Antonio Giovinazzi

Antonio Giovinazzi, born on 14 December 1993, is an Italian driver racing in Formula One under the Italian flag. He was recruited as a reserve and test driver by Sauber Motorsport AG and made his Formula One debut in the 2017 Australian Grand Prix. He later test drove for the Haas Team and has been racing with Alfa Romeo Racing since the 2019 season.

Giovinazzi competed in the 2015 FIA Formula 3 European Championship with Double R Racing and finished runner-up. He also finished runner-up in the 2016 International GP2 Series driving for Prema Powerteam.

Antonio Giovinazzi’s Career Before Formula 1

Karting (2006-2011)

Giovinazzi took to karting when he was seven years old. He was crowned champion of the 60cc Italian National Karting Trophy in 2006. Giovinazzi also won the Euro Trophy 60cc Championship the same year. He raced in the WSK Master Series in the KF2 class a was champion consecutively in 2010 and 2011.

Formula Pilota China (2012)

Giovinazzi made his single-seater car racing debut by racing in the Formula Pilota China Championship in 2012. He won the championship in his debut season winning six races. He also raced in the last round of the 2012 Formula Abarth at Monza as a guest driver for the BVM team. As he was a guest driver, he did not receive any points despite winning two races and finishing second in one.

Formula 3 (2013-2015)

Double R Racing Team recruited Giovinazzi to compete in the 2013 British Formula Three Championship. His partners would be Sean Galleal and the lady driver from Colombia, Tatiana Calderón. Having won two races at Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps, Giovinazzi finished the championship as runner-up behind Jordan King.

In the 2013 Masters of Formula 3, Giovinazzi ended the race in the tenth place. With the Double R racing Team, Giovinazzi made his debut in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship. A fourth-place finish at Brands Hatch and a sixth-place finished earned him a fifteenth place finish in the championship.

Giovinazzi competed in the 2014 FIA Formula 3 European Championship with Carlin Motorsport. He won his first podium position of the 2014 season when he finished second in Hockenheim. The Red Bull Ring in Austria gave Giovinazzi his first win of 2014 before he won his second race in Nürburgring. At the end of the season, he was in sixth place in the standings with 2 wins and 7 podium places.

In 2015, Giovinazzi persisted driving for Carlin Motorsports Team. In the 2015 FIA Formula 3 European Championship, he competed with his future Formula One rivals like Alexander Albon, Charles Leclerc, George Russel and Lance Stroll.

Contending for the championship over most of the season he eventually finished runner-up to Felix Rosenqvist. With six wins and twenty podium places, four fastest laps and four pole positions, Giovinazzi finished the season with 412.5 points. Giovinazzi also competed in the 2015 Masters of Formula 3 race and earned a second position and went on to win the race.

After finishing the European Formula 3 racing season, Giovinazzi competed in the 2015 Macau Grand Prix. He was the cause of a multi-car pile-up during qualifying when his car collided with Daniel Juncadella’s. With a penalty awarded, Giovinazzi started the race from the 10th position on the grid and managed to finish fourth.

Endurance Racing (2016)

Giovinazzi competed in endurance racing in 2016. He raced in the Asian Le Mans Series with Sean Galael in the LMP2 class. They contested in the final two rounds at Buriram and Sepang where they won both the races. Giovinazzi then competed at the Silverstone round of the European Le Mans for SMP Racing to finish 5th with his partners, Sean Galael and Mitch Evans.

Giovinazzi also participated in the 2016 6 Hours of Fuji for the Extreme Sports Team with Galael and Giedo van der Garde. In the LMP2 class race, the team finished fourth. Taking part in the subsequent round in Shangai, Giovinazzi along with Galael and Tom Blomqvist finished second. Driving in the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans for the Ferrari factory team, Giovinazzi finished 5th.

GP2 Series (2016)

Giovinazzi joined Prema Powerteam for the 2016 season where his partner was Pierre Gasly, the former 2014 Formula Renault 3.5 Series runner-up Pierre and a Red Bull Junior. Giovinazzi lost the reverse grid pole in the first two rounds and finished outside points. But he recovered to win both the feature and the sprint races at Baku, the first driver to score a double since 2012.

At Spa-Francorchamps, Giovinazzi took [pole position and won the Sprint Race. He also took pole position at Monza but was disqualified for a technical infringement. Even though he started from the back of the grid, Giovinazzi won the Feature race. At Sepang, Giovinazzi took the lead in the championship after his fifth win of the season.

When Giovinazzi won the feature race in Abu Dhabi, the final race of the season, Gasly was still leading him by 12 points. Even as he finished ahead of Gasly, Giovinazzi could not surmount the 12 points that Gasly had over him. Giovinazzi finished the season second in the championship.

Had Giovinazzi won the championship, he would have been the last GP2 champion as the championship was renamed as the FIA Formula 2 Championship the following year.

Antonio Giovinazzi’s Career In Formula 1

In September 2016 Scuderia Ferrari announced that Giovinazzi would perform simulator work for them. In December that year, Giovinazzi was confirmed as the third driver for Ferrari.

Debut as Reserve and Test Driver (2017-2018)

While doing pre-season testing for Sauber, Giovinazzi was called upon to replace an injured Pascal Wehrlein at the 2017 Australian Grand Prix. On his Formula One debut, Giovinazzi was the first Italian driver to race in Formula One since Vitantonio Liuzzi and Jarno Trulli in 2011. He finished 12th in his debut race.

Giovinazzi was also called upon to race in the Chinese Grand Prix as Wehrlein lacked enough training after recovering from the accident. He crashed during qualification as well as during the race. Giovinazzi took part in several free practice sessions for Haas F1 Team during the year. He remained a reserve driver for Sauber and Ferrari for the 2018 season.

Alfa Romeo (2019-present)

Giovinazzi signed a contract with Alfa Romeo to drive for them for the 2019 season alongside Kimi Räikkönen. He took Marcus Ericsson’s place who became the team’s reserve driver. Giovinazzi went pointless for the first eight races until he arrived in Austria. In Austria, he finished 10th, scoring the first points by an Italian driver since Vitantonio Luizzi in the 2010 Korean Grand Prix.

He retired during the British Grand Prix because of mechanical problems and crashed during the last lap in the Belgian Grand Prix. Giovinazzi now had just one point to his name while his teammate, Räikkönen had 31. Alfa Romeo was seriously considering Giovinazzi’s future in the team.

In the latter half of the season, Giovinazzi did well with 9th place finish in Italy, in his first race on his home track. He led the race four laps from the 27th lap in the 2010 Singapore Grand Prix. This was the first time that Giovinazzi had led a Formula One race in his career. It also marked the first time that an Alfa Romeo driver had led a race since Andrea de Cesaris did in the 1983 Belgian Grand Prix.

Finishing 10th in Singapore and winning his second consecutive points in Singapore, Giovinazzi finished a career-best sixth in Brazil. He was promoted to fifth place in the race after Lewis Hamilton was penalised. Giovani had collected 14 points during the 2019 season and finished in 17th place in the championship.

Giovinazzi was retained by Alfa Romeo for the 1920 season along with Kimi Räikkönen. He finished ninth in the first race of the season, the Austrian Grand Prix, registering points against his name. He crashed in the Belgian Grand Prix and a wheel from his car hit George Russels’ Williams causing both drivers to retire.

Another high-speed accident followed in the Tuscan Grand Prix during the safety car restart causing four cars including Giovinazzi’s to retire. He scored points in the Eifel Grand Prix and the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, finishing tenth in both races. Giovinazzi reached the third qualifying session for the first time after more than a year in Turkey though he had to retire from the race due to gearbox problems.

Giovinazzi finished the season with four points in the 2020 World Drivers’ Championship and was placed in 17th place. Räikkönen was a place ahead of Giovinazzi in the rankings as he had more 9th place finishes than Giovinazzi.

Alfa Romeo retained Antonio Giovinazzi for the 2021 season, and he will race alongside Kimi Räikkönen as in the past two years.