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Starting out in Karts, Alvaro won the European Junior Karting Championship in 1998 aged 13, having previously won the Portuguese National Kart Championship no less than three times.
In 2006, still only 16, Alvaro won the Portugal Karting Cup in addition to making the switch to single-seaters. Contesting 9 rounds of the Spanish F3 Championship, the Portuguese youngster finished twelfth overall and second best rookie.
He remained in Spanish F3 in 2002, this time with Team Portugal, finishing fourth in the overall standings.
In 2003, Alavaro decided to enter the international arena contesting the F3 Euroseries with Team Ghinzani. In a difficult season in which his Mugen-Honda engine was no match for the Mercedes, Alvaro scored just one point. However, he enjoyed a certain amount of success in one-off appearances in the Italian Formula 3 Championship, British Formula 3 Championship (Spa) and Macau.
For 2004 he switched to the British F3 Championship with Carlin where his teammates included Clivio Piccione and Danilo Dirani. A win a Castle Combe together with second places at Donington and Silverstone saw Alvaro finish seventh overall.
Remaining in British F3 in 2005, Alvaro was sublime taking the title with four races still remaining. Other than an amazing eleven wins, the Portuguese star made four further visits to the podium.
For 2006, Alvaro made the obvious move up to Formula Renault 3.5 with Victory Engineering. Winning as early as his fifth race, further wins at the Nurburgring and Barcelona saw the Portuguese driver finish the season fifth overall.
In addition to Formula Renault, over the winter of 2005/2006 Alvaro contested all but one round of the A1 GP Series. Podium finishes in Australia, South Africa and America saw Team Portugal finish the season ninth overall. Alvaro subsequently contested three rounds of the 2006/2007 A1 GP Series but failed to score any significant results.
A lack of funding in 2007 meant that rather than moving up to GP2 Alvaro was forced to remain in Formula Renault switching to the French Tech 1 Racing team. Five podium finishes, including race victories at Monaco and Spa, saw Alvaro crowned champion.
Other than the ubiquitous cheque, part of his prize for winning the Renault World Series was a test with the French manufacturer's F1 team and on 17 January 2008 the youngster finally fulfilled his dream when he took to the track in Jerez at the wheel of an R27.
Alvaro finally moved up to GP2 in 2008 securing a seat with Super Nova. The Portuguese youngster kicked-off his GP2 career in impressive style winning the opening race of the season with a faultless flag-to-flag drive. While there were no further wins, podium finishes in Monaco, Germany and Belgium saw him finish eighth in the final standings.
Over the winter of 2008, Alvaro contested three rounds of the GP2 Asia Series with Qi-Meritus Mahara but enjoyed little success.
For the main GP2 Series he joined Ocean Racing Technology the team formed by former Portuguese racer Tiago Monteiro. Other than a win at Spa, Alvaro's only visit to the podium was at the Nurburgring, the Portuguese driver finishing eighth in the standings for the second successive season.
Alvaro ended the year with an outing in the Superleague series, the Porto born driver keen to represent his home club F.C. Porto in its home race at Estoril. Finishing the first race in a disappointing sixteenth position, Alvaro made up for it next day when he scored an impressive win over Sebastien Bourdais (Sevilla FC) and Enrique Bernoldi (CR Flamengo).
On 15 December, the newly established Virgin F1 team revealed Alvaro as its official test and reserve driver. Sadly, just two month later it was announced that the Portuguese youngster had lost the job to F2 champion Andy Soucek, following the collapse of a sponsorship deal with the Tourism Institute of Portugal
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