Luciano Burti

Luciano Burti was destined to remain another of Formula One's forgotten talents, a young driver cast onto the Grand Prix scrapheap before he really had the chance to prove himself.

Like just about every other Brazilian to have made it to the top flight, he began his career in karts, debuting in 1991 and quickly working his way through regional and national competitions before appearing for the first time on the international stage with eighth place in the 1994 world championships. Another season in karts followed, highlighted with Sao Paulo and Brazilian 24 Hours honours, before the 20-year old Burti took his first steps into car racing by finishing as runner-up in the New Zealand Formula Ford series.

Buoyed by his success, the Brazilian followed in the footsteps of champions such as Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna by moving to Europe in 1996. His first season yielded a hard-fought third in the Formula Vauxhall Junior series with Martin Donnelly Racing before, with a season's experience under his belt, he claimed the Formula Vauxhall Winter Series title for Paul Stewart Racing. He also found time to return down under to clinch the NZ FFord title.

The Formula Vauxhall 'summer' championship followed in 1997, ensuring Burti attention from the higher ranks, and he duly moved up to Formula Three the following season, all the time running with Paul Stewart Racing under the guidance of three-time F1 champion Jackie Stewart. He finished third overall in his debut season, with two wins, but, more importantly perhaps, his on-track performance and off-track relationship with the Stewart team led to him sampling F1 power for the first time.

Burti remained in F3 in 1999 but, finding himself competing against one of the strongest British F3 fields in years, eventually finished second to Marc Hynes after a sometimes bruising encounter. He did, however, take five race wins to finish just ahead of another young talent by the name of Jenson Button.

After a second season testing with the Stewart-Ford F1 team in 1999, Burti had done enough to be kept on by new owners Ford when it bought the family-run operation and rechristened it Jaguar Racing for 2000. That role then led to an unexpected F1 debut, when Eddie Irvine was ruled out of the Austrian Grand Prix at the A1-Ring, and Burti kept his nose clean to race from 21st on the grid to eleventh at the flag.

Such was his promise in testing that the Brazilian started the 2001 season racing for Jaguar after Johnny Herbert slipped into F1 retirement. After the first four grands prix, however, it was announced that he would be leaving the team to race for Prost, in a deal which saw Gaston Mazzacane dumped and Pedro de la Rosa promoted from Jaguar test driver to full-time racer.

Burti claimed that the change in team management, and exit of mentor Stewart, led to the swap but, despite the upheaval and obvious blow to his confidence, he settled in well at Prost, taking an eighth place in Canada to reflect that which he recorded in Australia with Jaguar. However his season was to end point-less after he was ruled out of final three races on doctors' orders after a monumental Belgian GP shunt that left him unconscious and embedded in the tyre barrier.

Burti then received a secondary blow as the Prost team with which he had a contract went out of business. He took up the unexpected offer of acting as a test driver at Ferrari for 2002 but, with Luca Badoer already in place at Maranello, the Brazilian was handed the development of Bridgestone's race tyres – a role that saw him complete almost 100,000km.

Burti continued with the Scuderia in 2003, but his outings became fewer, and farther between after Ferrari also took on Sauber's Felipe Massa. As a result, he soon turned his attention to keeping his hand in with races in other categories. He took eighth place, and fourth in the G class, at the Spa 24 Hours sportscar event, as well as starring in the annual Granja Viana 2 Hours kart race in his native Brazil.

2004 followed a similar pattern, with Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella both being offered speculative test opportunities thanks to Sauber's links with the Scuderia. Burti was left to contemplate a part-time deal with the world champions before being able to announce that he was on the verge of a deal to return to his homeland permanently. For 2005, he was unveiled as one of several high-profile recruits to the burgeoning Brazilian Stock Car series in 2005, driving a Chevrolet for reigning champions Eurofarma-RC.