|
As is so often the case, Fairuz' motorsport career got off to a very early start with the Kuala Lumpur born driver contesting various Karting championships in Malaysia before moving to the UK.
In 1995, aged 13, he won the Formula TKM Race at Buckmore Park in England, a track which has witnessed more than its fair share of rising stars over the years.
In 2000, Fairuz switched to single-seaters starting out with the Formula Ford Zetec Championship and progressing to the British Renault Sport Winter Series and British Formula Renault Championship before moving up to British Formula 3 Scholarship Class in 2002.
In 2003 he made the move up to the British Formula 3 Championship Class enjoying spells with both the SYR and Promatecme teams, subsequently remaining in the series in 2004 where this time he spent time with both the Menu and P1 teams.
For 2005 Fairuz moved up to GP2 with DAMS, thereby becoming the first Malaysian driver to contest the series and one of very few Asians.
He remained in GP2 for 2006, now with Super Nova, though as in the previous season there were no points and far too many retirements.
In addition to his GP2 outings Fairuz was by now part of Malaysia's A1 GP team though more often than not he merely participated in the Friday practice sessions while teammate Alex Yoong did the racing.
For 2007 Fairuz switched to the Formula Renault 3.5 Series having secured a drive with Cram Competition. Second places at both the Hungaroring and Spa saw the youngster secure eleventh in the championship.
In addition to Formula Renault 3.5, 2007 saw Fauzy named as official test driver for the ill-fated Spyker F1 team, however, in reality the Malaysian was one of three test drivers and only got to drive the car on three occasions (Valencia, Barcelona and Paul Ricard).
In 2008 he contested the GP2 Asia series with Super Nova, finishing fourth overall courtesy of a win in Indonesia and seconds in Dubai and his home event at Sepang.
Fairuz also continued with A1 GP where by now he was lead driver for Team Malaysia. His season got off to the best possible start when he won the Sprint Race at Zandvoort, however, it was the highlight of the season and the team finished the year sixth overall.
For 2009 he returned to Formula Renault 3.5 Series with Malaysian outfit Mofazfortec Motorsport, and courtesy of a few impressive results - most notably a win in Hungary - he went into the final round in sixth place. However, a sixth and a second in the final two races at the Ciudad del Motor de Aragon, saw him move up to second in standings, admittedly 57 points behind championship winner Bertrand Baguette.
On December 14, at a ceremony attended by Malaysian Prime Minister Dato' Sri Najib Tun Razak in Kuala Lumpur, Fairuz was confirmed as test and official reserve driver for Lotus F1 one of four new teams to enter F1 in 2010.
Thus far, because he has tended to switch disciplines and teams, its been hard to get a true bearing on where Fairuz really stands. That said, with an F1 race seat clearly on offer it will be interesting to see what he achieves this season.
|
