By Jamie Makin
February 11 2006

Italy's Vitantonio Liuzzi may be one of the youngest drivers on the grid at the age of 24, but he has been racing for over half of his life. His career began in karting in 1991, when he was only ten years old.

He won the Italian Karting Championship in his third season and got noticed by the international racing community in 2001 when he won the FIA-CIK Karting World Championship.

He quickly moved up through the ranks, competing in F3 in 2002 and earning a test with the BMW Williams F1 team. 2003 saw him move up to the F3000 series and he won the series' last-ever championship in 2004 for Arden International.

He then moved with Arden team boss, Christian Horner to the Red Bull Racing team as test driver in 2005. He contested four races mid-season in the San Marino Grand Prix, the Spanish Grand Prix, the Monaco Grand Prix and the European Grand Prix. Although he failed to finish two of the races, he performed well in the other two. He scored his first championship point in his debut race at Imola, beating veteran teammate, David Coulthard in the process.

Liuzzi will race a full season in 2006 for Scuderia Toro Rosso. Nicknamed the "Italian Stallion", Liuzzi's charismatic personality will be a good fit with the small but passionate Italian team.