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Biography

SEASON INFORMATION
13/01/2018

 

Biography

 

As a youngster, Luiz' early career was all about Karting (as ever!) and Autocross in which he enjoyed limited success.

In 2005, aged 16, he made the switch to single-seaters contesting the South American Formula 3 championship with Dragao Motorsport. With six podium finishes, including two race wins, Luiz finished sixth overall. Luiz also found the time to contest the Brazilian Formula Renault 2.0 series in which he finished tenth.

He remained with Dragao Motorsport in South American F3 in 2006, but this time the youngster won the title holding off beating Mario Moraes and Diego Nunes. He also contested three rounds of the Formula 3000 International Masters with Charouz Racing winning all three races and thereby finishing eighth in the overall standings.

As if that wasn't enough, Luiz also found time to take part in a number of rounds of the A1 GP Series as Team Brazil's rookie.

For 2007 he headed to where every F1 hopeful needs to be, Europe, contesting the Euroseries 3000 Championship with Fisichella Motor Sport before switching mid-season to ELK Motorsport. There were no wins but four podium finishes were good enough to secure third in the overall standings. The Brazilian also contested four rounds of World Series by Renault with GD Racing.

He remained with Elk Motorsport in the Euroseries 3000 Championship in 2008 finishing fourth overall courtesy of two wins and five other podium results. A win at Misano in the Italian Formula 3000 Championship - which ran as part of the main series - saw him finish fourth overall.

Over the winter of 2008/2009, Luiz took part in the GP2 Asia Series with Trust Team Arden. A solitary win (Bahrain) was the Brazilian's only result of note and consequently he finished a disappointing nineteenth in the standings.

Having tested a GP2 car for Racing Engineering in late 2006, Luiz tested for the Spanish outfit again in September 2008. Consequently it came as no surprise when the Brazilian signed a deal with Fisichella Motor Sport to contest the main GP2 Series in 2009. His best result was a win in the Sprint Race at Monza, the youngster benefiting from the reverse grid having finished eighth in the Feature Race.

Having signed up with Barwa Addax for the 2009/2010 GP2 Asia series, on 15 December he was named as second official test driver for the newly launched Virgin Racing F1 team.

In terms of F1, little was seen of Luiz during 2010, though his nose must surely have been put out of joint when the team recruited Jerome d'Ambrosio as a fellow test driver and promptly gave the Belgian a number of outings in the Friday morning practice sessions. That said, Luiz did drive the car on the second day of the Young Driver test in Abu Dhabi and finished twelfth overall, ahead of two Lotus drivers. Indeed, his best time was only 0.007s slower than the time posted by d'Ambrosio the previous day.

In GP2, Luiz raced for Rapax, alongside Pastor Maldonado. While his season got off to a fairly good start, a string of retirements mid-season left him struggling to finish eleventh overall on twenty-eight points. That said, a strong showing in the final round in Abu Dhabi, especially his second place in the Sprint Race, helped Rapax secure the teams' title.

On 11 March 2011, Luiz was officially confirmed as the third driver at Team Lotus, with Davide Valsecchi joining the Malaysian outfit as test driver. The Brazilian only took part in one Friday practice session (China) replacing Jarno Trulli, posting the twenty-third best time.

Other than his GP2 and GP2 Asia commitments with AirAsia, Luiz took part in the Young Driver Test in Abu Dhabi, as did Venezuelan Rodolfo Gonzalez and American Alexander Rossi, all three proving to be remarkably similarly paced. As in 0.078s between them.

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