points scored: 5
Fastest laps: 0 
Laps led: 0
Km led: 0

Tonio Liuzzi arrived in Formula 1 in 2005 and spent the year sharing the race seat with Christian Klien - although it seemed the team preferred the Austrian.

Following the acquisition of Minardi by Red Bull, Liuzzi transferred across to the re-named Toro Rosso squad for the following season. He regularly outshone team mate Scott Speed at Toro Rosso, with Speed eventually being dumped mid-2007 for Sebastian Vettel.

In August of that year, it was announced that Sebastien Bourdais would finally get his F1 breakthrough with STR. With promising young German Vettel signed up for 2008, Liuzzi was left without a race seat for the following year. Tests with Force India were successful, but the team opted to give Giancarlo Fisichella the second drive. Liuzzi was, though, snapped up as the team's third driver.

Career at a glance:

1991-2001: Karting
A very promising young karter, Tonio won many events and championship during his rise through the ranks, including becoming FIA-CIK Karting World Champion in 2001.

2001: German Formula Renault
Tonio managed the runner-up position in the championship, scoring a huge 139 points along the way.

2002: Formula Three
2002 was a busy year for Tonio. As well as competing in the Macau GP, he raced in Italian F3 for one race - and won it, and came ninth in the German F3 championship. He also raced in the European Formula Three Cup.

2003-2004: International Formula 3000
Fourth in the championship in 2003 with the Red Bull Junior Team, Liuzzi won the series in 2004 with Arden International with 7 wins from 10 races.

2005-2008: Formula 1
Car-sharing with Christian Klien at RBR was not an ideal situation for Liuzzi's rookie season, the Italian only being able to compete in four events. He did score one point in those, though.

With Red Bull purchasing a new team to house all it's young drivers, Liuzzi transferred to STR in 2006 where he managed one point from 18 races. Remaining with the team in 2007, he took three points from the season, all collected during one weather-interrupted race.

Without a drive for 2008, Liuzzi moves to Force India to help with the development of the VJM01.

2008: Force India F1 *
2007: Scuderia Toro Rosso
2006: Scuderia Toro Rosso
2005: Red Bull Racing* (competed in 4 events)

*denotes test/third driver role